I am one of the three owners of the Liquid Design web studio and I specialize in UX design. Most often, I deal with the preparation before the creation of a strategic website (the so-called website design), which includes a lot of thinking, finding information and sketching. And then I talk a lot to people’s websites when they want to improve them. There I often solve the improvement of the website structure, content changes, usability, trustworthiness and also psychological elements in the purchasing process of e-shops.
Marek Čevelíček: A profile picture, right:)
How many employees does Liquid Design currently have and what kind of specialists can we find there?
We are a small team of 8 people – 4 developers, 3 UX designers and the ultimate super person Markéta in the back office.
Our cozy offices in the center of Brno
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Since you’ve been in design for so long, how often do trends change? What’s flying the most right now?
Here it is necessary to distinguish between graphic design and design as a process of invention. There are new visual trends in graphic design every year. O specific database by industry n the contrary, there are not so many of them in design procedures. Sure, new frameworks for workshops are being created all the time and sometimes it’s quite trendy, for example the Design sprint framework , but if you focus on methods that help you design a functional concept, they’ve been around for some time and don’t change significantly, see. overview of design methods .
Although it is a fact that, for example
recently I have observed how some methods are being talked about more, so they are gaining in attractiveness among clients. Then you can probably say that they are more in demand, so they are a trend. This applies, for example, to mouse-tracking or various forms of user research . Before it was an eye camera, in the future maybe someone will try to test prototypes in virtual reality. However, it will not affect the basis of the UX designer’s work.
I prefer not to comment too much on trends in graphic design, because I don’t care much about them. I deal more with the functionality of the website. Of course, the graphic appearance makes sense to address in some cases, but it is often given more importance than it actually has . It then complicates our work when the client solves the coloring pages, while at the same time he should solve the sense and meaning.
How does cooperation with a design company work and how does communication take place? Do you fulfill the wishes of clients or do you rather try to direct them to a good result?
At the beginning, we try hard to estimate whether the client is for us. We have an internal process for this and we manage to recognize it already at the beginning of communication. I am most happy about this, because it saves us a lot of time. In addition, everything is set up so that we call more than we write emails. This speeds up the whole thing even more. What used to take me hours can now be done in tens of minutes.
If you then have a client with whom
you sit and you have some trust from them (which you can gain as far as possible at the beginning), then it is in the interest of both of you to have a good result. If there is a specific wish of the client, then of course we fulfill it, because you also want to make him happy, don’t you? If the client’s wishes go against a good result, I always point it out. Of course, he decides according to a mix of different factors. After all, you can always decide if it still makes sense for you to work on the project. Finding a compatible client is simply priceless.
Are they listening to you?
Mostly yes. We try to explain everything clearly. Our notes simply have a head and a heel. I don’t think anyone here is exactly the type of person who would fight for a solution because of their ego. We are trying to break it down on our own. We learn early to say “I don’t know” instead of defending our creation. And we try to listen more than we talk.
In addition, clients who have been in their business for years and are not completely detached from reality often have really good ideas and cooperation is great.
And what process do you use to determine if it is the client for you and what does such a client look like? Surely many companies and freelancers are dealing with the same problem, so what would you advise them?
You can tell if he is the client for you by the fact that he has some qualities that you want to have in such a client. But for that you need to know what qualities it should have. And it’s also quite useful for you to know what qualities it doesn’t have. Positive and negative factors.
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For us, it was all based on user research. We interviewed and interviewed over ten clients, that’s even more than needed. From the interviews you will get the factors of how they behave. The second step was a detailed analysis of the client database. In this, we have the advantage that we have worked for hundreds of people in those 10 years, so we have valuable information from projects. We studied their behavior and how they manifest. That’s all.
How does it work? We have created 9
simple points for our needs. You fill in some from the table when you make an inquiry, some during the first contact and you will find out if it is the client/project for you. That sounds awfully sophisticated, but it’s actually really quick. As a result, you know how much you care about getting the project and you will proceed accordingly.
When the project is important to you, you can fight for ar numbers a lower price, negotiate or spend more time on the offer. On the contrary, if the Redenen om in linkboustrategy út te fieren demand shows signs that there will be problems with it, then you don’t have to waste time with discounts, tenders and God knows what. At our place, for example, we are now concentrating on getting a well-known brand into the references, because we lack one. But you understand that I won’t tell you the specific checklist. We’re very open about know-how, but this specifically wouldn’t be tactical from me. With a little effort and thought, everyone can easily create their own checklist.
