How Not to Inquire
Yesterday I received the following email, with attachment:
“Please review the attachment and the information on my historic interactive pictorial menu and then pass on your estimate of price and delivery to produce the software. The menu will be located on a website I designed on Web Easy Professional 7.”
Other than being signed with the sender’s name, that was it. I did not open the attachment. Instead I just chuckled and hit “delete.”
This is not how to inquire after hiring an agency. And I’m not talking about the inanity having a website “designed on Web Easy Professional7” nor even the utter rudeness of having no “hello” or other opening salutation. I’m referring more to the idea that I or anyone else can offer an estimate for price and delivery to produce software based on an “attachment” with information.
A design project is not an interaction between two computers or two email accounts or even a person and a requirements list, and the context is not merely the design and delivery of software. A design project is an interaction between people; people with a host of respective motivations, requirements, personalities, expectations, questions, responsibilities, inside and outside obligations, and many other things that are relevant to the scope of the project and the work that will happen within it. A direct conversation, face-to-face or by phone, is the bare minimum requirement for any intelligent consideration by either involved party.
Inquiries like the one above show a lack of intelligent consideration. I suggest that you never work with people who are comfortable with that.
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Comments (2)
Well said Andy. The best projects are the ones where context has been provided around the problem and together with the client we work out a quality solution.
I can see the point. I get similar requests with a brief along the lines of “can you design a web site for me”. That’s it. Makes me smile.
However, for a small business like mine, these are all potential opportunities, and given that a design project “is an interaction between people” rather than just dismiss such requests out of hand, isn’t it better to engage and strike up a conversation?
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