When it comes to web development, it can be tough to be the last person to touch something

by Joaquin Lippincott, President

Do you remember that Art Director who burst into your office with a crazy deadline for a print piece and then let you figure out who to actually make it happen? Or the salesperson who sold a client something that couldn't possibly be delivered? Chances are if you been in the design field long enough you've got at least a dozen of these stories. These days, if you are a web designer I've got bad news for you: you may actually be that person.

"No way," you say, so I'll continue. If you'd ever created a design for a website that you didn't have to build, you may have put a developer in that exact position. Clients are a visceral bunch and most clients hiring an outside firm for web or application design don't have any idea how long something will take to build. What they do know, is what they see in front of them, which makes web design a critical component of helping a client realize the vision that they've hired you to create. The trick is, while imagining neat features that may enhance the user experience and really get the client excited you are determining how your developer is going to spend his next few weeks (or months). Things that may take an hour or two to design (like a zipcode lookup field), can take days, weeks or even months to develop. That's great if the client's budget and the project timeline is open ended, but chances are they're not.

So, if you want to make your developers happy and keep them from the pain you've experienced being the last person to touch a project, be sure to show them your designs and solicit their feedback BEFORE you show them to the client. You just might make a friend for life.

In the spirit of better designer/developer relations, this post is part of a top 5 list of tips for designers working with developers:
  1. Design has a huge impact on project cost.
  2. It can be tough to be the last person to touch something.
  3. Developers think of design as black magic.
  4. Don't expect to earn points by suggesting technology solutions.
  5. Developers do have a horse in the race.

I'll be looking at each of these items in turn and talking about them in detail in a blog post over the next five weeks.