What are you looking at?

I recently spoke with a prospective client about helping out with the development of a web app for his team.

Instead of sending the usual Request For Proposal document, he took a very different approach. He asked, “what does your online work environment look like, and how does it impact the decisions you make for your clients”.

What an incredibly refreshing approach!

Cutting straight to the point, he wanted to know that the person or company he commissioned was working in an online environment similar to the one he wanted to create for his own team.

This goes back to a strongly held belief I have that “if you look at rubbish all day, you will deliver rubbish”.

Simplistic language aside - I do believe that if we as designers, consultants or developers spend a lot of time in complicated and user unfriendly apps we will develop complicated and unintuitive sites and applications for our clients.

Our environments, and our acceptance of them, affect our output. It’s that simple.

Take a look at your online environment and figure out if you can improve it to the benefit of yourself and your clients.

If you are reading this and are about to commission someone to do work for you, send the RFP, but also ask him or her what they are looking at on their own screens. It might be the most important question of all.