I’ve been doing graphic designing and web work for the last ten-or-so years (yikes, I feel old) and it wasn’t until recently that I came across this saying and it really struck me deep into the core of my graphic designing soul:

A camel is a horse designed by committee.

Graphic designers who have had to work on designing for anyone other than themselves knows this feeling. You envision this great stallion with mighty flanks and a flowing mane, haloed in a soft light of hope, ready to lead people away from misery and plight. A savior amongst all other designs. And somehow after one meeting with the stakeholders, you come away with plans for a donkey with saddle bags.

It can be frustrating for a designer to be “limited” by the needs of a client, however, it is a necessary evil.

The Stakeholder Questionnaire

As a graphic designer or web guru, you may know a lot about typography, usability, and aesthetics, however, your stakeholders know a lot about their own fields, responsibilities, and requirements. As the designer, it is up to you to be the middle man that finds the balance between meeting everyone’s needs, and not becoming this guy. Wowza.

Part of finding out what your clients need is by asking questions. No one is going to ask the right questions every time, but if you don’t ask anything, then you are more likely to fail at meeting their expectations. Some people may find a check list helps insure all aspects of the web design are covered, and I agree – I am the queen of making lists. Some may find a face-to-face interview is the best because they can gauge the importance of items by the reaction of the client.

No one is going to ask the right questions every time

Regardless of how you execute it, gathering requirements is the basic foundation to a successful web design (or any project, for that matter). So, I am going to share a document I recently created for a redesign I am currently working on for a higher education organization.

• Internal Stakeholder Request Template (.xlsx)

This internal stakeholder questionnaire is specific to this organization’s needs mainly from a technological and regulatory standpoint. Feel free to tweak it to suit your needs. Keep in mind, this is not the first step in gathering information, but it is an important one to keep in mind as you being your project.

Next, I will cover how to identify who the stakeholders are and how to prioritize stakeholder requests.