Virtue of the Small

Making the best site we can

Communication

Your web site is an important way that you communicate with the world. Ultimately, it may save you time by communicating for you with many people. But the work of creating it takes a lot of communication with me, as I try to learn the fact and the subtleties of your organization and find ways to communicate those.

Bad communication often stems from assuming our audience knows something that it does not know. In talking with you and asking many questions, large and small, I, as an outsider, can gradually tune in to assumptions that have been part of your working style for so long that they seem obvious.

Your Point of Contact

Many of the organizations I work with have several people interested in and involved with the web site, whether it be a board of directors or a lead manager and a web-savvy employee. However, it's often much more efficient for me if I only work directly with one person at a time. This cuts down on my confusion, and allows me and my client to develop a good communications rapport.

If I, for example, have an initial meeting or two with a client and we talk about the direction of the web site, then all our future communications will be informed by those meetings. If all people on your web project are present at all meetings, then our communication should be good, but often small organizations cannot spare several people for all that time.

It may be tempting to have me initially meet with a manager, then work with someone else on the actual site creation, but this will not lead to the best result.