--- "Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student)" [email protected] wrote:

...

Beware the client who always changes the

requirements... :)

Think there is a method of discovering such clients ahead of time? My experience so far has been that people with vague ideas of what they want are the worse. They don't know what they want, so you try to build what they describe

This is the totally wrong approach. It is the deisgner's job to extract from a client a clear picture of what it is they want. This means getting input from the people who will use the product. It maens asking questions, restating the answers, and developing a data map and interface requirements. Defining the data that will be captured and how it relates is crucial in designing the database. If your database design is flawed all else is crap. Once you know what your data is and how it will be used you can go to the next level and design the interface. As was stated developing these design requirements takes several meetings. Also, it is important to tie feature creep with expenses. While I don't promote the approach of making feature creep overly expensive, it should be factored in a way to ensure profitibilty. If a client asks you to build a satellite and then over time the project creeps into building the moon, as long as you can do it and make a profit doing it I see no problem in giving it to them.

That's just my $0.02, from the perspective of someon who has done this type of criteria extracting and feature creep management. Clients often don't think as designers (that's why we are supposed to make the big bucks) and need structured guidance in determining what it is they want and can afford.

Now I have to go see what kind of feature creep my daughter wants. ;')

Former designer meets Mr. Mom, ;') Brian Densmore

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