If there’s one thing that I feel strongly about, it’s that design is meaningless without relevance. And a problem I consistently see is design that is created to appease a client rather than solve problems or target needs.

Everyone knows that clients can be ignorant, demanding, and impossible, and they’re paying the bills so…why not just give them what they want and forget about it.

For me, that’s hard. I don’t want to believe that there isn’t some compromise. Or that there isn’t some way to advance the audience needs while satisfying some ambigous demand that the site be “hot” or whatever.

What I’m saying is that if you know doing some thing, whether it be functionality or design, will make your client happy simply because you believe that’s what the client wants to see, that’s not good enough. And it shouldn’t be done.

Determine the real purpose, and find a real solution. And after you’ve done that, consider what the client wants and find a way to bridge the two. And then educate the client about why the right solution is the right solution.

You’re not serving your clients if you only give them what they think they want. You’re only doing your job when you put forward your expertise to help them understand what they need.