How to deal with picky clients — Red Rabbit Technique
Posted By Predrag on July 28, 2006
Here is a secret I would like to share with you. I bet that anyone who ever seriously worked as a web designer encountered a client (or clients) who always needed to change at least a pixel of your design. It can be a masterpiece – no matter what you create – but they’ll always find something to change. Don’t know why, but they just do.
If you are constantly receiving responses like these listed below, you’ll need to learn this simple Red Rabbit Technique:
- That looks great, but can you please make that line a bit thinner
- Why did you choose 24px Verdana for headline? I think 25px will do much better
- That green you picked is too green. Is there a way you can change it to something more yellow?
- I love those icons very much. Can you move them 2px up? And make them 2% brighter
Here is what you should do. I know it sounds silly, but it freaking works – it is more than fun and it requires very small amount of time!
Red Rabbit Technique
First you need do create the design in the way you think is the best. Move it around, polish it, use the fonts you like… Create whatever you think the final design should look like. Save your masterpiece and backup it.
It’s time for Red Rabbit! Basically, what you need to do now is to decrease the quality of your design. Create one simple eye catching mistake everyone will notice. Something like the sample I’ve provided above. You can do practically everything you wouldn’t do for real. Here are some ideas:
- Destroy your color scheme. Add a strong color that is out of any harmony from your layout
- Change your headline font to some old-school one like Times New Roman (this might be to obvious)
- Replace your cool photo you’ve spent 3 days to find with something you found on Google Image Search
- Anything else you can think off.
To keep the story short, don’t go too far. Key issue here is to create a minor, eye catching mistake. If you ruin it completely, your client will request re-do of an entire design. The goal is to hear: “That’s great! One thing I dislike is that red color you picked. Please change it to something different.” Than, you show them your original work — and they love it.
Extended Red Rabbit Technique
This one requires a bit more time, but the principle is the same. You should use it when the client requires more than a single design from you so they can pick one of them. Again, you create what you think is the best. Than, downgrade it in various ways. Align it to the left, change colors, use different font, etc. Bare in mind you’ll need to place a winner as the final version. Downgraded versions should be presented first. This technique works even more than the first one.
One way or another, you have nothing to lose, your work will be done faster, and you’ll have a lot of fun during the process of downgrading your design. Guaranteed! Also, no harm is done and your client will receive the best solution anyway.
Why is it called Red Rabbit?
Well, this was my first association when I’ve started implementing this technique. If you see a red rabbit while you’re walking through the forest, you’ll notice it. That’s exactly what your picky client will do.
In one of my next posts, I’ll provide you with some real life samples of correct Red Rabbit Technique usage.
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7 Responses to “How to deal with picky clients — Red Rabbit Technique”
July 28th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Interesting, something like what the persian carpet designers allegedly do to their designs because only Allah can create a perfect design, as per their logic, so they introduce one flaw in each carpet.
What if your client asks for a change that you don’t want and is ok with whatever you put in to downgrade the design?
Doubly-screwed the design will be then, my young padawan?
July 28th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
*LOL* That only means you don’t know your client. When I am using Red Rabbit, I always try to predict what that particular client might find annoying.
Of course, if something like that happens, nobody would die. It is effective in 95% of cases.
October 8th, 2006 at 7:44 am
Fantastic i must try it. FOOLS.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
How do I deal with a client who asked for more stuff after the original design and more then the original quote he received. Asking for extras that involve php and cms. I revised this site at least 20 times and they are never happy. Only happy with the flash intro, which I suggested to them they really shouldn’t use on their site.
January 13th, 2011 at 1:17 am
Ha nice, good to hear I’m not the only one following this concept. I try to keep a habit of keeping two versions or more of the site because often times I find we go back and forth. I think people take comfort in knowing they played a part in the design process. Like “hey you see that blue color scheme, yeah totally my idea.”
I give FTP excess to my more trusted clients and give them a folder to upload graphics when it’s appropriate. Plus it gives me the opportunity to temporarily host there site so they can see changes insistently when I’m making changes over the phone. Seems get rid of playing E-mail tag and having short meetings. My next step is to put some sort of client log in section for clients so they don’t need to use my FTP and just use there own profile on my site to review there web page. When they are happy I transfer everything to there new host.
@ Matt Hummel about his client. I would just charge a extra amount for extra requests to the site. I’m fairly new to finding appropriate costs for renditions, but keeping track of my hours so I can charge accordingly. Eventually when I get the hang of everything I plan to have some sort of price sheet that fits my experience with web building.