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How to deal with picky clients – Red Rabbit Technique 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.