Originally published in July 2013. Updated September 2026.
Good web design is a collaboration, not a handover.
As someone who struggles to draw anything more complex than stick men, I’m certainly not someone who would describe themselves as a designer.
But after working with designers, developers, marketers and clients on website projects for most of my working life, I’ve learnt that getting a great design result isn’t only about finding a talented designer.
A lot of it comes down to how well the client and designer work together.
Back in 2013, I originally wrote this article as five simple tips for getting the best from a designer. More than a decade later, the basic principles still hold up surprisingly well, but the way websites are planned, designed and built has changed considerably.
Modern web design involves much more than making something look good. A website needs to work across different devices, guide visitors towards the right actions, communicate your brand clearly, meet accessibility expectations and support your broader marketing goals.
Technology and AI have also made parts of the process faster, but the fundamentals haven’t changed: clear communication, good judgement and constructive collaboration still produce better websites.
How Do You Get the Best Results From a Web Designer?
The best website projects are collaborative.
Give your designer a clear understanding of your business, customers and goals, nominate one person to consolidate feedback, provide useful visual references and explain what you like about them, then give specific feedback based on what your customers need rather than personal preference alone.
Most importantly, give your designer enough direction to understand the problem while still giving them room to use their professional experience to solve it.
1. Trust Your Designer’s Expertise
You’re paying a designer for more than their ability to use design software.
You’re paying for their ideas, experience, judgement and understanding of how people interact with visual information.
That doesn’t mean you should blindly agree with every recommendation. You know your business, customers and industry better than your designer does.
A good website project combines that knowledge with the designer’s experience in areas such as layout, visual hierarchy, user experience, responsive design and conversion.
If you request something and your designer recommends another approach, ask why. There should be reasoning behind the recommendation.
For example, you might want to fit significantly more information into the top of a homepage because it all feels important.
Your designer may recommend simplifying it so visitors can immediately understand what you do and what they should do next.
That isn’t the designer trying to take control of your business. It’s part of what you’re engaging them for.
2. Don’t Design by Committee
The old saying about too many cooks still applies.
Getting input from colleagues, business partners or other stakeholders can be useful, but allowing everyone involved to individually direct the design usually creates conflicting feedback and a weaker result.
One person may want the website to feel minimal. Another wants more information everywhere. Someone else wants larger images, while another wants less imagery altogether.
The designer then ends up trying to satisfy several competing personal preferences rather than solving the original business problem.
For most website projects, there should be one main decision-maker or project contact responsible for collecting feedback, resolving internal disagreements and providing the designer with one consolidated response.
This is also one of the reasons structured website project management matters. Clear responsibility and controlled feedback help projects move forward without unnecessary delays or confusion.
3. Start With a Clear Brief
A good design brief does not mean drawing a homepage on a piece of paper and telling the designer exactly where every element needs to go.
In fact, some of the most useful information you can give a web designer has nothing to do with design.
Your brief should help them understand:
- What your business does
- Who your main customers are
- What problems those customers are trying to solve
- What makes your business different
- What you want visitors to do on the website
- Which services or products are most important
- What functionality the website needs
- Any important brand requirements
- Who your main competitors are
- What a successful website would achieve for your business
You don’t need to know the answer to every design question before the project starts. That’s what the designer is there to help with.
But the clearer you can be about the business problem and desired outcome, the better the designer can translate that into an effective website.
4. Provide Visual References, but Explain Why You Like Them
This was one of my original tips in 2013, and it remains one of the easiest ways to help a designer understand your preferences.
Send examples of websites, brands, layouts, photography or other visual material that appeals to you.
The important addition is to explain why you like each example.
Instead of:
“I like this website.”
Try:
“I like how quickly this homepage explains what the company does.”
Or:
“I like the amount of whitespace and how simple the navigation feels.”
Or:
“I like the way they use large photography without making the page feel cluttered.”
That context is extremely useful because you and your designer may be looking at the same website but responding to completely different things.
Visual references should help communicate a direction, not become instructions to copy somebody else’s website.
5. Give Specific and Constructive Feedback
One of the least useful pieces of feedback a designer can receive is:
“I don’t like it. Make it better.”
It communicates that something is wrong, but gives the designer almost nothing they can actually work with.
Try to explain what feels wrong and, where possible, why.
For example:
Less useful:
“I don’t like the homepage.”
More useful:
“The top section feels a little too corporate for our customer base. We want the business to come across as more approachable and local.”
Or:
Less useful:
“Make the logo bigger.”
More useful:
“The brand doesn’t feel prominent enough when I first land on the page.”
The second version explains the problem.
Your designer can then decide whether increasing the logo size is actually the best solution or whether another design change would solve the issue more effectively.
Good feedback describes the problem rather than trying to prescribe every solution.
6. Design for Your Customers, Not Just Yourself
This is one of the most important things to remember during any website design project.
You are not necessarily the person the website is being designed for.
Business owners naturally have personal preferences about colours, fonts, images and styles. Those preferences matter, particularly when they relate to your brand, but they shouldn’t automatically override what works best for the people you are trying to attract.
There is a big difference between:
“I personally don’t like green.”
and:
“Does this colour feel right for our brand and the customers we want to attract?”
The second question keeps the discussion focused on the purpose of the website.
A good designer should be thinking about how quickly visitors understand the business, how easily they can find important information, whether calls to action are clear, how the design works on mobile and what will encourage the right people to make contact or purchase.
The most effective website is not always the one everybody around the meeting table personally likes the most.
It’s the one that works best for the intended audience.
7. Provide Content and Assets as Early as Possible
Design and content are closely connected.
A designer can create layouts using placeholder text and temporary images, but the final result will usually be better when they have access to real content early in the project.
Useful assets can include:
- Your logo and brand files
- Professional photography
- Service or product information
- Team details
- Testimonials
- Contact information
- Pricing where relevant
- Accreditations or memberships
- Case studies
- Important calls to action
The amount and type of content directly influence page layouts, hierarchy and navigation.
If the website is designed entirely around placeholder content and the real material arrives at the end, it can create unnecessary rework or force important information into a layout that was never designed for it.
If writing website content is proving difficult, professional website content writing can also help bring the copy and design process together.
How AI Is Changing the Website Design Process in 2026
AI is now involved in many modern website workflows.
It can help organise a brief, develop initial content ideas, explore concepts, speed up repetitive production tasks and assist designers and developers with parts of the build process.
That can make website projects faster and more efficient, but it doesn’t remove the need for good communication or experienced human judgement.
AI doesn’t know your customers the way you do. It doesn’t automatically understand the nuances of your brand, and generating something quickly is not the same as deciding whether it is the right solution.
The most useful role for AI is to support the people involved in the project rather than replace the thinking behind it.
Technology can do more of the heavy lifting, while experienced designers, developers, project managers and clients still make the decisions that determine whether the final website is actually good.
What We’ve Learnt From Working With Website Clients Since 2009
After working with Australian businesses on website projects since 2009, one thing has remained remarkably consistent: the smoothest projects aren’t necessarily the simplest websites.
They are usually the projects where everyone understands the goal, responsibilities are clear and feedback is communicated well.
A strong designer can bring experience, ideas and creative direction to a project, but the client remains an important part of the process.
Your job isn’t to become a web designer.
It’s to give your designer the information, context and feedback they need to do their best work.
When that relationship works well, you usually get more than a better-looking website.
You get a website that communicates the business more clearly, works better for customers and gives the whole project a much better chance of achieving its purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions About Working With a Web Designer
How do I prepare for working with a web designer?
Start by thinking about your business goals, target customers, important services or products, required website functionality and what you want visitors to do when they reach the site. Gather your logo, brand assets, photography and any existing content, and nominate one main person to manage feedback and approvals. At MyWork, we find that clients who provide this context early give our designers a much clearer understanding of the business and what the website needs to achieve.
What information should I give my web designer?
Your designer should understand what your business does, who your customers are, what makes you different, the actions you want website visitors to take, any required functionality and your brand requirements. Examples of websites or visual styles you like can also help, particularly when you explain what appeals to you about them. MyWork uses this information to understand the business problem first, rather than expecting clients to tell us exactly how their website should be designed.
How should I give feedback to a web designer?
Be specific about what feels wrong and why. Rather than prescribing a design solution, explain the problem you are trying to solve. For example, saying a section feels too corporate for your customers is more useful than simply saying you do not like it. At MyWork, specific and consolidated client feedback helps our designers understand the underlying concern and use their experience to find the most appropriate design solution.
How many people should be involved in approving a website design?
Stakeholders can provide input, but it is usually best to have one person responsible for consolidating that feedback and giving final approval. Too many individual decision-makers can create conflicting requests, slow the project down and make it harder to maintain a clear design direction. MyWork’s website project management process is built around having clear responsibilities and a primary client contact so feedback can be managed efficiently.
Should I show my web designer websites that I like?
Yes. Visual references are a useful way to communicate your preferences. The most helpful approach is to explain specifically what you like about each example, such as the navigation, photography, amount of whitespace, layout or overall tone. MyWork’s designers use these references to understand the direction a client is drawn to, not as instructions to copy another company’s website.
What if I don’t like the first website design?
Explain which parts are not working for you and why. A first concept creates something tangible to discuss, and clear feedback can establish whether the issue is the overall direction or something more specific such as imagery, typography, spacing or tone. At MyWork, the design process gives clients an opportunity to review the direction and provide constructive feedback so our designers can respond to the actual concern rather than guessing what needs to change.
Should I tell a web designer exactly how I want the website to look?
You should provide clear direction about your brand, customers, goals and preferences, but you generally do not need to design the website yourself. Giving the designer the problem and enough context to understand it allows them to use their experience to develop an appropriate solution. At MyWork, we want clients to bring their knowledge of their business while our designers bring their experience in web design, user experience, responsive layouts and conversion.
Can AI help with the website design process?
Yes. AI can assist with tasks such as organising briefs, developing ideas, drafting initial content and speeding up parts of design and development. MyWork uses modern technology and AI where it can make website production more efficient, but experienced designers, developers and project managers still provide the human judgement needed to understand the business, its customers, its brand and whether the final website is actually the right solution.
Considering a New Website or Redesign?
Good website projects start with a clear understanding of the business, the customer and what the website needs to achieve.