Getting the correct creative requirements from your client can often be one of the biggest hurdles in any creative project… but it seems to be an especially difficult task in the field of web design, where clients often know a lot less about their actual needs for a website than we tend to give them credit for. Today’s article examines how to get accurate, meaningful, and actionable creative requirements from your clients.

There is a classic case in which the tenants of a large office building complained about the increasingly poor elevator service. A consulting firm specializing in elevator-related problems was employed to deal with the situation. It first established that average waiting time for elevators was too long. It then evaluated the possibilities of adding elevators, replacing existing elevators with faster ones, and introducing computer controls to improve utilization of elevators. For various reasons, none of these turned out to be satisfactory. The engineers declared the problem to be unsolvable.

When exposed to the problem, a young psychologist employed in the building’s personnel department made a simple suggestion that dissolved the problem. Unlike the engineers who saw the service as too slow, he saw the problem as one deriving from the boredom of those waiting for an elevator. So he decided they should be given something to do. He suggested putting mirrors in the elevator lobbies to occupy those waiting by enabling them to look at themselves and others without appearing to do so. The mirrors were put up and complaints stopped. In fact, some of the previously complaining tenants congratulated management on improvement of the elevator service.

Read full article here: http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/workflow/how-to-get-the-right-creative-requirements-from-your-client/

The way that people see our designs strongly effects the meaning that they take away from them. The Gestalt Principle examines this phenomena; As such, it’s one of the fundamental principles that each and every web designer should consider when moving through the design process. We’ll also examine how understanding gestalt will improve your own workflow!

 Trying to come up with a good and creative design may seem easy for someone who has attended a design school, but for the 90% of web designers out there who never attended any design course or school coming mostly from either development or generally non-design backgrounds. The question still remains… what really defines a good web design? Is it just talent? A person who possesses some kind of “special” eye that knows what works out and what doesn’t? Or is there logic and scientific methodology behind all of this that can guide designers, critics and even clients into coming up with a great design.

This is part of a series of design-theory articles that will guide you through the basic principles of the design process. We’ll be focusing on the most important fundamental ideas that can make great differences in the final design.

Read the full article on Web Design Tutsplus: http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theory/the-gestalt-principle-design-theory-for-web-designers/