Most delays and spiralling budgets stem from the same cause: a vague briefing. The client isn’t quite sure what they want, the service provider has to guess, and the result is a series of revisions that nobody saw coming. The good news is that half an hour’s preparation can prevent almost all of this. Here are two checklists, one for each professional, and three rules that apply to both.
Before hiring a web designer
A web designer can do a good job with very little, but she can’t read minds. These are the answers that help the most:
- Purpose of the website: Selling, showcasing your portfolio, gathering contact details, arranging meetings? Having one main objective per page determines almost everything else.
- Target audience: Who will be visiting the website, what are they looking for, and on which device? If most visitors access it via their mobile phones, that’s where the design starts.
- Contents: Are the text, photographs, logo and colours already in place, or are they still to be created? This is the aspect that causes the most delays in projects.
- References: Three websites you like and, more importantly, what you like about each one. Two attractive websites that have nothing in common aren’t of any use to anyone.
- Structure and features: How many pages? And do you need a blog, an online shop, a booking system, forms or a bilingual version?
- Domain and hosting: Have you got them yet? Who are they registered in the name of? They should be in your name.
- Budget and deadline: Tell us the budget you have in mind and the date that really matters. It helps us design the right solution, rather than an expensive one that won’t work.
- After the launch: Who updates the website? Do you need training to edit it yourself, or a maintenance plan?
Before hiring a translator
A translation requires the same sort of preparation, but with different questions:
- Languages and variants: From Portuguese to English, of course, but for which audience? British and American English differ in spelling, vocabulary and certain conventions.
- Purpose and target audience: Is it for publication, for internal use, for submission to a journal, or for presentation to an organisation? The same text is translated differently depending on the purpose.
- Final, definitive text: Send the final version. Changing the original partway through means we’ll have to retranslate it and pay you again.
- File formats: An editable document (such as a Word file) is far better than a PDF or an image, and helps to avoid errors and conversion costs.
- Terminology and references: glossaries, previous translations, product names and acronyms that must be retained. In technical, medical or legal texts, this is half the battle.
- Realistic deadline: A high-quality translation takes time, and if it needs proofreading, even longer. Asking for it ‘yesterday’ costs more and compromises quality.
- Certification: If the text is intended for an official body, ask first whether a certified translation is required. This will determine who can carry it out.
- Confidentiality: If the content is sensitive (contracts, medical reports), state this right at the start and agree on how it will be handled.
What applies to both
There are three rules that apply to any creative or language professional:
- Content first. Make sure you have the text, images and files ready before you start. Changing things halfway through is the number one cause of delays.
- A single voice to decide. If there are several people involved, put all the feedback into a single message, rather than sending it to each of them individually.
- Everything in writing. The scope, number of revision rounds, deadlines and payment terms agreed upon before starting protect both parties.
And here’s a tip for anyone who needs both, for example on a bilingual website: do the translation before finalising the design. Portuguese tends to take up more space than English, and a title or button that fits in one language may break the layout in the other. With this in mind, the first discussion with any professional becomes much more productive.