Designing for a Wife with a Voice
My wife Stephanie is an incredibly talented & well-spoken person. Not only does she care for our two children (both under 3 years old), but she also has managed to start her own business while doing it. It’s safe to say that she’s a hard worker. Already stretched to the limits with her time, she told me that she wanted to start a blog. Right now her advice about simultaneously being a “stay-at-home” mom & businesswoman is living over at Blogspot. And that’s fine for now.
Ultimately she wants to increase the frequency of her blog posts to drum up some traffic as there are only a handful of other blogs on the interwebs with a similar focus. What’s that to me? Well, she really needs her own, dedicated site to be taken seriously. That’s where I come in. I’m always looking to pad my portfolio, but this is a unique situation. Why? The obvious answer is the client is my wife. And this will be her “personal” site as opposed to the Tiny Toes site I created for her last fall.
Do I really know her as well as I think I do?
I’ll be designing the site for public consumption and for my wife’s enjoyment. A tightrope walk for sure. How can I balance her ideas (without offending her) with the ideas I have for the UX? Luckily, we’re in the very initial phases of the site design, so I may skirt by OK. Planning for the public audience will require a consistent voice telling me in the back of my head to consider my wife’s concepts.
How is this any different than a typical design project?
If I don’t survey Steph’s suggestions and objectives closely, I run the risk of hurting her. That’s the last thing I want to do. Tell me what other client (apart from yourself, perhaps) would be emotionally hurt if you didn’t guess their ideas correctly. If I don’t read her right, it might just show her that I’m not as attentive to her as I claim (certainly a possibility). So far I’ve been successful. She bought into my logo design (and even the color scheme!) for the site. But there is much left to accomplish.
Maybe I’m over-analyzing this…
Yea, maybe. Maybe not. After all, we are just talking about a website. But after watching Fireproof this weekend, I don’t think it’s worth the risk. At the altar, I made a (less literal) vow to understand her the best I can for the rest of my days. To show I listen and pay attention is to show I care. And to show I care is to show I love her. With women, I think, it’s the not-so-obvious things (the small things, if you will) that make the most significant impact. For someone I cherish and appreciate, it’s the least I can do.