jeff adams

Speculative design is basically unpaid work that is asked before any contract is signed. In this article I take a look at why it is wrong to ask for speculative design unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Generally speaking, it’d be brilliant if design agencies would submit design comps to you to show you how your website could look. You can easily see what to expect from the designers and also whether they have the same vision as you where the business is concerned.

However, what about the designers that don’t get picked? They lose out completely and they’ve spent all that time on a design that the client doesn’t even want.

I wanted to list a few of the reasons why more and more agencies and freelancers are saying no to speculative design.

Think About What You Are Asking

You would never ask a decorator to decorate one of your rooms without paying them, just so you can see what they could do.

It sounds silly, but just because the work is virtual doesn’t mean it has no value. If you want to know more about a designer then just ask them to show you some examples of their previous works or talk to them, they might agree to some alternatives so don’t take it the wrong way if they so they don’t do speculative work, they aren’t being awkward they are being professional.

Design for Users

The problem with speculative design is that your designer has no idea who your target audience is, therefore they are really designing for your personal taste and unless you are the target audience then take a step back and realise that in order to get the perfect design, your designer needs to spend time with you as well as creating a design tailored to your users.

If you don’t design for your users, you’ll likely fall into the micromanagement style of web design project where you tell the designer how to design, in effect wasting your money because you aren’t utilising his/her full expertise.

So What Should You Ask For?

If you are worried about committing to a contract, then talk to the designers and they’ll mostly be happy to offer you alternatives to help you make a decision.

Some of the alternatives include giving you a list of previous clients, mood-boards which are simpler, quicker and easily mocked-up. The point her is the designer does want your business, but as a business themselves where is the sense in doing things for free.

There is even a website dedicated to providing more information about speculative design, and you can find more information about that from www.no-spec.com