It’s an old joke that an amateurish web site was probably produced by the site owner’s brother, brother-in-law, son, etc. Aside from the gender-bias (surely there are sisters, sisters-in-law, and daughters committing these crimes against design), there is a bit of truth to this idea.

Except, sometimes, when the relative doing the designing happens to be a professional designer.

What are the challenges when we design for family?

• As with any client, it’s all about them. 

I learned this from attempting to design for my son. I wanted to give him a place for his writing, which is varied and marvelous, and I wanted to experiment with some new, edgy techniques I thought would be suitable for the younger teen he was at the time. (This was about 5 years ago.)

What I left out of my thinking was that a) he didn’t think he needed a place for his writing and b) if he did need a place, it was going to be secret and password-protected and off limits to anyone who answers to “Mom.” 

Also, edgy is all very well, but if you make a handsome boy look unattractive in the interests of art, he won’t care that it’s stylish. He’ll just hate it. And he’ll be right.

It’s also no use to explain that the frantic, crowded designs of MySpace, Xanga and LiveJournal are abysmal, if that’s where his friends are hanging out and making their blogs. And, if he wants to use Blogger, let him. Douglas Bowman made some iconic templates for Blogger that are just fine.

Remember, it’s always about them. 

• As with any client, start with a request-for-proposal.

It would have served me well to remember this with my son. He didn’t, after all, ask me for a site. It works much better if the client comes to you and you start off by scoping out the project.

Remember all those good questions you put in your RFP? About what the client wants to use the site for, and who they think will visit it, and what they want those people to think and feel, and how they plan to update it, and, oh, are there any colors they absolutely hate? Just because your client is a family member doesn’t mean you don’t have to ask these questions.

The RFP also introduces just a smidgen of formality in what is, after all, an unpaid gig and an act of affection. And it shows respect not only for yourself, as a professional, but the for client/family member. Listening to what the client wants (and not assuming that just because you know them that you know what that is) has to be the beginning of a successful design project.

When you remember these two rules, you’re more likely to end up with successful designs and happy clients — even when it’s all in the family.