But as soon as you let the client call the shots, you are a pixel pusher, bowing to the whims of a client.

Thing is, if you don’t tell them, they won’t know (what not to do). Laying out the rules early will avoid things like this being said:

• I’ll know it when I see it.
• I think we’re nearly there.
• I showed it to my son/daughter and they suggested…
• I’m not feeling it yet.

You get the point.

The thing is, the design process should be a collaborative one, just make sure you lay out what work the client should be doing.

Clients know their business better than you do.
You know design better they they do.

With this quick understanding, make sure that the client makes the business decisions, and you make the design decisions.

There’s a good reason for it; It gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how you solved the problem. You would be marked on the working out, and not just the final answer.

It’s the same with design work, if you can’t describe how (and more importantly why) things are done a particular way, then the client should (quite rightly) think of it as just a guess.

Being able to do this successfully is probably the most important skill to learn in client services, because without this, you risk a client reject or dismiss good ideas, simply because they can’t see how you worked out the answer.