Before the first screen: the questions I ask every new client

Where does it hurt?

I always start with the problem rather than the solution. Clients often arrive with a request already formed, such as a new website, an app or a redesign, but the request is usually a guess about how to fix something else. So I ask what is not working today, who notices it first and what it costs them. The answer tells me far more than any brief.

Who will actually use it?

Not the target audience from the marketing plan, but the real people: the clerk at the counter, the editor on a deadline, the customer on a phone in a hurry. I ask how they work now, what they put up with and what they would never give up. A product that ignores those habits will be fought rather than used.

What would a good outcome look like?

This question surprises people more than it should. I want to know what will be different if the project succeeds, in their words rather than mine: fewer calls to support, faster approvals, a brand they are no longer embarrassed by. Without that picture, nobody can tell whether the work is good, and every review becomes a matter of taste.

Who decides, and what can’t change?

Every project has constraints that nobody mentions until they cause trouble: a deadline tied to an event, a system that must stay, a board that has to approve the colours. I ask about them early, along with who has the final word. It is much easier to design within limits you know about than to discover them in the fourth round of feedback.

When the answer is “we don’t know”

Quite often, the honest answer to most of these questions is that the client doesn’t know yet. That is perfectly fine, and it is not a reason to delay. I ask for just one thing instead: point at what you mean. It can be a competitor’s website, a screen from another app, a poster, a colour, even something they dislike. Pointing is easier than describing, and it tells me about tone, ambition and taste in a way no questionnaire can.

Then I ask them to let me work. I come back quickly with something concrete, a direction or a clickable prototype, because people react to real things far more clearly than to abstractions. Within a couple of iterations, the client who did not know what they wanted usually knows exactly what they don’t want, and the path between the two becomes obvious.

Why so few questions?

I have sat through discovery workshops that lasted weeks and produced documents nobody read. I would rather ask a handful of good questions, listen properly and start making things early. The questions set the direction; the work does the rest. And the trust that grows from that first conversation, from feeling understood rather than interrogated, is usually what carries the partnership for years afterwards.