As we at AppVenture start to grow and refine our marketing strategy, I wanted to share the three evaluation criteria that I find most telling when sizing up Interactive Agencies and Web Design companies (let’s lump these two into “design firms” for the sake of simplicity). As a technologist, I’ve worked in and around design firms for over a decade now and have been reflecting on what made for the most successful projects. Here’s my take:

Chemistry
Every great relationship starts with a flash of chemistry. Business relationships are no exception. And like any fiery relationship, there will be good times and there will be great times (and probably some rough patches, but let’s try to stay positive)! At the end of the first meeting, you should feel excited about the possibilities of your redesign effort and be looking forward to getting the ball rolling. Beware of relationships that don’t feel right, but you can’t quite figure out why.

Business Focus
Now that sparks are flying, it’s time to regain your composure =] As you narrow down the design firm to redesign you website, make sure to remember why you are spending your hard-earned cash: you hope to generate more cash! Good firms will always be excited about great design, but great firms will be excited about how you will further your business objectives through great design. By focusing on what you do, how you do it, your target customers, and your differentiators, a design firm can make you stand out from the competition doing the voodoo that they do so well. If the design firm fails to ask you some good questions about your business, you might want to reassess if this relationship will translate into more commas in your bank account.

Communicative
So you are convinced that this design firm is right for you given your first impressions and their focus on your business. Great! So how can you find out if the design firm can deliver what they promise? The best place to start is their proposal for the redesign. As you look over their proposal, you should find that it parrots back what you told the design firm that you wanted to accomplish in a clear and concise way. There should be no surprises and no mention of anything that wasn’t previously discussed. If the design firm can’t listen to your needs, translate those need into a proposal, and clearly communicate what you discussed and understood, you may want to reconsider hiring that firm. If they can’t communicate before you start, there is little hope of communicating once project deadlines begin creeping up on you.

Summary
As a buyer of services, you should always be looking for both the strengths and weaknesses of each design firm with which you are speaking. If a firm shows any weaknesses in the above mentioned criteria, you should take a moment and consider the implications of that particular weakness on your redesign project. Can you afford to have a weakness in that area? What does a weakness in that area mean for your business?

Do you have other criteria that you find important? Please share your thoughts below.

I hope you get some utility from these criteria, and here’s to your next successful redesign project!

AUTHOR: Fernando Cardenas is Founder and CEO of AppVenture in Boulder, Colorado