One thing that always bothers me, whether I'm building a computer or doing research for other people, is that people don't always know what they want.

I'll explain. Everyone, including myself, has an occasional moment when they think to themselves, "If I would have known this or found out about that, I would have done (fill in the blank) differently."

And because of this, I approach almost every situation with this in mind: "I don't know everything, but if I did, how would I go about this?" Some of the most common questions we get at Killswitch when it comes to our business (other than "How much does it cost?") is "Can you make it work the way WE want it?", and my personal favorite "I have a site and I want to rework it. What do you recommend I do with it?" Here is where I come in (maybe that's why it's my favorite--it's nice to be wanted).

Let me explain the “Can you make it work” question. There are times where the client has an idea about how a site or application is supposed to work, and while the idea is what counts, the technology they want to use is not suitable to the task. We will try to recommend to the client the right solution; after all we always have our client’s best interest in mind. But what if the client is set on a specific technology? Do you tell the client that they don’t know what they're talking about? Do you risk your reputation on a minor technical disagreement? I say no.

The purpose of the research that we do is to provide simple, specialized solutions--elegant design with the best possible user experience at both the client and user levels. That’s why we spend time researching, scrutinizing, putting together the pros and cons of current and upcoming technologies, and making our case to our clients. Most go with our recommendations; others maintain that their approach is the best. Again, we have our client’s best interest in mind and so, before we begin anything, we inform them of any potential pitfalls and shortcomings that might come up. It’s our professional responsibility to also educate the client, whether they go with our recommendations or not, by putting together help and technical documentation and, when we feel it’s necessary, video how to’s. We do this to minimize learning curves and get users up and running.

And while I’m in an explaining mood, let me also touch on the "reworking" aspect of our business. Let’s say that a client has a website that looks outdated, and they want to modernize it. We can do it of course, but does it have to be from scratch? Can old data be reworked so that information can be re-used? Again, we research ways to save data and rework a site or application to satisfy the client. All we do, aside from updating a site, is give it a face lift, so that the client’s message is seen (and heard) in this multimedia-driven world.

In the end that 's the goal. We want to make a dollar and a dime in this business, but we also want give people something useful, and possibly entertaining, something that will make others say, "This is a nice site or application, it's easy to use, looks great and it does what it's supposed to."

A little research comes in handy in our world. It could make the difference between telling a client that their project will be done on time or that it has to be delayed because there were factors that were unaccounted for (servers not equipped to handle the amount of net traffic, site is too complex for users, etc.).

Information is power, and in our world, it's a necessity.