Dang, why you want to make it harder for the purchasers of ‘design’?

I’m not sure where you are coming from here. I’m not advocating anything that would make things harder for the ‘purchasers of design.’ In fact, quite the opposite.

While it is understandable for people outside of the industry to use terms like “look and feel,” my argument is that these terms do not carry any real meaning, and practitioners of design should respond with a specific, rather than the use/reuse of such a vague term.

My suspicion is that a person without aesthetic talent, training or interest doesn’t actually have any idea of what they want, beyond ‘edgy’ or ‘classic’. This is simply because they lack to vocabulary to know what colors/design scheme will create a certain mood – or ‘look and feel’. Thus while nothing above is a bad idea, client communication is key no matter what industry, there is likely a point where a client is simply throwing themselves onto the expertise of the technocrat they’ve hired. In the case of design frequently this point may be the very beginning.

I am, however, disturbed when I hear designers adopting these vague terms and using them in practice.

I definitely agree – it’s understandable when the client uses the term “look and feel” – but there is no excuse for when designers use it in their own everyday practice.

It’s natural for the client to ask for a particular “look and feel” summed up by a short list of vague adjectives. They haven’t learned to talk about design.

The problem is not so much with their attempt to describe things based on a look and feel though. It’s that adjectives like “modern” or “edgy” are all relative to individual taste, so it’s up to us to help them articulate the visual specifics of what they are after. Thus we ask questions and look at exemplary sites with them so that we can uncover what’s in their head and interpret their desires into our design. That’s a core part of our job – and probably the most crucial part of good client communication.