Why Miko Coffey’s Collaborative Method Creates Better Websites
Location: London, United Kingdom
Started using Squarespace: 2007
Title: Director, Using My Head
With a career that began in the earliest days of the web, Circle Platinum Partner and Community Leader Miko Coffey has proven that principles like usability, strategic planning, and a focus on the visitor’s needs remain vital in the ever-evolving field of web design. From hand-coding websites to becoming a trusted strategic partner, she now helps clients solve complex challenges that extend beyond visual design.
We interviewed Miko to learn about her approach to creating collaborative client relationships and building websites that are beautiful and effective. Her insights serve as a powerful reminder that while trends may change, the foundations of good design and customer service are timeless.
What originally drew you to web design, and how did you get your start in the industry?
When I studied at university in the ‘90s, there was no such thing as web design. I studied fine art and mathematics, which I suppose was a good stepping stone for web design as it covers both creative and technical/analytical skills.
In my multimedia class during my final year of my art degree, we got an early taste for the internet when we were asked to contribute to a collaborative art piece called HyGrid by SITO, one of the oldest Internet-based arts organizations (the HyGrid is still active today). We also dabbled in HTML, creating basic web pages to house our digital art pieces.
After I graduated, I studied abroad and worked in the marketing department for the organization that arranged my study abroad opportunity. It was here that I witnessed the early stages of the World Wide Web’s expansion and had a hint at the power this new tool had to revolutionize the way people communicated with their customers. I could see the potential, and convinced my manager to let me build a website for the organization, all hand-coded from scratch. It was so successful that I ended up rapidly growing the role, and by the time I left the company I was head of digital marketing, managing a remote team of digital marketers and multiple websites around the world in seven languages.
You act as a digital partner for your clients. What does that mean in practice?
Most web designers typically have an executor role: they are supplied with content and other materials from the client, and their role is to execute a website build based on whatever the client supplies. There is normally little involvement from the designer in terms of background strategy and planning. My approach is to start with the business objective and the customer need, and work with my client to map out the best way to achieve that objective and satisfy the customer need online. This means that all my projects start with user personas, a strategy session, and user experience planning sessions. There’s a lot of work that takes place way before any design to make sure that whatever I design will not only look good, it will hit the mark with the customer and the business goals.
How does this collaborative approach differ from the typical designer-client relationship?
I view the client relationship a little differently, too. I feel that part of my role is to act as a teacher for my clients. Rather than just expecting them to deliver the raw materials to me, I am here to guide them through how to do it step by step. After seeing clients struggle with providing things the right way, I created a toolkit that contains everything they need to set them up for success: training, checklists, templates, and common pitfalls. For text content, I have a checklist of questions that they should ask themselves when writing each page, a template that they can fill in to supply the content, and an example of a filled-in template so they can see exactly how to use it. My image guide includes not only the logistics of what to send (file sizes, formats, resolution, etc.), but also how to find this info on their computer, and examples of what will happen if they don’t supply the right type of images.
The toolkit is linked from the tasks in my project management workspace, directing clients to the appropriate part of the toolkit exactly when they need it, so they always know where to look for guidance when they are working on different tasks—and so they aren’t overwhelmed by the entire toolkit in the beginning. This means they can more easily and quickly supply correctly formatted content to me. The educational aspect adds value to my relationship with them, but it also makes my life a lot easier when it comes to designing the website.
I also work with my clients on more than just web design; I help them solve problems with online tools. For example, I am working with a client to improve their customer onboarding process by implementing a multi-point workflow with a triggered email sequence and triage interventions to reduce post-enquiry drop-off. They have a high-demand service business, but have been losing potential customers who go onto a waitlist. Our goals are to retain these warm leads by keeping them engaged while they wait, use time-based triggers for internal workflow steps to decrease perceived wait times, and reduce the workload of incoming chase-up emails and calls by better setting customer expectations. In this project, there is little design in the visual sense, but quite a lot of process design. So, it’s quite different from a typical web design job. It’s this kind of work that led me to develop my company tagline: “I help people do things better online.”
Having worked with both large organizations and small businesses, what are the most valuable lessons you've learned about web design strategy that apply to a client of any size?
The biggest takeaway is to make sure that you design for the website user, not the CEO, the marketing manager, or whomever else you work with in the company. I always tell my clients: “Your website is not for you. It’s for your customers.”
This approach solves multiple problems. Firstly, it ensures that anything I do puts the user at the center. If in doubt about anything, I can sense-check what I’m doing against the user personas to make sure I’m on the right path. Secondly, it’s a really easy way to settle any internal stakeholder disagreements about personal taste when getting feedback on a design round, or having clients who want to show work in progress to a friend or colleague for feedback. Ultimately, the website doesn’t have to appeal to those people; it has to appeal to the end user and satisfy their needs.
I often use this analogy when explaining this to my clients: you know how at every marathon they have volunteers at various points along the marathon route handing out water to the runners? Those volunteers are placed directly in the path of the runners, and their position has been planned so the water will be available when the runners need it. Imagine if the volunteers were off to the side a hundred feet, or if they were all positioned too early on the route. Disaster. A good website has to be like those volunteers. We need to be delivering exactly what your users need, exactly when they need it, as part of their natural path through the website. All they need to do is reach out and grab it. That’s what a good user experience is all about.
How do you balance the creative aspects of design with the business goals of a project to ensure a client’s website truly works for them and their customers?
There’s a triangle at play here. At one point of the triangle, you have the brand and what the business wants to say. At another point, you have what Google (and increasingly, AI tools like ChatGPT) wants to see. And at the third point, you have what the audience/customer wants. Sometimes these three are in alignment, but sometimes they aren’t, so we have to decide on a case-by-case basis which of the three is most important for that particular page.
Sometimes this means that we sacrifice the aesthetics a bit to deliver something that is better for SEO; other times it means that we agree SEO isn’t important for that page, the brand needs to lead; other times we recognise that the goal of a page is conversion, so we might sacrifice a bit of the other two to best meet the customer’s need. Acting tactically in this way means that we can balance those three elements effectively across the website.
It’s also important for me to truly understand the brand and the company’s values. For smaller or newer companies that don’t already have established brand values, I ask them to choose a few emotive words from a list that I send at the discovery stage. Understanding what’s at the core of a brand means that I can make design decisions that are in alignment with the brand ethos, and I have something to challenge back with when clients try to go off on a tangent with something. Saying, “I’m not sure that aligns with your brand values,” as well as, “I’m not sure your users would expect that,” pretty much quells any wacky idea and brings the focus back to the important aspects of the project.
What approach have you found most effective for gathering feedback and testimonials from clients?
As part of my offboarding process, I tag my client in my CRM tool, and this triggers an automatic email that tells them I enjoyed the project. It also includes two links: one is a direct link to Google reviews and the other is a link to my feedback form, where I ask them to let me know if there’s anything I could have done better, along with inviting them to leave a testimonial. I can then see who has opened the email but hasn’t left any feedback, so I can trigger a slightly differently worded email to those clients a couple weeks later.
I have a client who has a really great process for this that I haven’t yet adopted, but it’s so good it’s worth sharing. She works directly with her customers, and whenever they are in a meeting and the customer says something complimentary about her work, she asks them on the spot if she can use that statement on her website. If so, she jots it down and then adds it to her testimonials. She has hundreds of testimonials now!
What advice can you offer other web designers looking to build a process for this?
First, make sure your project processes and communication are so smooth that there’s no question your clients will want to give you good feedback. Secondly, don’t leave it too late to ask. It’s much easier to get feedback when they are still in your afterglow than to interrupt their working lives a few weeks or months later when they might struggle to even remember the details of what made working with you such a pleasure.
Lastly, if you are looking for feedback in a particular area, don’t be afraid to give them a prompt—for example: “I’m particularly interested in hearing about how you think the project communication [or whatever] went.” Sometimes this makes it easier for them to respond than having a blank canvas to work from, and varying your prompt from client to client means you can gather a range of testimonials that cover all the important aspects of your work.
You've been working with websites since 1995. What’s one web design trend you believe will always feel relevant or timeless?
I believe the Swiss Style is the single biggest influence on web design because its principles align so closely with the principles of good website design. The principles of the Swiss Style include simplicity and clarity, effective use of white space, grid-based layouts, clean and highly readable typography, emphasis on typography instead of ornamental embellishment, and asymmetrical yet visually balanced arrangements.
You can see evidence of this influence everywhere in web design, including in Google’s Material Design framework, which has been the backbone of so many apps and websites over the last ten years. The Swiss Style has been with us since the 1950s, and I don’t see it disappearing anytime soon—no matter what the maximalists say! Good usability combined with harmonious design will never go out of fashion.
What is your favorite part about being a Circle member?
Community. Without question. I’ve never seen a more cooperative, helpful, and friendly community of strangers spread all around the world. I’ve met so many talented and passionate people, and I’ve learned a ton from them. It’s quite inspiring.
Key takeaways
The following are key insights from Miko’s interview:
The key to building long-term client relationships is to find the right balance between flexing your expertise and collaborating with your client
When developing the strategy for a client’s site, prioritize the visitor’s experience to ensure it meets real customer needs
Create beautiful and user-friendly websites by pairing usability with consistent visual design
Gain actionable feedback and stronger testimonials by asking clients targeted questions about your design process
Request reviews from clients within a few days of completing a project to gather their feedback while their experience with you is still fresh
Read more from Miko on the Circle blog:
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