Find out how to give designers feedback that will strengthen their design process and skills, plus make you a better design leader.
Giving good design feedback is hard. No surprise there. After all, designers put their all into their work, and no one wants to sink design-team morale.
But giving effective design feedback plays a major role in any successful project. Because design is a collaborative process, designers need clear direction just as much as they need the space to be creative.
The piano is one of the most versatile instruments in music, spanning several genres from classical to jazz and contemporary pop music. If you are a piano teacher, this diversity of styles should guarantee a steady flow of students, but without a good website, they simply won’t know who you are and how to get in touch. To help you establish a successful studio, we’ve put together four essential website design tips for piano teachers. Let’s begin our journey.
1. Embrace the Internet
The first step that many piano teachers need to take has less to do with domain names and javascript and more to do with their way of working. There was a time when piano teachers thrived through word of mouth referrals. You may still attract some students this way, but with increased competition and a highly mobile and selective generation of students (and their parents), one of the best ways to make yourself known is by using the internet.
The internet has also become an excellent medium for piano teachers who wish to further their education. Excellent programs like the online master of music in music education can be completed from any location thanks to the internet and Rutgers Online. You could even become a well-known authority on music just by publishing your views online or boost your reputation by posting videos of your performances, lessons, and masterclasses.
2. Get the Right Design – at an Affordable Budget
To harness the internet’s huge potential, you need the right website. You’ll want to use the services of a professional web designer, but don’t pay too much when you’re first starting out. With a budget of $500-$1,000, you should be able to get your website up and running with the right design and functionality to attract visitors and secure new students.
3. Don’t Promote Yourself – Sell the Experience You Offer
Today’s customer is wary of self-promoting teachers who fill their websites with information about their own achievements and fail to mention the true benefit of becoming a student: the enriching process of learning an instrument. While it’s important to mention your qualifications, awards, and achievements, it’s equally important to describe your teaching philosophy, the approach you take to students, and the things you do to develop students musically, spiritually and psychologically.
4. Answer Students’ Questions Before They Ask them
Students and parents searching for a new piano teacher usually have a few common questions in mind: has the teacher completed a college degree or online MMME Program? Do they take beginners? How much do they charge? Do they train students for enjoyment, prepare them for exams and competitions, or both?
What musical styles do they specialize in and can they teach across genres? Do they give lessons at their studio, at students’ homes, or via Skype? If your website answers these questions, you’re more likely to get queries from students who are a good fit for your studio.
Conclusion
With a well-designed, comprehensive website that introduces your skills, methodology and teaching philosophy to prospective students, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful piano teaching studio. The more time, patience, and effort you put into your website, the more successful you will be.
You’ve met with your client and defined your project’s goals. You understand the scope and have worked with the client to define a clear goal. You breathe a sigh of relief, knowing everything is in place for you to get started. But then things start to change …
Suddenly, the client has a better idea of what you can do to make the project a success, which, yes, will involve some additional work you didn’t talk about earlier. You’ve worked hard, but the client now wants to change direction, making everything you’ve done a waste. What you thought was a straight shot to launch has turned into a meandering journey through the backroads of indecision.
Welcome to the wonderful world of scope creep.
What is scope creep?
You’ve probably heard the term somewhere. But what is it? Is it some sort of curse? If you say “scope creep” three times in front of your laptop, will the simple website design you’re working on turn into an an email campaign, social media contest, anda logo redesign?
We all love free products to help us personally and professionally. But when it comes to free website builders, they’re not necessarily the best things to consider. While free web builders have their advantages in terms of a free website and the many free templates that come with them, there are many more disadvantages stacked up against them.
Website Builders Often Come Branded
It’s great for small businesses to be able to get their website online quickly and in the cheapest possible manner. However, free web builders often need to be linked back to the builder so your website will look unprofessional. Usually, at the bottom of your site, you will have a “powered by” link, and that generally consists of “Powered By Free Website Builder”. It doesn’t look professional at all and it will make customers think you’re not serious.
Such Builders Aren’t as “Free” as They Make Out
While the setup of a website using the builder’s features is often free, there are many other features that you could benefit from that aren’t free. For example, builders will give you disk space and bandwidth to keep your website online. However, you will usually miss out on other features such as email accounts, MySQL database, and sometimes even a parked/addon domain name – which means you’ll have to use their subdomain as well.
Limited Storage
We stated above that features are very limited and the storage and bandwidth often given to you aren’t beneficial. It will often run out quickly and that means your website is either going to go down or you’re going to be unable to upload additional content until you pay for extra features.
Limited Customization
Free Web Builders often make out they are easily customizable, and while that may be true, customization is limited. This means that you can only be as creative as the tool allows, which is something that puts many webmasters off. You will never get the chance to create that dream website you have set out to achieve, and in reality, the only way of achieving such a website is to get it custom made or take advantage of the many other resources out there.
Additional Advertisements
You will get the “powered by” link at the bottom of your site as basic, but some builders also require you to place advertisements. This isn’t at all professional, and often, you will have to advertise one of your competitors.
Free website builders, of course, provide many other benefits, but from looking at the disadvantages above, it would be much wiser to consider a free WordPress theme on a WordPress CMS installation. You’ll get more freedom and when your business grows you’ll also have access to premium themes.
If you have an online masters in business administration (online MBA), you will already know how important presentation is to a business. If you don’t have a degree, presentation of a website is the key to the success of any business.
Free web builders don’t give off the professional presentation that is often desired by customers, but they do provide many other benefits for smaller businesses on a tight budget, so they can be considered in that respect. You can also use web builders to create blogs but you should consider using WordPress; learn how to start a blog.
Pat Scott isn’t afraid to try new things. At nearly 98 years old, she’s a wiz with Photoshop and loves using mobile apps to draw portraits of her friends.
While it’s common to imagine people her age playing bridge or bingo, you can often find Pat in her office diligently playing with Photoshop, retouching images and designing greeting cards for loved ones. Or you may see her sneaking photographs of her neighbors and friends so she can duck away and use those photos to draw portraits on her iPad. Pat doesn’t call herself an artist, but she’s been making art her entire life. She moved from the dark room to the iPhone and from paint to digital when she moved into her two-bedroom apartment in a retirement community—and didn’t want to ruin the carpet.
The rapid upheaval of the graphic design industry from the 1950s to the 1990s was monumental. Introduction of the desktop computer revolutionised paste-up boards in studios to PDFs on laptops.
