Last month I read all thirty-one reviews clients have written about working with me since 2021. I expected to find praise for particular screens or a clever interaction. I found almost none.

The word design appears in fewer than half of them. The words that appear most are clear, calm and on time. That was humbling for about a day and useful ever since.

What clients remember

Clients remember how the project felt. They remember whether they knew what was happening on a Tuesday afternoon, and whether a difficult conversation happened early or late.

Nobody wrote about a button. Eleven people wrote about a Friday email.

Eleven reviews mention the same small habit: a short note every Friday with what was done, what is next and what I need from them. It takes me fifteen minutes. It is apparently the most valued thing I deliver.

What I changed

Reading the reviews as data led to four changes in how I run projects. None of them involve a design tool.

• The Friday note is now in every contract, not a habit I might skip.

• Bad news travels the same day, with a proposed fix attached.

• Every project has one named decision maker on the client side.

• Handoff includes a recorded walkthrough, so the work survives staff changes.

Thirty-one reviews, sorted by the words they use most. Craft is assumed. Clarity is noticed.

There was one more pattern. The lowest rating I have received, a four, came from the project with the most beautiful result. We had argued about scope in the final week because I had not written it down clearly at the start.

The average is 4.9 and I am proud of it. But the lesson of the reviews is that the craft is the minimum. People hire a designer for the screens and recommend one for everything around them.