Dress-making and web at online conference
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
I was feeling a bit immature in some of the chat rooms at the conference this weekend, made some comments, but refrained from shouting, “I love head! Give me more head!” but boy did I want to. I lazily decided not to attend the hub in London on friday, but watched some sessions at work. I sat in my armchair all evening saturday night, take-away curry occasionally landing on my pyjamas as I tried to balance my plate and type at the same time. And then sunday, I watched some great sessions while making a dress. Yep, I made a dress on sunday WHILE I WAS AT A CONFERENCE. Does this not sound brilliant to anyone else?
I’m sure I missed some great sessions, but I wanted to share some tidbits of wisdom I learned from the various speakers I did see. So, read on, kids! (and at the end, I promised to show you a full length picture of my new dress).
Paul Arnett, designer for clearleft,
spoke about easter eggs. You know, those little treasures that some people find, and when they them, they are delighted. He was talking a lot about his work on Silverback, that when you resized the window, it would create a 3-d effect. Here are some links from his talk:
http://demo.marcofolio.net/a_parallax_illusion_with_css/
Stephanie Booth
talked about her conference, going solo, suggesting that when you run things, it’s always best to have a partner on board, so that you only have to shoulder half the risk.
robert Hoekman
-asked us to understand users, then ignore them. For example, they asked people if there was a low carb burger, would they hypothetically buy it? Overwhelmingly, people said yes, but not in real life. In real life they didn’t sell any. Users don’t know themselves.
-He also said that people like to feel smart. A cluttered landing page make people feel stupid. Let them get started and productive as soon as possible, so that you become an intermediate user. Make transition from beginner to intermediate as quickly as possible. Make the design make it impossible to make a mistake.
He also stressed us to “Reduce reduce reduce!”
I asked him how to get management on board for reduction and reworking… he suggested:
1. do work under the radar. find tiny things you can do
2. track success to what you’ve done
3. then approach management, saying “here’s the things I’ve been doing and they’ve been really been making a difference”
4. build up a reputation based on these things and the next time you will have their trust to go ahead with it.
Besides Hoekan’s talk, my favourite was by
Paul Boag entitled, your design sucks.
The lecture on video can be found here. I just got so much out of it, I thought I’d write a summary. These ideas are in no way mine… I just like things written down….
He said that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the relationship between designer and client. In some cases you even give up– client ends up micromanage everything for the design, and it’s a terrible embarrassment.
Designers day of clients, “You’re not letting me do my job.”
Clients say of designers, “You always say no, you’re always so negative about my ideas.”
Relationship is broken.
So why is it broken?
1. There isn’t time.
Great design takes time, but spend so much time on technology, sales etc.
You need time to brief: laying the ground-work before you start designing: fundamental to getting client to agree to design concept, time to consider: let it go round and round in your head, and most importantly, time to refine: you often have to undercharge for that kind of work (because clients often don’t see the value).
2. You produce multiple concepts.
When you offer more than one design, it creates a pick and choose environment (ie. “I like that header, but I like the menu from the other one”). This creates a frankenstein and then you take on the role of a pixel pusher. We are more than that: we are experts, so take control!
3. You’re not confident in your role.
To be confident and create confidence, you need to set things up to inspire these feelings.
How do you do this?
1. Lay the groundwork…
a) present a methodology: You need an approach, which creates credibility. Setting expectations makes you an expert.
b) Get to know the business: What are the business objectives, success criteria, competitors, priorities, personas, user expectations?
c) set the mood: gets clients feeling involved. Ask them, “what kind of sites do you like?” Give them selection, and get their opinion on them and then create mood boards.
d) Present a design. Paul says that a good design doesn’t speak for itself, you need to explain, talk about motivation. He also suggests presenting a little and often, so the client vested in the design before they sign it off.
e) Avoid the homepage. Everyone starts with the homepage, but you should establish the style before you get to the homepage. Everyone has an opinion on the homepage, so ask for a priority, make a wireframe and get signoff on it before you start designing.
f) Never ever just email a design. You need to talk through your design, referencing background information, showing that you’re giving the client exactly what they asked for. Use 3rd party data whenever possible to back up and explain what you’ve done, and pre-empt common questions with responses.
My favourite example was that on white space… Asking them “which one do you like better, google or yahoo homepage?”, you will be told “google”.
h) Manage feedback. Control the client’s role: define it upfront: be problem-focused, not solution focused. They say, “I don’t want blue, I want pink” but you don’t know why they want it. Then get what the real problem is. Get them to focus on the business objectives. Stop worrying about the design esthetics (easier said than done!). Encourage them to be user focused… get them away from their personal preferences. In the end, limit that role, but make sure they have a valued contribution.
My worst habit is this one… I say, “What do you think?”, but this is the wrong question, because their personal impression doesn’t matter. Instead say, “How do you think your users will react?”
j) Committees. Design by committee sucks but it happens. So, try and present to all the stakeholders. He suggests that because certain individuals are always going to be troublemakers, and try and go talk to them individually, and get them on board. Always try and control the type of feedback you get and don’t allow them to meet in a group. A group will try and reach a compromise if they’re in a meeting room. This will lead to design on the fly (bad).
l) Record all the feedback you get from the client. Written record. Even over the phone, email them back confirming what they said.
m) Don’t ever say no to a client. But then tell them the consequences of the action and offer alternatives.
So yes, I learned a lot at the head conference, and I highly recommend people watching the recorded versions when they become available.
And here’s the dress!
(sorry, it’s from my iphone… will try and update it soon!)
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