My Mom Doesn't Like the Font—Applying UX to Design Presentations for Better Client Feedback

MY MOM DOESN'T LIKE THE FONT

SARAH MILLS@starsoup7

“Selfie Inception”Ayesha Badhwar

Feedback What has and hasn’t worked for you?

What wasn’t covered that you had expected to be?

What metrics can we use to quantify success?

What’s the craziest feedback you’ve ever gotten?


Not useful feedback• My mom doesn't like

the font

• I don’t love it

• Play with it, I’ll know it when I see it

• Why is this wireframe so gray

• Make that button blue

= Task failure• High bounce rate

• No email sign-ups

• High cart abandonment

• Low social sharing

• High site search usage

Your client is a user of your service.

Defining goals

User Journey

Personas

Accessibility

Content strategy

Interface structure

Testing and Feedback

This talk is structured around items in a UX toolkit:

Success:you want not just approval, but meaningful feedback that improves the work and allows it to best meet goals

GOAL DEFINITION

To be able to complete the task (give useful feedback) clients must understand:

strategy

design principles in use

context

unique problems being solved

common misconceptions

GOAL DEFINITION

Hiring Process StrategyDiscovery Competitive

LandscapeUser

ResearchWireframes/

Prototypes

Branding/Moodboard/

Styletile

client A

ideal user journey USER JOURNEY

Hiring Process StrategyDiscovery Competitive

LandscapeUser

ResearchWireframes/

Prototypes

Branding/Moodboard/

Styletile

client A

realityclient B

client C’s mother

Debbie in accounting

client C

USER JOURNEY

Client state of mind, goals and motivations

“Welcome to the world of internal dysfunction. Bob is your client and Bob is in a power struggle with Mary, but you need to get information from Mary to do the job, but Bob doesn’t want you to talk to Mary because he’s afraid he’ll look weak, or he doesn’t want Mary to know what’s going on. There’s no way this ends well.”

— Mike Monteiro, Design is a Job

PERSONAS

technical and environmental constraints = accessibility

ACCESSIBILITY

#FFB81C

Help them to remember and share

Desert Orange

• storytelling• bite size content• “thingyness"

CONTENT STRATEGY

“We’re using progressive disclosure to maximize influencer engagement against KPIs, through a core set of CTAs defined in the MVP. We feel that the atomic approach to your dynamic v. evergreen content will allow us to double down strategically on the audience centric rivers that will drive user pathing through side door traffic. Do we need to talk with HQ about this or go directly to the BUs?”

use a consistent vocabulary but avoid jargon

CONTENT STRATEGY

error handling CONTENT STRATEGY

“Thanks for your initial comments. I had some specific questions that I wanted feedback on.”

“That’s great high-level feedback, but can we go through the design point by point so I can get your input on each of the decisions we made?”

“Ok. Now pretend you’re a user of the system and walk me through how you would accomplish the most important tasks.”

— Dan M. Brown, Designing Together

CONTENT STRATEGY

don’t forget, YOU are the primary element of the experience

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

presentation tools INTERFACE STRUCTURE

be contextual INTERFACE STRUCTURE

review strategy and goals

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

define terms, guide evaluation, and highlight critique points

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

be explicit about what great feedback looks like

https://wonderfulfeedback.com/client/

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

explain how you solve the problem

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

highlight relevant design principles

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

describe common misconceptions, before they come up

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

show design in context

put notes and description in the same screen

INTERFACE STRUCTURE

test and practice the presentation

“Like building muscle memory, repetition is important here. Problem solving skills are cumulatively learned. We want to keep practicing. As we critique each other’s techniques, saying what we like about them, we can incorporate them into our own and get better with practice.”

— Jared M. Spool, Developing a UX Practice of Practicing

TESTING AND FEEDBACK

the questions you ask

Asking “Do you like it?” …The client didn’t hire you to make something they liked, and something they like may not be the thing that leads to their success. So do not conflate the two…And nowhere is this message more undermined than using language that leads them down a subjective path.

—Mike Monteiro, 13 Ways Designers Screw Up Client Presentations


AFTER THE PRESENTATION



thinks the typeface doesn't have enough contrast to be legible to older readers

special thanks to

Nguyet Maggie Joshua

What has and hasn’t worked for you?

What wasn’t covered that you had

expected to be?

What metrics can we use to quantify success?

What’s the craziest feedback

you’ve ever gotten?

THANKS! [email protected] @starsoup7