How to present web design?

I have always been tormented by the question of how many designers and entire studios draw 5-10 variants of a website design and cannot sell it to a client. I think this happens for two reasons. The first is the incorrect statement of the problem by the client or the wrong understanding of the task by the studio, we will discuss this problem later. The second reason is the lack of presentation of the design to the client.

To each his own

First of all, it is worth mentioning the well-known truth - the client is different from the client. Therefore, there is no standard recipe for everyone and each time we all have to pervert and supplement this or that scheme with additional “spices”. But all clients can be very roughly divided into three parts according to the level of readiness for dialogue with the studio:

• Low. The client makes the website for the first time, has no experience or specialists who can adequately listen to the arguments of the studio. Trying to bring their ideas from the "offline".
• Average. The client knows the essence of the matter, knows what tasks he wants to solve when creating a website. He may not have much technical experience, but he is ready to trust the studio to a certain extent. Moderately careful.
• Tall. The client himself knows all the aspects that should be taken into account when developing web-design; he is more a supervisory body than a controlling body.

Here is a very interesting opinion on the classification of clients from version 1.0 to 3.0 :) Accordingly, the higher the level of client readiness, the less time is required for re-presentation and the easier it is to carry out. Below is a small graph of this dependence (10 - the highest level of the client).

')





As can be seen from this graph, if the client has an average level of readiness, then the presentation should not take more than 30 minutes. At the very same low level, the presentation time may exceed an hour, which is already hard and not very productive. In case of high availability, you can discuss everything in 5 minutes with the client, checked :)

Some more factors

But above, we took into account only the level of client readiness, which is the main factor, but not the only one. In addition, there are two important factors:

1. The complexity of the project. The larger and more complex the project, the more time it will take to present it.
2. Number of participants. And again, the more people will be at the presentation, the longer it will take place.

But, the curve will remain the same. If on the first chart we had a simple one-on-one website presentation. Then you can see below how the curve will move during the presentation of the project of the average “one to three”.







It is already clear that with the representatives of a client of average readiness for a more complex project we will need more time. Well, the more difficult the project and the more participants of the presentation, the longer we will fight :)

Presentation structure

The whole presentation of the website design can be divided into several parts, the length of which varies depending on the level of client readiness.

1. Introduction Remind us of what we wanted to achieve, what tasks we set and in what framework they needed to be completed. Try not to neglect the introduction, it refreshes the memory and directs the client in the right direction. Remind the main task of the presentation - the approval of the concept. Explain to the client what he should pay attention to and what is irrelevant at this stage in order to avoid questions like “why is the section called wrong?”
2. Location information. Tell us about why one or another layout was chosen, what goals the choice pursued, what emphasis was made and, most importantly, how it affects the implementation of the tasks.
3. Registration. Argue with the choice of colors and design elements (whether the requirements are set in a corporate style or something new).
4. How it will live. Tell the client how it will look in real life, which blocks will change more often, which less often. What freedom the client will have to work with this design.
5. About the future. What are the ideas for the development of design in the future. Tell your ideas, or ideas of employees of the client, even if these ideas are not planned for implementation right now.
6. Listen and discuss. Listen to all opinions, even if they are stupid, write down everything, it will allow you to form a more complete picture of the client.
7. Summarize. Summarize, fix it with the client and outline the following steps (changes in design, creating a new one).

Below is an approximate scheme of dividing the structure of the presentation, depending on the level of client readiness.







Simple conclusions can be drawn from the scheme - the higher the client's level of preparedness, the more the conversation goes essentially, attention to design decreases, and attention to the location of information and how it will live now and in the future increases. The lower the level of customer preparedness, the more you have to protect the design and remind you of the tasks.

From personal experience

From my personal experience I can share some brief conclusions.

1. A presentation in its essence will be useless if it does not have a decision maker.
2. The presentation will turn into a farce if it will be more than 7-9 people.
3. All will lose the thread of conversation, if the presentation is longer than 40-45 minutes (on average).
4. Present on the screen (or projector) and print out notes.
5. Never show only one page of the website, you will immediately be confronted with the question “what will happen next?”
6. Do not make a presentation of two concepts at once, most likely none will be chosen.
7. Try not to argue with the client, write down his ideas (of course, if this is not complete nonsense), then you will disassemble them.
8. Try to find out who exactly will be at the presentation and what is the competence of each of those present.
9. This is not a presentation: sending a sketch by e-mail, a call with an explanation by phone. This should be avoided in all possible ways. When working remotely with clients, you can use any online services for the presentation.