How to present web design?

I was always tormented by the question of how many designers and entire studios draw 5-10 options for website design and can not sell it to a client in any way. I think this happens for two reasons. The first is an incorrect statement of the problem on the part of the client or an incorrect understanding of the problem on the part of the studio, we will talk about this problem later. The second reason is the lack of presentation of design to the client.

To each his own

To begin with, it is worth mentioning the well-known truth to everyone - there is discord for the client. Therefore, a standard recipe does not exist 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 their level of readiness for dialogue with the studio:

• Low. The client makes the website for the first time, does not have the experience or specialists who can adequately listen to the arguments of the studio. Trying to bring his ideas from offline.
• Average. The client knows the essence of the matter, knows what tasks he wants to solve by creating a website. May not have much technical experience, but is ready to some extent trust the studio. To the best of caution.
• Tall. The client himself knows all the aspects that should be considered when developing web design; he is more of a supervisory authority than a controlling one.

Here is a very interesting opinion on the classification of clients from version 1.0 to 3.0 :) Accordingly, the higher the level of customer readiness, the less time is required for re-presentation and the easier it is to conduct it. Below is a small graph of this dependence (10 is 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 lowest level, the presentation time can exceed an hour, which is already difficult and not very productive. In the case of high availability with the client, you can discuss everything in 5 minutes, verified :)

A few more factors

But above we took into account only the level of preparedness of the client, 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 there are at the presentation, the longer it will take.

But, the curve will remain the same. If on the first chart we had a presentation of a simple one-on-one website. Then below you can see how the curve moves during the presentation of a one-on-three project of medium complexity.



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

Presentation structure

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

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 guides the client in the right direction. Remind the main objective of the presentation - the approval of the concept. Explain to the client what he should pay attention to and what is not essential at this stage in order to avoid questions like “why is the section called wrong?”
2. Location information. Tell us about why this or that layout was chosen, what goals the choice pursued, what emphasis was made and, most importantly, how this affects the implementation of the tasks.
3. Decor. Argument the choice of colors and design elements (whether it is requirements set in the corporate style or something new).
4. How will it 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 us your ideas, or the ideas of the client’s employees, 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, this will allow you to form a more complete picture of the client.
7. Summarize. Summarize, fix it with the client and outline the next steps (design changes, creating a new one).

Below is an example of a division of the structure of a presentation depending on the level of preparedness of the client.



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

From personal experience

From my personal experience I can share some brief conclusions.

1. A presentation will be inherently useless if it does not have a decision maker.
2. The presentation will turn into a booth if there are more than 7-9 people on it.
3. Everyone will lose the thread of conversation if the presentation is longer than 40-45 minutes (average).
4. Present on the screen (or projector) and print out notes.
5. Never show only one page of a website, immediately run into the question "what will happen next?"
6. Do not make a presentation of two concepts at once, most likely not one will be selected.
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 exactly who will be at the presentation and what each competence has.
9. Not a presentation: sending a sketch by e-mail, a call with an explanation by phone. This should be avoided in every possible way. When working remotely with clients, you can use any online services for presentation.