Mar
The next thing is dealing with responses like:
“I just don’t like it. I think it’s wrong for our brand.”
Every designer will cry and die a little inside, and instantly turn that perceived attack into an inner monologue line something along the lines of:
“What the fuck do you know? You’re an accountant who looks at numbers all day! You’re basically an emotionless robot so go suck it 3½ inch floppy!”
Well Mr. Grumpy, turn that frown upside down. It’s time to use a bit of designy jujitsu magic on this character. Take the criticism, find a positive (if there is one) and treat it as an opened door. If they don’t like what you have, that’s great; you know what not to do.
Look at it from their view:
You’re possibly someone who has been in the same career for a long time, you know it backwards but you don’t know anything outside of that. So you haven’t seen cool since the 70’s and been asked to critique something by a young, hip upstart who you secretly envy, you’re sure that you’re gonna make yourself look stupid. You’re not a designer and you probably don’t know much about what makes things look good or bad. You’re clearly out of your depth so what do you do? You state you’re instant opinion, and then try to pick it apart, establish a level-playing field.
Considering that, and the fact that this dude’s going to pay you, you’re not going to go on the offensive are you? That would be counter productive for everyone; you’re both on the same side after all right? So I try to ‘look on the bright side’, welcome criticism, take it on board and think about what caused their response and how to create a better one next time.
The most important thing I do when I’m up for feedback is to challenge the client. If they don’t like it, I need to know why, so I ask. The same applies if they think it’s awesome. Information and communication during feedback is vital and can easily be pivotal to the project’s success or at least to speed up completion. So don’t be scared of feedback, welcome it. For God’s sake you need it, more than you may think.
Feb
Every designer has to deal with feedback on a regular basis, cue the weasel in the corner saying:
“Erm excuse me, not every designer. What if you’re designing for one of your own projects?”
That be the case you should still be seeking external input. The first rule of design is: don’t design for yourself; don’t design what you think is right purely because that’s what you like. You need to make informed decisions. So if the prat in the corner pipes up with a disagreement of that, fuck him; you can’t design in a box, you need to absorb the outside world.
So anyway, feedback, it can be an enlightening time or it can cast clouds over your colourful head making you regret ever undertaking the project. To help me through these times I like to keep a few things in mind when, because there is no ‘if’, I’m looking for feedback. Now this may apply more to certain guises of designers than it does to others, it’s more of a general rule of thumb.
Firstly, and it might seem obvious but it’s easily overlooked by getting your head trapped in other things, at the beginning, keep it simple. What you show, should be easily digested in seconds leaving more time for the feedback, which you may think is going to provide you with more problems, but trust me feedback is SO important.
If the client understands what you are going for quickly, they will believe that their viewers will do the same; then you’re onto a winner! That doesn’t mean you have to use greyscale to avoid any hard-line decisions on colour, or wireframe with the simplest tool available, it simply means leave out the guff for now. We all need a bit of guff, but be patient. If you provide a layout, concept etc that has a minimalist look, with room for additions, yet still manages to get across the desired message quickly, you’re shit’s on fire (in a good way).
Experience has shown me that more often than not your client will be pleased, and suggest things to ‘improve’ the look or functionality. Fantastic! They now feel that they are more involved, and that they have made a contribution. BAM! Everyone’s happy; you have things to do and think about when you head back to the office, and they feel they have, in an industry that people think is smoke and mirrors, taken a peek at the inner workings.
Of course the level of simplicity is purely up to you, but if you’re a good designer you’ll know what is right, and if you’re not, take inspiration from the work of a good designer and strip it to it’s simplest form…it’s a learning curve Yo.
The next thing is dealing with responses which I’ll rant about in my next post
Jan
A note to my future clients; you are about to experience a great deal of pain, but you will be happy that you did once you get to the end of the tunnel, which will also be the start of the journey too. UX, a clever acronym of User Experience, (see what they did there?) is the impression a system or device’s design, architecture, and interaction has on the intended user. I say, “intended” as if you are selling S&M equipment through the internet, you probably shouldn’t be interested in how the site’s architecture might make a more fluid purchasing experience for a 10 year old.
When it comes to examining your UX (user experience) you will likely think you know pretty much all there is to know. There is nothing wrong with that, other than you’re wrong of course. You are not a user, you are likely a creator and you have already mentally mapped out what the user should do and how he/she should go about it. The truth is that the very fact that you are the creator makes you much more likely to be blind to the obvious user.
Not to worry, help is always at hand. There are a bunch of blogs, articles and books out there to help raise some key points that you may have missed when thinking about what the user may be thinking. You may be thinking that you’re the lucky to be living in an age where all this is just a few clicks away. Well you are, damn lucky! So don’t be a dumb ass and ignore this luck, don’t say, “hey it’s all out there, I’ll get round to it later.” That attitude is not one belonging to winners, and you want to be a winner, don’t you?
You may however think that the seas of cheese that you may have to sail through to get anything worth using is more of a nautical nightmare than your time is worth. In which case you would benefit from buying someone like me a coffee sometime.
In the end, we are not going to be able to tell you much you cannot find out on your own. But we all know this, that is why we are called upon, because we have already experienced all that cheese, and we have read the literature and sponged up as much knowledge as we can. Possibly more important than that, we find it invaluable for our clients to be taken through the journey of the user, examine all stages of the UX and make changes accordingly. Optimisation is a freakin’ painful experience for companies, but the results are enough to make you wet your pants with excitement while your bank manager dabs them dry. Not only that, your users will feel as though they have gently floated through the experience in a cloud of colour comparable to a hint of THC, and as long as they are happy to part with a few shiny trinkets of currency along the way, everyone’s suddenly a winner.
Dec
I have been on the geographic social network Foursquare for a while now, and although I have not racked up many friends, mainly because not many people use it in the part of the UK that I am in, I have found it pretty nifty. Nice to see recommendations from people about certain venues that I frequent, but more than that I enjoy the little badges you get for various activities I do.
However the penny finally dropped when I attended a networking event at The Baltic and I we were urged to check in on Gowalla and Foursquare. I did so, and because I had previously done so when I visited The Baltic, I became the Mayor no less. I know! A couple of people tweeted about my new found position that night too and the following morning, slightly hung over, I received an email from a rep of The Baltic congratulating me and asking for my address so they could send me some goodies and a VIP ticket to an event! Great Scott! The power of Foursquare, and Gowalla for that matter was suddenly revealed to me.
If companies are prepared to give away stuff just because I visited their establishment a few times, imagine what the B2B side can open up. Well I have, and the obvious one is that companies recommend venues for certain things in return for plugs, but more than that I would like to see businesses getting together and communicating promotions, launches, events and such on these geo sites. At the end of the day these services are yet another medium of communicating with your audience.
Dec
I’m an avid follower of Carsonified, and their blog Think Vitamin. They have recently started podcasting, which I enjoy listening to, and I particularly find Mike Kus to have a lot of great information on design, especially for young designers.
In Episode 4 of the podcast Mike mentioned a video of how when he designs, he does not stick to a particular formula, which is was a lot of young designers think is the key to producing good design.
Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard – Slides in 3 Minutes from Carsonified on Vimeo.
I remember, as a student I was told to follow a mapped out formula by my lecturers. Luckily I was rather an arrogant student, thinking I knew it all, so disregarded advice that came my way and hurled myself into whatever my project was with all the best intentions, but little planning or strategy. Often I was lucky to produce some workable concepts, but the truth is, even now I have not moved too far from this technique. You may be thinking that it’s all a big steaming load, but my ‘process’ if you will, is to get fully involved, possibly get lost a bit, but always find my way back and drag something useful out of my brain as I return. In my mind, it’s exactly that full involvement that allows me to be creative.
Of course, this is not the case for every designer, and following a formula is in no way a guarantee that you are going to produce fantastic designs. So as far as advice goes, do whatever works for you. Designers are artists after all, so don’t let people tell you how to perform, perform the way that you perform best, just never lose sight of that golden rule in design; never design for yourself, and you can’t go far wrong.