Designers are often faced with the tough task of presenting their work to clients, both internal and external. What do you do when the best feedback you get back is from secret stakeholders (like their mom) or is focused on the small details (like the size of the logo) rather than the larger design?
First of all, don't panic. Senior designer Sarah Mills, from Atlantic Media Strategies, has been in this situation before, and will share her personal experience and tips for applying UX thinking to getting meaningful feedback from stakeholders. Learn how to make the most of your client presentations and not get bummed out by comments from your client's mom.
3. 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?
5. Notusefulfeedback
• 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
= Taskfailure
• High bounce rate
• No email sign-ups
• High cart abandonment
• Low social sharing
• High site search usage
12. Clientstateofmind,
goalsandmotivations
“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
15. “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
useaconsistent
vocabulary
butavoidjargon
CONTENT STRATEGY
17. “Thanks for your initial comments. I had
some specific questions that I wanted
feedback on.”
“That’sgreathigh-levelfeedback,butcanwego
throughthedesignpointbypointsoIcanget
yourinputoneachofthedecisionswemade?”
“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
28. testandpracticethe
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
29. thequestionsyouask
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
TESTING AND FEEDBACK
33. 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!
starsoup7@gmail.com
@starsoup7