Discuss: Stand and Deliver

by David Sleight

1 Untitled

I totally agree with your intuitive viewpoints. May be the beginners like me shall concentrate on these basic fundamentals as described by you Sir.
It’s really nice reading it.

posted at 09:39 am on May 8, 2007 by website design

Webdesign is an interdisciplinary art. We do design, we write code, we know about legal issues and so on. After all, websites are part of a companys communication efforts. So we must also know how to communicate. And that includes knowing how to sell. And that includes knowing how to sell ones own ideas.

I second what is being said in the article. Stay focused on what you have to say. Take it as a chance, not as an arduousness.

posted at 10:10 am on May 8, 2007 by Oliver Bertschinger

3 Webdesign?

Was there anything specific to webdesign in this article? Not that anything was wrong, all the points are important. They are important for webdesigners and everyone else. But I’m used to more in-depth articles on ALA than this one.

posted at 12:33 pm on May 8, 2007 by Eugen Bopp

4 Great work!

I totally agree with your intuitive viewpoints. Brilliant idea. Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles David. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. Greetings

posted at 02:41 pm on May 8, 2007 by Tomek Gorski

5 Subjectivity

I thoroughly enjoyed the article and it brought out a point that I always wrestle with when showing my work.. subjectivity. I liked the advice given for dealing with the somewhat subjective nature of design. I have always tried to approach this problem with cohesive reasons and answers, not always successfully. There is always the stopper when a client says “I just don’t like it”… unfortunately reason doesn’t work in that situation!!!

posted at 04:03 pm on May 8, 2007 by Jeffrey Saks

6 Specifics

Eugen: To be honest, you’re right–there isn’t a lot about the article that’s super specific to web design. That’s intentional. Ultimately I wanted to have something that I’d feel comfortable handing to a new staffer in memo form, so a lot of what’s discussed is fairly universal and easy to digest. That said, what I mentioned in the intro still stands: the techniques discussed function best when used iteratively, which is a notion that web designers should be particularly adept at. That’s true for design in general, but there’s so much of our craft to which that notion is core.

Jeffrey: The question, “What does this do?” actually sprang up as a reply to “I just don’t like it.” A way to shift the tone of the conversation away from “feelings” and over to “facts”. It won’t always work, but the conversation that results is almost always far more constructive.

Oliver: Thanks for the kind words.

posted at 07:15 pm on May 8, 2007 by David Sleight

7 Untitled

There is always the stopper when a client says “I just don’t like it�?… unfortunately reason doesn’t work in that situation!!!

… Except to point out that it’s not about the client, it’s about the end customer. You are delivering a site for the customer to use. The proper defense is to test it against real users and if the response if favorable, you can explain that it’s good for business.

posted at 07:18 pm on May 8, 2007 by John Lascurettes

8 Beat to the punch

David explained it in more broad terms while I was still wrestling on how to do a blockquote with Textile.

posted at 07:20 pm on May 8, 2007 by John Lascurettes

9

David explained it in more broad terms while I was still wrestling on how to do a blockquote with Textile.

Ha! I heard that.

posted at 09:10 pm on May 8, 2007 by Jeffrey Zeldman

10 Feelings, nothing more than feelings...

I’m often guilty of going way beyond the 30-second rule, and this may require mastery to claim Zeldman-level professionalism (Nice article, Jeffrey -Thanks!). Every designer/producer feels something welling up inside when a client rejects that brilliant idea. Explaining with examples from experience, and belief (based on facts) seems like it would take much longer than half a minute.

Isn’t it gratifying when a client sees your point after concise explanation and agrees? One bit of advice (from experience) is to control your body language when a client explains their opinions, whether affirming or negative. And be ever so careful with email correspondence!

BTW, did some colors change on the site? I don’t really like #E6412F in the header and titles :-)

posted at 10:21 pm on May 8, 2007 by Kevin Davison