Category Archives: Business

Never Mind the Process, Here’s the Finished Website

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Praise be to Karen McGrane, who dared to defend Lorem Ipsum. Her article couldn’t be more timely, as the festering sore that is the Cult of Content-is-King-and-Design-is-Just-a-Decorative-Sauce-on-the-Content-Entree has started to bleed profusely. And it’s pissing me off. As is the alarming thought trend that all deliverables should mimic the final product.

On content

Content is important. After all, it’s content people who come up with job titles like Content Strategist, which pretty much means One Who Thinks About Content. Which content, for whom, when, where, why, how… It’s absolutely necessary, because clients don’t do it. Not at the level that it should be done.

Paul Rand, one of the most well-respected designers this world has seen, called design “a method of putting form and content together”. If you would agree with this statement (as I do), you can infer the role of the designer as the one who must successfully combine two components: form and content (the designer will first busy herself with the form component). These two are not mutually exclusive. They are separate components which share a common goal and should be developed on a parallel track to one another. This, however, does not mean that they should be reviewed by the client together at every stage.

On clients

Two quick facts about clients:

  1. Many don’t know what they want, and when they do, they don’t know how to communicate it
  2. Many lack the imagination to “see through” design sketches

These are the reasons we are hired in the first place. But these two facts have paved a dangerous path across the lawn of the creative process. An alarming number of web professionals today seem to advocate making preliminary deliverables mimic the finished product– the more accurate, the better.

This is, well, stupid.

It’s not stupid if don’t track your hours. It’s not stupid if you don’t care if or how much you are paid for your work. It isn’t stupid if you don’t mind doing twice as much work for nothing. Your clients will love you for it, and you’ll be doomed to continue doing it for the rest of your career.

On designing in the browser

When Andy Clarke first started talking about “designing in the browser”, I thought it was a great idea. Then people started misinterpreting this to mean “executing the creative process in the browser”. If Andy really designed in the browser, his designs would be shit. What he was of course referring to was the execution of a design idea in the browser as opposed to a tool like Photoshop, which doesn’t communicate Web Things the way a browser does. He strives for more realism in his deliverables. He’s simply working based on the two Client Truths listed above. And if you’ve ever done designs in Photoshop, you’ll know that applying client changes to those documents is akin to cutting off your own fingers one knuckle at at time. HTML is much easier.

That said, there is certainly a place for Photoshop sketches. It’s possible to put together a quick visual impression of a website in far less time than it would take to work out in HTML. I’m referring to the basic idea of a website, an impression of the design language, intended to gauge if we are on the write track before spending many more hours mocking things up in HTML, which is, in fact, templating. I am not referring to creating finished static design visuals. These are the bane of the web designer’s existence, and should be avoided at all costs. If you really understand your client’s needs, that means you’ve done your homework, and you’ve actually designed before the browser. Otherwise: baby steps.

On communication

Imagine that your job was to drive your client somewhere. They aren’t quite sure where they want to go, but a lot of sun would be nice. And perhaps water. You could drive them to California, but once they hear about Florida, they might prefer that and demand that you drive them there (at your cost, because you’re the one who chose to go ahead and drive to California).

A better way would be to communicate with the client, asking them if they prefer dry heat or humidity, surfing or Spring Break parties, earthquakes or hurricanes. Based on this information, you could show and tell about both places, help them weigh the pros and cons, and help them in their decision. Then drive. Only then.

Making websites is a process. Creativity is a process. Pacing and leading clients is a process. You’re not going to eliminate frustration by trying to come up with real content, a polished design and working browser functionality on the first go. You will lose money, though, and perhaps your sanity.

There’s a reason for storyboards. But wait, shouldn’t Pixar just go ahead and build and render the complete movie so that the studio execs can see how it will really look?. Then, if they like it, it’s done! Yeah, right. Good luck with that.

There’s a reason that advertising teams consist of an art director and a copywriter: design and content. They’re bed buddies. But these teams pitch ideas, and then work them out. That’s why we have wireframes. That’s why we have Photoshop. That’s why we have Lorem Ipsum. And that’s why we have, most importantly, good old pencil and paper.

On balance

Here’s what I think: some web professionals want to focus more on deliverables than on people. But guess what: it’s all about people. We need to help our clients along and communicate with them. If you want good deliverables the first time around, the answer is not to use “real” content and a design which is in fact finished HTML/CSS/Javascript in a real browser. The answer is to ask focused questions, discover the pressing problems, to introduce your client to your potential solutions to those problems. Give them tidbits: here’s an impression of how the site could look visually. Here are some things you might want to consider concerning your content. Work your way up to real content in a real browser. When done right, that point can come quickly.

It’s too much to show a client all these things at once in the very beginning. There are too many factors, and it’s impossible to tell which factors will influence their opinions at that moment, which makes revision a nightmare at best. Of course content and form should each be developed with the other in mind. But consider presenting separately at first. Yes, that could mean that Lorem Ipsum is an option. That could mean that Photoshop is an option. That could mean that a sketch on a napkin, with a good, old-fashioned explanation of how things work, is an option. When you know enough, put form and content together.

On bed buddies

And forget the content versus design war. They need each other. In the words of Paul Rand, “when form predominates, meaning is blunted. but when content predominates, interest lags.”

Grip2009: a two-day workshop for web project leads

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It’s no secret to us web designers and developers that at least half of the factors contributing or detracting from web project success resides on the client’s side of the fence. While professional designers and developers know, understand and can exploit the success factors that belong to them, most clients don’t and/or can’t.

It’s for this reason that Eend and Cinnamon have spent a lot of time putting together a workshop which we feel will help clients, their project leads and/or managers to get the best out of the web shops they hire. The two-day workshop has been designed to expose clients to the potential success factors and pitfalls on their side of the project, and to give them the tools to use this knowledge to their advantage. The entire project process from bidding to post-launch evaluation will be examined. We’ve got great speakers with very high-level, client-side web project (management) expertise, as well as a few on the development side for a well-rounded whole.

Grip—or rather Grip2009, as this first workshop is called—will be held on November 17 and 18, 2009, at the very posh (no, not that POSH) Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

While there are plenty of workshops and conferences for developers on building better sites, there is little practical information for clients on how to ensure a successful web project. We’re excited about Grip2009. We hope it will give clients the tools they need to engage with their web contractors like never before.

Unfortunately, this first edition of Grip will be completely in Dutch. We haven’t ruled out an international (English) event for the near future.

For any Dutch readers, here’s the press release (feel free to distribute):

BEGIN PERSBERICHT —

Grip2009 – Tweedaagse workshop voor webprojectleiders

Op 17 en 18 november 2009 wordt in Grand Hotel Karel V te Utrecht een tweedaagse workshop voor opdrachtgevers van webprojecten gegeven: Grip2009. Het programma is samengesteld door ervaren internetprofessionals en levert, naast nuttige tips, bruikbare kennis en vaardigheden uit de praktijk om grip te krijgen op webprojecten. De nieuwe workshop, die dit jaar voor het eerst wordt gegeven, richt zich op opdrachtgevers die hun internetprojecten beter willen begeleiden.

Voor opdrachtgevers van webprojecten bij het bedrijfsleven, not-for-profit-organisaties en de overheid is er momenteel weinig concrete en in de praktijk bewezen informatie beschikbaar hoe deze projecten tot een succes zijn te maken. Dat verandert met de komst van Grip2009. De workshop is bij uitstek geschikt voor mensen die aan klantzijde betrokken zijn bij de inkoop, de ontwikkeling en het beheer van internetprojecten, of mensen die een carrièrestap overwegen in deze richting.

Er zijn maximaal 60 plaatsen beschikbaar voor dit unieke evenement. Snelle beslissers kunnen tot 16 oktober profiteren van een flinke korting. Meer informatie vindt u op: www.grip2009.nl

EINDE PERSBERICHT —

Use Wordle to visualize client documents

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When in direct contact with clients, there are many different things we can read in order to get information to help us do our job even better—which, let’s face it, is to give our clients what they want while catering to what they need, in a way which conforms to our own standards of quality. The information the client voluntarily provides is the primary source of input for a project, but things we can pick up on outside of the main message can be relevant as well:

  • personal taste of the client
  • personal taste of the spouse of the client (oh, yes, it’s true) or other stakeholders
  • body language
  • use of language and tone-of-voice (whether written or spoken)
  • etc. (I’m sure you can think of quite a few)

Use of language

Use of language is an interesting one. I’m an American working in Holland, so when I write proposals in Dutch, I might not be choosing the very best words to describe what I mean because there’s always a limit to my vocabulary compared to that of a native speaker. Even within my native American English, I’m sure my vocabulary is quite limited (although I’d love to attribute that fact to
the 80/20 rule). But language barriers aside, when one’s vocabulary offers more than one word to describe something, the choice of word can say a lot about the way the person approaches a given subject. Choice of words, very much like choice of clothing or choice of music, can give tiny bits of insight into personal preference, corporate politics (in the form of resentment or rebellion), level of expertise on web-related issues and sometimes even hidden meaning.

This very simple process would involve determining which meaningful words a client uses, and how often they use them. By meaningful I mean giving little or no value to adjectives, conjunctions and the like. “The” is not going to tell us much.

How to do it

With the spoken word this is hard to do. You can’t get an exact count of specific words while talking to a client. And if you could, you’d look like an asshat. Personally, I tend to make mind maps during client meetings, which by definition means that I’m only writing down keywords in relation to each other. Mind mapping also minimizes writing time, which allows me to pay more attention.

When you get written material from a client, like an RFP or a project brief, there’s a cool way to do it: Wordle. Wordle is a fantastic little tool which examines a piece of text, counts the words and creates a treemap-like visualization of these words. The most-used word is largest, while the least-used is smallest. And with options for colors, fonts and placement, Wordle word clouds look nice as well.

Wordle visualization of this post

Play around

Try it out. Take a document in which your client explains what she wants or expects of your current project (or any correspondence, for that matter) and throw it into Wordle. See if it tells you something you hadn’t noticed by simply reading. Oh: Don’t save your client’s stuff in the Wordle gallery. Thank you.

Please note that in dealing with clients it would be foolish to rely on word analysis alone, but it could be a nice addition to one’s toolbox. Since clients often expect us to read their minds, we might as well oblige as best we can.