subvisual » management http://subvisual.net busy days, full head… must write this stuff down. Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:04:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Defining the undefinable http://subvisual.net/ideas/defining-the-undefinable/ http://subvisual.net/ideas/defining-the-undefinable/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:29:02 +0000 adam http://subvisual.net/?p=50 Continue reading →]]> Today was a day of meetings. In one afternoon session we reviewed some new proposals for an existing client. It’s been almost a week since the feedback meeting from our initial proposal, and things are all looking very positive, but the client manager feels under pressure to follow up with revised proposals and costs. So we are meeting to 1) get the report back from the client meeting, 2) think up some features to add to the list, and 3) plan a way forward. “We need to show them something…” This is probably familiar to anyone in a design or creative agency. Managers want to jump into pleasing their clients. Perhaps it’s nervousness, or an understanding of clients that I don’t get. But it’s this approach that leads us to create complete static high definition Photoshop mock-ups before any functionality has been discussed or content has been written. Never mind research, identification of user needs, definition of requirements and consideration of the design’s technical feasibility, the client apparently doesn’t understand these or want them anyway. They want to see their logo bigger. And a blue background. In situations like this the Photoshop designs become the specification, and the development team are left too little time to interpret this vagueness into something that works in a browser, while the pixel shift design and sign-off merry-go-round with the client continue to eat up all the remaining project time, and we need to deliver. Now. “The functional spec? oh never mind that, it’s too technical for the client, they won’t understand it”

I am by no means a stickler for paperwork and requirements or over burdening a project with admin. I think there is something in approaches like 37 Signals’ Getting Real, where the most important verbs in the interface come first, and the initial spec can be sketched on a napkin with a ballpoint.

As a developer I like the idea of an agile approach, jumping straight into code and trying out a few things with test users, or even real users, and adapting to feedback with new, quick releases. But the brand custodians, and the managers in creative agencies are nervous of this kind of gun slinging approach. And perhaps rightly so. The project and budget could disappear down an iterative whirlpool, get stuck in a recursive loop, or simply fail to launch.

In the design agency world we tend to have this version of ourselves where we sell our great ideas to the client with a bit of a bang. Revealing our process is bad. We think they are paying us for our moments of genius. We are the hot shot “creative guys…”

I think in practice, neither the agile or the big bang approaches are quite right for web design. Something between could work. We need to temper our egos and work consistently towards a big release. A product needs to take shape, not be drip released or served on a platter after a brain storming meeting. Ideas need to be invented, tested, thrown away, reabsorbed and simplified. A plan needs to be laid out, with stages of progression towards a final release. Decisions need to be made, and communicated to all concerned. Feedback needs to be gathered, and converted into something useful.

Involve the client in this process, and they will understand it. They will feel like they are getting “something” because every stage is building on the previous one. And apart from the sense of involvement, they’ll get a better product for it. If our client manager gets that from our meeting this afternoon (I think he did) we may have the chance to put the thought into producing something really good.

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