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Welcome to Designers of the Round Table, a monthly spot where I sit down with our design team and pose a question about how they work, how they would solve a problem, or what tool works best in a certain situation. Enjoy this brief peek into our designers’ minds. 🖌

How do you sell your design to the client?

Sara Daguanno: It depends on the client. It starts early on in the kickoff, actively listening to what they want and learning their language so you can level with them when it comes down to presenting.

David Klawitter: Learning their business goals, definitely.

Mary Beth Snyder: Learning the client’s goals, and what success looks like to them, helps with the whole process.

Shawn Golden: Saying it in their language is also important, so everyone is on the same page. Basically staying away from jargony design language.

David: Telling the story is something that took me a long time to figure out. Very early on when I presented, it would be super simple, like, “I used your brand colors. What do you think?”

Shawn: “What do you think?” and “Your thoughts?” typically aren’t the best questions to ask. Specific questions are good to get specific types of feedback. This way, the client, even if having trouble expressing feedback, will have specific concepts to hold onto and provide feedback on.

Mary Beth: Asking these questions and building that rapport from the start, not three months down the road, will help get everything started. You need design approval before the team can start to build.

Shawn: With feedback, in general, listening to the business expert in the situation is very helpful. There are valuable details within that feedback.

Sara: It’s also about being able to sift through their opinions. Not dismissing them, but sifting through why they want something a certain way and then coming up with a solution. Combining our design expertise and their industry expertise.

David: We are also having to see not just the design but also thinking to the team. Let’s work together to solve the real problem.

Mary Beth: I like to get buy-in from the development team before I go in front of a client so that what I am selling is actually possible. Not necessarily getting down into the nitty gritty of all details, but to just get another good look at it and vet it.

What if a client really doesn’t like the design?

Mary Beth: Hopefully you’ve learned more about what they don’t like. Is it something as simple as a dark vs. light interface? Or is it something more similar to, “there’s nothing standing out to me?” No clear call to actions? I usually sit with the feedback, and think about it, and continue to iterate.

Shawn: If I get to that point, asking questions and intent listening are key. Dark vs. light interface, they may talk to you about their branding and their colors, which can then reveal business aspects that are important that we didn’t consider or understand previously. Take the feedback and walk backwards to the business goals and see what you can find. Backing up with them and finding that place where we’ve diverged.

Sara: Also, keep your sights on who is the actual decision-maker. A lot of people from other departments may be there, and they have weight and it’s good to listen, but ultimately you need to know who the main client is.

Mary Beth: Even if there is an identified project owner, they value the opinions of their peers , so it’s about having a balance.

Shawn: There are several stakeholders and several layers of feedback. To get through, you have to ask more questions. There are some who very much believe what they say in their feedback, so you have to pick your battles. If the experience will be jeopardized, you can explain, “What you’re saying you don’t like about this app is actually going to make the experience worse for the user” citing reasoning. At the end of the day, you can only push back so much, but it goes to identifying the decision makers and which ones to have stronger objections to a certain part.

Mary Beth: Yeah, picking your battles is something to keep in mind. Explaining why Android and iOS platform designs won’t be exact matches, for example, is more critical than discussing subtleties over button sizes. Keep in mind the goals of the entire flow and project, the audience, the user expectations, and the business expectations.

Ginny Schneider: I definitely learn a lot about the client in the discovery phase. If there is something a client really dislikes, we figure out the best way to improve communication with them. This helps us uncover more information about their preferences and sometimes it’s just a case of a client changing their mind.

Shawn: Another thing is, yeah, clients sometimes just change their mind.

David: If we ever did reach that point where they didn’t like anything, then we messed up in the discovery phase.

Sara: From my experience working as a designer here, it’s nice because we are involved from the beginning, so from the start we get a good idea of what they want and need. That’s not always the case elsewhere.

David: We are selling our own designs. We are not selling a salesperson’s designs. Our designs are always rooted in reality. It makes it easier to be engaged in the design you’re selling, and speaking to it is more natural.

Ginny: How much does selling your design overlap with the work of a Delivery Lead?

Mary Beth: Mostly we are the ones driving that conversation as the keepers of the UI and the UX.

Shawn: A lot of times I feel like the Delivery Lead will have a similar viewpoint, the 10,000-foot view, that is similar to the client, so they ask good questions to keep things in perspective.

Mary Beth: It goes back to how it helps to get buy-in from the team before the client, because then questions will have already been raised.

How do you boil down broad feedback from a client?

David: We’ve had experiences where a client will say, “I’m not really sure about this thing.” It’s my job to figure out well what is it about it that makes you feel that? Drilling down. It seems like you need to do that without driving them in any particular direction. So not like “it’s too big” — it may be the placement. This is a skill you develop over time.

Shawn: I will find myself saying “what do you mean by that?” as a start, and then will follow a path to see how specific I can get them to be about a topic.

Mary Beth: The clients find that helpful too, because sometimes they just can’t quite articulate the issue.

David: They may get to a point where they state the problem, and you’ve actually solved for the problem but you haven’t shown that part of the process or gone through it yet with them. There are some projects where I’ve designed 15 screens, so i will give a gloss-over, and I may not get a chance to talk to the one thing they care about so then you can zoom in and address it.

What do you do if there are a few decision-makers, and they are split on an opinion?

David: As a company, we’ve tried to structure the client side to have a single product owner, and I’ve realized that doesnt work in our favor every time, but we also help put pressure on them to make the decision. I’ve never had a situation where I’ve been balancing two stakeholders.

Shawn: I’ve had that problem a lot, and I’ve had to let them hash it out between themselves: “You think A, you think B, we have to come to a decision here.”

David: First step is reiterating that this project is intended to solve this problem. The stakeholders are saying two different things here. Which one actually solves the problem better? Sometimes it seems more like a personal preference rather than the best solution.

Sara: It’s good to take what all of the stakeholders have to say in consideration, but they may also not have the full picture in mind. This can be especially true if they’re from a very specific department within the client organization.

Shawn: If there’s like any data or research that can back up decisions, I have found that to be really useful. Like a common convention that a lot of people recognize, so if you change that we will have to educate users.

David: Convention is a huge thing we can point to and can use to help explain why a user may find that action confusing.

Mary Beth: Sometimes there can be pushback on that, thinking that all apps will be the same, but to put in in perspective, in magazines, it’s convention to have page numbers at bottom right, but that doesn’t mean that Sports Illustrated looks like Vogue.

Do you have a strategy for the verbal soccer that helps lead a client down to what they really need to focus on?

Shawn: Soft skills, especially as a newer designer. Explain your decisions with confidence. If you come in with lower confidence it’s going to be hard for the client to trust your opinions.

David: On that point, we now have this rapport with the client after the initial phases, so when we go into our weekly design meetings I am comfortable now saying that “this is an area we are exploring” so they know we’re working on it and testing it out first. I definitely wouldn’t go to the CTO of a company and say, “We’re kind of thinking about this!” You have to know your audience.

Mary Beth: Definitely know your audience.

David: Be prepared for whoever the audience is.

Shawn: Even the environment — have enough chairs, know who is coming, put Slack on “do not disturb,” if you’re presenting via web don’t have 100,000 tabs open, remember to bring dongles to present.

Ginny: Always having an agenda for a meeting, even bullet points.