Presenting Design Work

After the presentation, always send people a message with clear instructions around what you want them to do and how they should do it. Don’t rely on people to remember what they’ve agreed to. Give them a deadline and follow up a few days before the deadline.

Communicating Design, 2nd ed., Dan Brown. When I was learning to be a designer, I almost wore out Dan’s first edition of this book. The second edition is, of course, just as good. It focuses on the different kinds of diagrams and reports we often present, so it will help a lot if you are still wondering what to present

The clients are much happier overall. They know that they contributed and that their contributions were considered, and they’re able to understand the reasons behind the project team’s decisions, which gives them confidence in the team.

In her last presentation, Alex tried to make some notes and answer questions on the spot.

This time, she plans the feedback process in advance. She takes a few questions in the meeting, answering the simple ones. Josh makes a note of those that need to be followed up on. She lets everyone know she’ll send them the slides, so they can go through them

CONCLUSION

IF I HAD TO SUMMARIZE my key points in a single presentation slide—well, I wouldn’t. I’d make five slides, each containing one strong point:

If you plan for your audience and give everyone a job, they’ll contribute their expertise, not their opinion.

If you show the end result, not your progress or process, your audience will understand wha

Communicating the User Experience: A Practical Guide for Creating Useful UX Documentation, Richard Caddick and Steve Cable. This book is packed full of details about how to create UX deliverables. It’s a great read for beginners.

When the feedback comes in, she arranges a meeting with the team to go through it and decide what to do about it. They make decisions about changes that are straightforward, and they add some jobs to the backlog for other tasks. One item is out of scope for the project, so they agree not to act on it. Alex prepares a summary of their decisions and

Designing for the Digital Age, Kim Goodwin. Kim’s book covers just about everything you’ll need to know to design digital products. It’s packed with practical details on the design process, interface design, and so much more. I mention it here, not only because it is great, but also because it’s one of the few books I own that actually covers prese

Always ask for feedback

Should you ever show a design and not ask for feedback? For example, just to show that you have made progress?

I’d suggest not doing that. It’s unsatisfying for stakeholders to see work in progress without being able to react to it. It makes them feel like you aren’t listening and that they can’t contribute. Either make sure y