(upbeat instrumental music)
- It's time to present your wireframe
to all stakeholders.
Now make sure you do this
in one meeting with everybody together
as a group.
If you present to one stakeholder at a time,
you're going to find yourself
pulled into many opposing directions.
By presenting and discussing as a group,
it will encourage a collaborative process
while also keeping the conversation productive.
When one stakeholder has a louder voice
than others,
which is inevitable
if you talk to each person individually,
tunnel vision is likely to set in,
and derail the entire project.
Trust me.
It happens all the time.
Once you have all of your stakeholders together,
walk them through each visual decision in detail,
and explain the methods to your madness.
Explain why you chose the illustration style,
and icon styles that you did.
Why you plan to use the fonts
that you're using,
and why you plan to use the colors and how?
Walk them through the infographic
from top to bottom,
discussing each illustration,
and icon to ensure that the approach
sounds right to everybody.
Sometimes better ideas will arise.
Other times you'll learn
that certain imagery is not preferred
by the client.
But most of the time,
you'll find that your stakeholders
are getting more and more excited as you go.
When you confidently walk stakeholders
through each design decision,
they're going to feel more informed,
and in control of the process.
The only way to meet expectations
is to first set and define them after all,
and the wireframe provides
the best opportunity to do exactly that.
Now, be sure to ask your stakeholders
clear questions that engender
more than a yes or no answer.
For example, when you look at this wireframe,
what immediate elements stand out to you?
Listen closely to their answers?
Did the elements that you intended
to stand out resonate with your stakeholders,
or did they get lost in the shuffle
or say,
I suggest that we go with an illustration
style that represents a nineties motif.
This is because the nineties
were such an integral part
of the evolution of e-commerce,
and I want to represent that to our audience.
Do you agree with this approach
or is there something else
you would like me to consider?
By first stating why you did something
before asking a question,
you set your stakeholders up
to review the wireframe with a critical eye
driven by the five W's instead of just
considering their own personal
likes and dislikes.
If a stakeholder is remaining silent,
make sure that they have a chance to weigh in
as well.
Call on them specifically,
noting that they haven't weighed in yet,
and you would value their opinion.
Often, it's the silent stakeholders
that either have great ideas
or are already sold by your ideas.
In either situation you win,
because they're going to benefit
the group with their great ideas
or further solidify your creative approach
by backing up your choices.
Now, if you skip this step,
and you simply send stakeholders a wireframe
to review and compile their own feedback,
you're giving up your power as a designer.
This is because you are asking them
to make sense of everything without any context
behind why you made the decisions that you did.
In a sense,
you're asking them to become art directors
by simply responding to a very low
poly layout without anyone there
to champion the creative vision.
But by explaining the why
behind each design decision,
your stakeholders will trust you even more.
They'll have a better vision
for the first design draft,
and likely request very few edits
once they receive it.
(upbeat instrumental music)