Sometimes when Matt asks me for feedback on a design, I find myself saying horrible things like “Make it crunchy” or “More Brooklyn” or “How about a hand-drawn chanterelle?”
I know this is Wrong. What we really need to focus on are questions like: Is this design on-brand? Does it account for the actions users want to take? Does it meet our client’s business goals? Does it solve the problem?
Unfortunately, getting to business goals and problem solving isn’t always straightforward, and sometimes the real goals and problems are buried within words like ‘crunchy’. Part of a designer’s job is to ferret out the hidden meanings behind such annoying, painful feedback—to rend objectivity from subjectivity, if you will.
Ways To Rend It
In an attempt to make discussions about design feel concrete, we’ve built some subjectivity busters into our process. Here are tools we use.
Research & Discovery
Without good R & D, we’re entirely at the mercy of how well our clients articulate themselves. This is fine when a client is super-communicative and prepared, but this isn’t always the case. Thoroughly researching a business (its history, its services, where it’s headed, what it wants), puts us in a better position to know if there is or isn’t a real basis for the chanterelles talk.
Styleboards
Styleboards are collage mash-ups of images that represent a particular style. They’re a fantastic way to draw out subjective issues and separate discussions about the look and feel of a site from discussions about layout and UX issues. Here’s an example:
Matt wrote about this once before.
Site Inspiration
Once we’ve addressed style, color and tone, we try to take things a step further with site inspiration documents. Using our client’s feedback from the R&D/styleboards, we go out and find sites that roughly exemplify what we’ve talked about. These documents serve a dual purpose: they show our clients what their ‘tastes’ might look like when translated into a web page, and move us toward a discussion about how the look of the site will balance with the layout, content requirements, etc.
Interrogation
Interrogating people is the absolute best way to see what they’re driving toward. Don’t know what ‘make it pop’ means? You could just ask: What do you mean by make it pop? Can you show me some sites you think pop? What about them pops? What about your existing site doesn’t pop? How does popping connect with your brand & business goals?
Golden Buy-in
Most the time, this process ends up producing a first round of design that pleases (or at least doesn’t bewilder/infuriate). This has to do with two things. For one, you’ve simply done some good
up-front work. But the more important factor is that you’ve given your client buy-in throughout the process, including her in discussions and asking for her opinion at each step, before you produce a first round of anything. This buy-in is solid gold.
4 Comments
Keith
Jul 20th
I love the way Matt uses those styleboards and think things like that are a great way to add some context to subjectivity. And lets face it - you’ll never, ever, ever, EVER be able to completely remove subjectivity from the process of design. I don’t care how much data you’ve got.
And, IMHO, I don’t think you should. Sometimes what we think of as subjectivity is actually insight.
As much as we make fun of terms like “make it pop” and “crunchy” some times they really do make sense. Most experienced designers will either understand what is meant by those comment or have the sense to clarify. The real key here, as you talk about, is doing the research, adding some context and understanding your goals. When you have that and you’re client or co-worker or whomever says “make it pop a bit more” you will most likely know what they’re referring to.
Tiffani Jones Brown
Jul 20th
Keith: Yep. The idea that subjectivity might be insight, disguised—couldn’t have said it better. It’s like a good conversation—you have to let it proceed at least a little bit organically and naturally, or else it will feel rigid.
The tools Matt’s been using lately help lend some structure to the chaos of design conversations, but they also seem to produce better discussions, by getting “subjectivity” out in the open.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Matt Brown
Jul 20th
@Keith — Great point. There’s definitely a point at which you can’t continue to “hide behind process” and have to address the subjective tastes of your client. Just a few styleboards is usually all it takes.
Typically, we try not to spend all that much producing these documents because they have rapidly diminishing returns — they start a good conversation, but don’t solve the problem. Like most things with design, there’s never a silver bullet
Keith
Jul 20th
Oh, I totally agree with you about documents, deliverables and diminishing returns. In an idea process you’d have no need of them.