Hot answers tagged client
15
I would cite real research (don't actually ask them to read it, they probably won't) that proves your point, and show them some well-known sites as examples.
Also take the information from those links you mentioned and apply it to their website. Be confident in your assessments and advice.
Your clients aren't totally wrong about "the fold" though. Take a ...
10
Everything does not need to be above the fold, however the important things do. In my field, eCommerce, the fold has been very real.
Putting a call to action above the fold has increased our conversion rates on average.
Same thing with e-mail campaigns.
I have found this simple tool from google to be very helpful in determining the fold area. ...
9
Build it. Take the time on your own, build it out and let them try it. But, they gave you the answer you need to overcome. Look at WHO you are dealing with. All the storyboards, mockups etc. won't matter as they can't see it. You shot yourself in the foot by doing all of that work first.
UX 101:
Did you ask the potential user first. "if I could take this ...
6
Assuming you're testing a change to an existing system, favor the control. It's what people are used to simply because it's already in place. If tests are inconclusive against users that aren't familiar with your site, at best the change won't help, at worst it briefly confuses current users.
You failed to reject the null hypothesis, stick to what you have.
...
6
I think you got start explaining the macro picture of what UX does in day-to-day life, and then zero it to the particular area, it goes like this -
"An UX specialist actually deals to understand products and interfaces from user perspective. Users are the predominant drivers for a product - and as an example (provide metaphors/example always) - imagine you ...
6
A personal bête noire is the near universal misinterpretations of Miller's "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" paper. People keep applying it in completely inappropriate ways - like the maximum number of items in a pull down menu. Grrrr!
Another would be people who don't think accessible web design isn't important for them and then wonder why the ...
6
If possible, I would try to completely avoid showing the user the difference between server side and client side filtering.
Will your users care where the filtering is done? Unlikely. So don't give them this unnecessary info.
Better is to construct you UI in such a way that the first filter is always automaticaly server side then all subsequent filters ...
6
Don't underestimate the beast. It would be like taking Photoshop away from a designer. Excel is actually a phenomenally useable tool that people are familiar with. I've tried and failed to get analysts off Excel.
Perhaps you could try watching some of your users to see what they do with Excel - show them that you really do want to help simplify their ...
6
First off, it's not wrong of the client to refer to the admin side as back-end. It's actually fairly common terminology to call any aspects of a content management system that aren't publicly available the "back end." This confusion between the front and back end of a CMS and the front and back end of code may be a large part of the problem you're ...
5
Tooltips are most commonly used on hover to indicate what clicking on an icon or link will do; this way a user can "investigate" the button and know what it does before clicking. As Microsoft's guidelines put it, "Tips help users understand unknown or unfamiliar objects that aren't described directly in the user interface (UI)." It's not a good way to ...
5
Quick anecdote: I was working at Intuit and redid the Quicken.com homepage. I added some icons and moved some stuff around. The marketers also changes of their own on their own version. Nothing goes live without extensive testing, so we all put our A/B tests into the hopper and waited.
My design won by alot, and made Quicken over $20,000 per month ...
4
Well, it sounds like one of those cases where the client may be right.
You are dealing with a handbook (a set of rules & regulations) not marketing or educational materials.
Imagine, a UXD for your local legislature saying, "The text of this new law is too long, too complicated, and too cluttered. It will look bad online. Let's trim it down and bury ...
4
Get the clients themselves into a usability testing session. Either as onlookers as a subject is going through their book, tasked with finding something, or as participants - but in this case you'll need to provide content they're unfamiliar with, but of the same magnitude and complexity.
Another option is to just go over their heads and try convince their ...
4
Normally, I prefer to start with a example which may not be the project core but explains the client the philosophy behind. And once the client understand the concept he starts believing in you and then you should bring in the core topic.
Let me explain you with an example. First try to explain you Front-end and Back-end idea with reference to something he ...
3
When you say "visual materials" I'm going to assume you mean non-text documentation.
At this state of your project, you need to communicate 3 things to the stakeholders: establish the need, quantify the benefits of meeting that need, and scope the solution. It sounds like you may not be able to scope the solution sufficiently without funding research and/or ...
2
I definitely agree with Mashhoor on all of his points. I deal with every single one of those, especially the Flash stuff. I am not opposed to Flash when it's the appropriate solution for the job, but to them, it seems like it's the appropriate solution to every job. With the powerful capabilities of jQuery these days, most of what we do in Flash doesn't need ...
2
Since I'm a consultant, my client tends to be big corporations or government:
UX is outside the Agile process and just part of something that the business team deals with outside the scheduled tasks
It's all about the user so: SME's are UX experts, best to use for testing and should actively participate in all phases of design
Everything should have a ...
2
Firstly, you probably should have separate buttons for start and stop/cancel. Having the same button do opposite things is a prescription for human error whenever there is lag.
As for your particular problem, if this situation is limited to the Start button, you could leave the Start button enabled and cache the Start command, sending it after the busy ...
2
A simple approach that might be "good enough":
As soon as a change is made (ie on the first character press), disable the "Start" button.
Only enable the button when changes have been saved. You might want to have an explicit "Save" button as well, in case the user isn't aware of the convention that the enter key saves.
2
Maybe a little simplistic, but this reminded me of Domino's Pizza Tracker:
It doesn't really address the deliverables and dependencies directly, but with pizza it's a little easier to figure out ("pizza needs to be prepped before it's baked. The outcome of a prepped pizza is dough and toppings ready to go into the oven", etc).
The progress within the ...
2
How about giving a brief snippet about the content in your introductory pages and then progressively addressing the larger content if people would be interested to view it.
Let them understand that the term "Cognitive load" or explain them how people think through behavioral studies, some of them could be -
Progressive disclosure - Coined by JM Keller, ...
2
This is a tough conversation, the sites that DA01 provides as examples all have a similar visual interface trait in that they promote scrolling due to the visual design suggesting that there is more to read.
Often the fold becomes an issue if pages 'look' like everything is in view at certain resolutions ensuring that visually this is not the case can ...
2
Why UX?
It's worth thinking about UX in terms of an evolutionary approach to designing applications; and in my opinion, it's useful to think of product design as the field's real world counterpart.
Think about the design of any product, for example a plastic tub:
The product can be designed and built according to base fundamental requirements (e.g. needs ...
2
This is a question about science of sales but not UX. So we need to identify customer's problem and offer appropriate solution. In your question you mentioned 'The problem', let's think for whom are these problems? As we can see from your explanations - this is not a problem for those with whom you discussed it. So there are two possible ways - find the ...
2
What you identify as problems/issues may not be problems/issues for those people. But even then I am sure that they can identify things that they would like to improve with the existing spreadsheets (if not, then I am afraid it is not an easy case). I think the buy-in is to start by solving problems that they have with usability (you have to find a need for ...
1
I guess customer UX expectations are much more about politics and rhetorics than about UX itself.
Personally, I prefer a data-driven approach where one backs up the claims either by statistics or (perhaps informal but representative) user tests.
I do like models and I do like cognitive models, but as arguments, it seems people - esp. customers - tend to ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
