Comments on: Don’t create features for yourself.

By: Vanja Bertalan (web.burza)

Vanja Bertalan (web.burza) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:53:28 +0000

Personas are great although, more often than not, it’s enough to bring up the “why exactly are we doing this” question. Once the client gets pushed into direction of thinking about the goals he’d like to achieve, about whether his business would benefit from it, it’s much more likely he’d be willing to listen a bit.

At that point you’ve made it to square one, but it opens up a whole new Pandora’s box. By this I mean that you should be prepared for long training sessions with the client explaining in’s and out’s about how-things-work-on-the-web™.

That, on the other hand, requires time (yours). And time usually correlates to money (theirs).

How it all rolls out from here on is always uncertain :)

By: marko

marko — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:46:15 +0000

But his Eureka look was priceless…

And how many times I’ve seen those, too. I’m almost tempted to give such ideas a try just for the sake of the colleague’s/client’s enthusiasm. But most of the time — you simply can’t sqeeze in 2 extra days for such an experiment.

By: Sinisa Dukaric (digitalvomiting)

Sinisa Dukaric (digitalvomiting) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:01:26 +0000

Short and sweet.

I had a similar case one month ago - it was really wierd to even try to explain why certain feature is not a good one or unique.

You know which feature that was? Well, client wanted to get an e-mail whenever he recieves an e-mail inside of the webmail site. Quite reduntant. But his Eureka look was priceless, he saw this one as USP and a cool feature nobody has in webmails…. FTW.

By: Igor

Igor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:14:24 +0000

Hi,
I must say that i absolutely agree w/ you (and Jason as well, but clients wishes is a whole different issue), and i guess that in web studios you can “negotiate” w/ colleagues about the structure of a certain project, but in most agencys the art director has the final word, and it s always something like: “I would like to do something on this page”.

Are all art directors like that, basing entire campaigns (both designs and copy) on their personal taste?

By: Jason Beaird

Jason Beaird — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:41:51 +0000

Good points, Marko. As I was reading I couldn’t help but think how all this relates to what the client wants. Then I got down to the comments. :)

To me, it seems the primary benefit of creating personas would be to convice clients of the need (or lack thereof) for certain features. After all, they’re usally the ones throwing around those first-person pronouns.

By: Medo

Medo — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 18:24:40 +0000

Client-centered design, mmmm … sometimes can work out ok but more often than not can turn into a real nightmare, especially with clients who don’t really understand the web and who tend to assume that the whole world thinks like they do!

I am really going to have some fun tomorrow :)

By: marko

marko — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:46:51 +0000

That’s client-centered design™.

By: Alen

Alen — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:10:41 +0000

This could be transfered to clients as well. I had so many unusual requests just because my client or my client’s boss wants to see it. At the end we often develop client-centered design.