Review and Approval

[Pasan Premaratne] When working with a client one of the important things is allowing for an approval or review process. 0:00 You have to identify what's a good balance between the client, having the room to make certain changes, 0:06 and you having way too many revisions. 0:11 But even if you allow for revisions you need to have a process about it. 0:13 If your process is to just email the client some files and let him respond with comments, the lack of structure will soon frustrate you. 0:18 Clients won't be able to properly explain what changes they want and that's understandable. 0:25 Design, or development, is not an area of expertise for them. 0:31 So their vague directions will lead to either more revisions further along in the project and lots of frustrations. 0:34 If you took the time to understand both the client's and the user's needs early on, then the review process can be a lot less painful. 0:41 In this video we're going to go over some tips that can help you improve your review process. 0:49 First, provide guidelines. Often times clients don't know how to provide feedback. 0:55 As a designer getting feedback like, "I just don't like it," doesn't serve either party well. 1:01 You don't know their reasons for disliking the design. 1:06 You have no constructive criticism and therefore, can't really make a change that you know the client will agree with. 1:09 Spend some time talking to your client and educate them in how to provide valuable feedback that will make the project easier. 1:15 Ask them to explain gut reactions. 1:23 Rather than saying, "I just don't like this," ask them to think about what exactly it is they don't like and why. 1:25 Sometimes these reactions are warranted, but most times it's because the client doesn't understand 1:32 the purpose of a certain design consideration. 1:37 It either doesn't make sense off the bat, or you're not presenting the work in the right medium. 1:40 For example, attaching static screenshots of a webpage won't help explain your design considerations with a hidden navigation bar. 1:45 Certain things are better understood in the browser. 1:52 Show examples of articulated observations that help the approval process. 1:55 Show that you invite constructive criticism and relevant questions. 2:00 Wherever you can, walk your client through your design considerations. Don't expect them to understand everything. 2:05 Clients need to understand the choices you made. Otherwise they might approach them from a biased or uneducated perspective. 2:11 Then you can provide explanations or documentation. 2:19 Written supporting material can go a long way to explaining your design considerations. 2:22 It might be easy to convey your thoughts and process to your client, 2:27 but there's a high chance that the client is not in charge of the approval process. 2:30 He or she has to then explain it to other stakeholders in this organization. 2:35 You won't be there to present to these people like you did for your client, 2:38 and you can't expect your client to explain your ideas as well as you did. 2:42 By providing documentation or some form of written explanation, you can ensure that everyone who sees your designs 2:46 understands the message behind it. 2:52 You should also control the direction of the feedback. 2:55 This can be tied to providing guidelines, which we mentioned earlier. 2:58 When explaining, explain the design within the context of the content and the audience. 3:02 When clients evaluate designs they tend to be biased and evaluate it from a personal perspective. 3:07 Remind them that everything should be judged from a user's perspective. 3:13 When presenting your designs always present them in the best medium possible. 3:18 This goes along way to getting the client to really understand your design choices. 3:22 It's hard to convey what's above the fold when you print or send over the Photoshop files or static images. 3:27 Here's a few tips on how you could go about doing that. 3:33 If your client is a local client, then set up a time to present the website to them and walk them through the designs. 3:37 If the client is remote, set the website up on a server and schedule a phone call with them to walk through the designs. 3:43 There are also apps that can help you with this task. 3:50 Check out InVision app, one that's made specifically for sharing, review, and approval. 3:53 Or you can use Basecamp to invite clients to the project where they can comment on any files. 3:58 The review process is really important to your sanity as a freelancer. 4:04 Following these steps doesn't necessarily mean that the review and approval process will always be easy and efficient, 4:08 but it will make the task much smoother. 4:14 The more you do it, the better you can streamline your workflow. 4:17