[thelist] process question: hi-end multimedia sites

[Marc Seyon]

Hi Erika,

>99% of the time the client tries to describe what he/she wants without 
>having really thought thru the basics (audience, goals, blah blah).  Or 
>the person who tries to describe the project  is not someone who has a 
>good understanding of web needs.  So a web shop gives a proposal based on 
>what the client THINKS he/she needs, not what he/she really needs, 
>basically saying what they think the client wants to hear.  IMO this is 
>likely to doom the project from the start.

The way I see it, it's the job of the agency to work with the client to 
determine needs. The client may not know all that much about web, but they 
do know what they want for their business.

If the agency proposes to the client with no collaboration what often 
results is also the client acceding, saying yes, go ahead, and then 6 
months later saying "we didn't want that, you gave us bad advice."

It's blunt, but you've got to get them in the mix, if only to implicate 
them into the scheme too, so if it goes wrong, fingers don't point only one 
way.

>how on earth can you design an interface before you establish content?

"1. Discovery -- proposal, statement of work, understanding of the project,
quid quo pro with client"

 From here you should have a pretty good idea of what the client wants. It 
may not be cast in stone, but it's usually enough to get preliminary 
interface sketches going. For example, you may know he wants to list his 
entire range of two million paint colours, you may not *have* the two 
million paint colours handy, but you can start thinking how you'd display them.

<OT>
Incidentally, yes I've had to do this. Yes we explained to them that the 
colours wouldn't quite be the same on all monitors, no they didn't care.
</OT>

>I don't mean to be difficult, because I am curious about how these things 
>actually work.  But I really see a lot of flaws with the "proposal" method 
>of web building, and with the idea that an interface can be successfully 
>designed before structure, content, functionality, & navigation are firmly 
>understood, and none of these can be understood until there is a firm 
>agreement on audience and purpose.

Refer to step 1. again. I may be misinterpreting, but I don't think it 
means just one meeting, it's a step where the site objectives are 
determined and laid out. We never work until all parties know exactly what 
is going on.

regards.
-marc