[thelist] Web design presentation process

[aardvark]

> From: "Michael Lovitt" <mlovitt at oaksanderson.com>
>
> I'm writing an article on how to improve the Web design

for who, if i might be so bold, are you writing this?  yeah, web 
designers, but for a print mag, a zine, something else?  just 
curious, really...

> process, specifically, on the best way to present creative
> to clients. Some of the issues I'm addressing are: keeping
> things like content and site architecture separate from look
> and feel; presenting interactive elements like animation and
> roll-overs; and conveying how the site will look after it's
> been translated into HTML on various browsers and platforms
> and at various screen resolutions.

well, site architecture vs. site look is quite easy... we present a 
site map that details the structure of the site... the navigation 
design often reflects some of that site map... the design itself 
shows the home page and any content pages that would be from a 
different 'template'... we always present on-screen (often 
Photoshop files so we can switch layers on and off), and not via 
PDF... we include aliased greek text to show how copy might flow, 
and wrap the entire design in chrome... we show at the smallest 
size the site will accomodate, and show a sample of how it might 
scale, if it all...  we don't print them out, doing that brings 
consternation over color and font sizing all too often, so we avoid it 
since it clearly confuses the client... we have no real reason to 
show how some sites will look on alternative browsers, since some 
will look the same for the most part and we can describe what will 
be different... for CSS-driven sites, we show how it would look for 
non-CSS browsers...  rollovers are just shown as if it were a screen-
cap with the mouse in place... animations are described, or even 
story-boarded if necessary, but never built...

> I'd love to hear about how you deal with these and other
> issues, and what your presentation process is like in
> general: does your look and feel presentation include just a

the presentation is informal and held wherever the client wants... 
we'll show on their machines, our machines, third-party machines, 
projecters, etc... it doesn't matter since it will conceivably be seen 
on any one of those anyway at some point when it is built...

> home page and a secondary page? Do you present as Acrobats
> or GIFs, or something else? What are the major milestones?
> Will you make design changes after programming has begun?
> And so on.

we never begin coding until the client has signed off... once the 
client has signed off, no design changes occur unless the client 
pays for out-of-scope work -- they've already approved it, and we 
aren't going to re-do our work at every whim and go over budget...