[Sigia-l] The fuzzy line btwn IA and Design

[Ziya Oz]

"Christopher Fahey [askrom]" wrote:

> Well said! That's pretty much what I was saying, too, I guess: If you
> communicate well with your team members and with your clients, then the
> actual deliverables don't matter as much. They are (usually) just tools
> for facilitating communication and discussion, thus the discussion
> itself is the real meat of an effective presentation.

Yes. 

However, I want to re-emphasize one point I made about prototypes. If, in
fact, you are presenting a prototype (as opposed to wireframes , etc) then
my suggestion is to not make it a half-way one, but to make it as realistic
as possible, given the resource restraints.

I know there's a movement in the advertising community to move away from
*unpaid* new account pitches, but the power of a functional prototype in
front of a client is immense.

It's one thing to walk into a potential client's office showing off a
general portfolio and spend a long time relating what you have done to what
they think they need, it's something entirely different to walk in there
with a functioning, clickable prototype that a) rings all sorts of bells in
the client's head and b) installs an invaluable degree of confidence that
you understand their business and can actually pull off the project in
consideration.

The prototype doesn't have to be an exact version of the project being
discussed, just that parts of it should be detailed enough to convey that
you can handle complex workflows, UIs, architectures, etc. I just can't over
emphasize how much this relives a potential client's understandable
anxieties about the successful completion of a project, on which, often
enough, his/her job security rests.

I always try to find something I've done far more demanding than what a
potential client is in need of and weave that into the presentation in some
meaningful manner, just so that the clients can feel that they are in secure
hands. 

What can I say, people like security :-)

Best,

Ziya