[Sigia-l] Free lunch...and drinks too

[Terrence Wood]

On 21 Dec 2005, at 4:27 AM, Lada Gorlenko wrote:
>
> Worryingly, more and more large clients in the UK (think multi-million
> IT services projects) request and expect 'screen design' delivered as
> part of the bid. Whenever exist (not always), typical bid
> budgets/timeframes leave zero opportunity for user research or
> benchmark assessment of the existing systems. If you win such a bid,
> you may have little room for maneuver either, as some clients assume
> that the screen design has already been done.
>
> My company has recently lost such a bid trying to sell a customer the
> virtue of the 'proper design process' rather than a complete UI of a
> specialised mobile system based on guestimations. The response was "we
> asked for a complete screen design". I am waiting for the client to
> come back in a few months asking to fix the interface mocked up in a
> bid rush by the lucky winner (this happened before).
>
Given that humans are pattern matchers (by design or evolution) pretty 
pictures speak a thousand words.

Decisions are made on an emotional basis which are then rationalised 
with 'the facts'. That's why you will lose bids because of spelling 
mistakes, obvious boiler plate text, glossing over a single point, or 
not submitting what was asked for (screens).

The other thing to consider is that often decisions are made by people 
who don't understand the the finer points of the projects requirements.

kind regards
Terrence Wood.