[Sigia-l] site redesign sales proposals

[Ziya Oz]

Jonathan Baker-Bates:

> Perhaps "style" is the wrong choice of word (and no choice between style
> or substance is intended).

OK, then. :-)

> If, for example, I go in with a pitch that assumes I know nothing about the
> client's problems, but have a lot of good ways to find out about them so as to
> apply a well-constructed design solution (the "summersaults" I refer to) then
> that demonstrates more to the client than some other approaches we've been
> mentioning. 

No problemos here. I once got a project to do IA for Europe's largest
cosmetics company, and I know absolutely, positively nothing about makeup or
the industry. My summersault was my presentation on the notion of UI
distillation of a large scale enterprise app, if I recall correctly.

I don't have a problem there at all. My (perhaps) narrow objection in this
thread has been the idea that something like 20 hours, 3-4 days of
consulting time is sufficient...not for a summersault, mind you, but to
create a strategy and a project map *specific* to a given problem space.
That's very different...more than ambitious, and, if applied to non-trivial
problems, downright misleading.
  
>> I say that if a client is spending only 1/100 of the budget
>> on the most important part of a project, then something is wrong.
> 
> Yes, but that is how the cookie tends to crumble in most cases. I for
> one am prepared to accept that, and other unfortunate circumstances we
> deal with day-to-day.

I am not. :-) My space is not just design, but what usually comes before it:
the strategy and framing of the (business) problem. So when a client
requests that the strategy for his million dollar project should or can be
done in 3-4 days, I run in the opposite direction. There might obviously be
rare exceptions, but this tells me that the client doesn't quite understand
the issues involved and likely I'd be walking into a hell hole.

--
Ziya

"Every problem comes from a solution."