Internal design commentary.

‘Talk me through it’

As a designer, it’s important that you can share and articulate your visual design ideas with clients in an appropriate and meaningful way. It may not be a formal presentation or pitch. It could be sharing assets through Basecamp or a test URL and following up with a Skype call or some notes. You should take this opportunity to ‘pitch’ your ideas with belief and conviction, talk confidently about what you’ve done and make it clear that you’ve made informed design decisions. When a client asks, be ready to answer the question ‘Talk me through it’.

If pitching or sharing your ideas formally is part of your job, then storytelling is a must and you may be more articulate than many. But a lot of designers work less formally with their clients, particularly freelancers. It’s so important to tell a story, say why you’ve made the decisions you have and have thoughtful discussions about why your ideas look the way they do.

I’ve been through the initial design sharing process with clients many times, and along the way I’ve developed an interesting little trick to inform my approach. In the early days I would often go into a discussion armed with a sense of ‘it just feels right’ but no real story to tell. That’s not to say my ideas were poorly judged. I just hadn’t ‘recorded’ the thought processes behind my decisions. I was underprepared and couldn’t answer some of my clients’ questions.

So how do I explain my ideas to my clients? Perhaps a better question, initially, is ‘How do I explain my ideas to myself?’ If you can do that, you’ll have a much stronger story to tell your client.

Enter internal design commentary

To fix my ‘it just feels right’ approach, I started doing something I now call internal design commentary. Throughout every design project I’m always running an internal commentary. By that I mean questioning, reasoning, interrogating, informing and believing in what I’m designing as I go. This may sound obvious, but I make a point of doing it.

I’m not talking about baseline grids, font pairings, vertical rhythm and so on. I’m talking about the simpler stuff, the stuff you can share with perhaps greener clients in terms they’ll easily understand. I constantly make simple comments to myself about why, for example, I’m organising, colouring, spacing, populating and branding every part of my design the way I am. ‘Let’s keep these buttons simple. We don’t need gloss on them, it doesn’t follow the client’s brand.’ ‘This will be content managed, so let’s make sure the layout is flexible.’ ‘We’re not using gradients or drop shadows in this design, so be consistent and stay away from them.’ ‘The logo is circular, let’s play on that to extend the brand.’ ‘Let’s break this content into digestible chunks.’ ‘People like clicking pictures, so let’s keep these links simple and uncluttered.’ You get the picture: a constant stream of simple reasoning that informs your design.

As designers, this is what we do. We all go through this process and draw on our years of experience, but it perhaps happens more on a subconscious level if you don’t make a point of doing it. The whole time we’re answering these little questions, we’re shaping our design and building a story, a story that can be really useful when we explain our ideas to clients.

An exercise

During your next design session, try commentating, either internally or out loud, on what you’re doing. Explain to yourself every mark you make on the page. Make some mental notes, or even jot them down on a piece of paper.

Tell your story to yourself

It may seem a little obsessive to have a reason for absolutely every mark you make on the page, but what harm can it do? You’ll have armed yourself with lots of notes about your design decisions that you can refer back to later.

My commentary isn’t always internal. At times I literally talk out loud to myself about what I’m doing as I do it. This can seem strange and amusing to my colleagues, of course, but I find that audibly processing some of my thoughts moves them into my conscious brain, so I can easily retrieve them when I need to rationalise my design. I’m getting a simple story straight in my own mind, and I understand why I’m designing the way I am. By running my internal design commentary throughout a project, I’m able to:

1. encourage myself to think my design through more thoroughly
2. get a deeper and more complete understanding of my design decisions
3. have a reason for every part of my design
4. proactively tell a story about my ideas in plain English
5. predict some of the questions my client will have

Tell your story to your client

Internal design commentary is about making simple notes: a checklist, if you like, of the decisions you’ve made, which arms you with a story about your design in plain English. If you can tell the story of your design to yourself, you’re in a great position to tell it to your client. When your client says ‘Talk me through it’, you can do just that. You’ve been doing it in your head throughout the design process.

Your client may not be tech savvy or familiar with the web, and in many cases they may not even care about the deeper craft in your design. But they will expect you to talk confidently and professionally about your work in their language. Your client will need reassurance that you’ve thought their problem through and met their objectives. If your design is carefully considered, you can predict a lot of their feedback and have answers ready. Talking to clients, after all, is about having them trust that you know what you’re doing.

Be a better designer

‘It just felt right’ is OK. You’re a talented designer and sometimes things just happen that way. Maybe you turned off a few layers in Photoshop by mistake and had a happy accident! At times we sit back, tilt our heads, squint and think ‘Yeah, that looks about right’.

Being a designer isn’t just about executing the visual, though. Ultimately it’s about communicating, with clients and colleagues alike. If you have a clear story about your design, you have something insightful to share with your developer too. Just as with clients, you can predict many of their questions and have the answers ready. Show them that you’ve carefully considered how your design will behave responsively.

Communicating your design story isn’t about reacting to your client’s questions. Share it proactively and back it up with informed thoughts. I’ve found internal design commentary invaluable in helping me do this, and I’ve become a better designer for it. When one of my clients or colleagues says ‘Talk me through it’, I’m ready.