5 Ways to Elevate Your Design Pitches to Clients

3. Center Your Pitch Around Problem Solving

While UX design—and design in general—are vast and seemingly all-encompassing fields, we should never forget that the core of design has always has been problem solving. Therefore, everything in your pitch should tie into your problem-solving process and its various facets. Even though focusing on aesthetics and functionality are certainly important and strike a chord with many clients, your problem-solving approach should form the overarching narrative of your pitch, as depicted in Figure 2.

For example, the ability to define a problem well—either as a problem statement or visually—is important and shows your client your ability to block out the noise and isolate what work you truly need to do. It also streamlines your pitch because everything in your pitch should communicate how you intend to solve the problem.

The following are helpful questions to ask yourself when preparing for your pitch presentation—or even to integrate into your pitch:

• What is the problem you need to solve?
• Who would benefit from your solving the problem?
• What would be the most efficient way of solving the problem?

Be prepared to answer these questions and provide a clear problem statement, and your pitch automatically adopts a smooth, flowing narrative that can keep even the most impatient client engaged with what you have to say.

4. Emphasize User Centricity

When you’re pitching to your clients, it can be tempting to focus your pitch around them. But it’s important to remember that your clients would not likely use the design solution in question. So you should instead focus on the client’s target users when designing the solution, as represented in Figure 3. Whatever you communicate during your pitch, be sure to tie it back to the users and how they would benefit from a certain action or design choice. Including some UX personas in your pitch might be helpful in showing the effort you’ve made to address the needs of one or more different types of users through your design.

One helpful exercise could be to remove all personal pronouns from your pitch, especially those referring to the client. You and your are the most common offenders.

Your user personas demonstrate your understanding of your client’s target users by highlighting their attributes and tendencies. Plus, you can target certain design decisions especially toward a specific part of the user base that you’ve identified. For example, you might provide accessibility options in an app whose target users are the elderly. Not only does this show you’ve done your homework but that you have a dynamic understanding of users. This makes your design solution a more appealing candidate.

5. Be Receptive to Feedback

Something to note about any design pitch is that it’s not just about an idea you’re conveying. In a sense, it’s also pitching you as a UX designer. Your client has to make a decision about not only whether they approve of your design solutions but how well they like you as a UX designer and whether they want to work with you going forward. For this reason, communicating particular aspects of your personality and your attributes as a UX designer along with your design solutions can propel your pitches to new heights. Emphasize things such as your being on time or your eloquence. Communicating these attributes is equally as important as communicating your design work. While every UX designer is different so would choose to throw light on different aspects of his or her work and strengths as a problem solver, one quality UX designers should universally emphasize is their ability to collaborate.

Throughout your pitch, your client would likely weigh in with their thoughts, impressions, and ideas for improvements. Instead of dismissing these, indulge them. Be collaborative even during your pitch. Listen to and show that you’re receptive to their feedback and have no issues with making adjustments to your vision to satisfy the client, as depicted in Figure 4. Begin building a relationship with your client during the pitch itself. You can easily transfer this relationship to actually working with them on a project.

Conclusion

As I as mentioned earlier, a good design solution that a UX designer pitches ineffectively has little impact. To get your designs the attention and respect they deserve, be sure that you pitch them effectively. Be confident in your abilities as a designer, and don’t be afraid to toot your own horn when necessary. Applying these five tips has helped me on numerous occasions, enabling me to persuade even the toughest clients. So implement whichever of these tips works for you, and blow everyone away with your pitch presentation. Best of luck!