The purpose of these meetings is to give us direction on the design of the project, and to give us insight to the purpose and goals of the new site.

Agenda

The meetings typically run for 4 hours, sometimes for 5 or 6 but with a lunch break in the middle. The meeting agenda usually follows this format:

Hour 1: Review project timeline, Demo of the CMS (PM)

Hour 2: Usability and Study (UX)

Hour 3: Wireframe workshop (UX)

Hour 4: Design Discussion (Designer)

The designer should join the meeting during the wireframe exercise, to become familiar with the layout and their reasoning, as well as to catch any design comments the clients sometimes bring up during this portion. 

The GoToMeeting information should be in the Wrike task and/or sent to you via Outlook calendar invite. If you have neither, ask the PM for it. 

In order to prepare for the design discussion you must create a presentation that summarizes key points from the client's surveys.

Survey

Make sure that these materials are available about a week before the scheduled Consulting Meeting. Locate the survey results in the Project folder > Consulting > Usability > Study *

*If you are remote without access to the server, reach out to the PM to upload it to Box or the Wrike task.

There, you should find:

• Discovery Survey.pdf

Sometimes, you will also find:

• Community Survey.pdf
• Invision.pdf (this pdf contains the comments that the client created in the invision website gallery that we created for them. However, reviewing their comments directly in the invision gallery is usually more clear)

This is the information to focus on for each survey, that should be included in your Invision presentation:

Discovery Survey:

• Q2. Audience 
• Q3. Goals for the new website
• Q7. In your opinion what is the purpose of your website visitors in terms of needs, interests and goals?
• Q8. What do you like about your current website?
• Q9. What do you dislike about your current website?
• Q13. What is the overall style that you would like your website to portray?
• Q14-18. imagery, colors, branding
• Q19. wireframe choice

Community Survey:

Skim through it. See if you can find re-occurring themes or trouble areas.

Invision:

Go to the gallery created in Invision. You should be able to find it under the Organization Name in the Prototypes section.

Then click COMMENTS.

Read through the comments and get an idea of what they like and don’t like.

If there is nothing there, notify the PM immediately.

Add any designs from this gallery that has important comments to use as Benchmarks for discussion during the meeting as well.

Materials

In addition to the survey and comments on Invision, the client should provide the following materials:

• logo
• photos
• any branding materials

If the Box folder is empty, notify the PM immediately to request these assets. Also, if the client notes in the survey about using design assets that are not yet in Box, (ie. photo of one of their landmarks) let the PM know to reference those specific items. 

What to do if there are no materials or comments in the gallery?

Sometimes, no matter how much the PM requests, the client just does not provide materials or Invision comments in time. If rescheduling is not an option, you may use the surveys as your main source of information and add your own benchmarks based on what it sounds like will work for the design. 

Invision workshop template

Find the "Graphic Design Consulting Workshop" template, duplicate it, rename with the relevant project.

What goes in each category:

• Purpose and Goals
• Target Audience
• Design Notes
• Current Branding
• Imagery
• Benchmark
• Style Tile

Use this as a template for the presentation that you are going to create for the client. Fill in all the information based on their answers from the surveys and Invision comments. 

You may also type questions for the clients in these areas. Don't feel constrained to this exact template format! Feel free to customize the presentation as you feel it would help you get the necessary information from the client.

Focus on goals, mood and feel. Try to avoid asking "do you like this?" and instead something like "does this feel like a good direction?" or "does this work to achieve our xyz goal?"

**Remember to always add your notes from the meeting into this board in order to reference them later**

Workshop resources 

In Box, you will find various resources you may choose to add into your workshop presentation. There you will also find an XD style tile template you are able to use, with various pre-made elements to easily edit as needed.

Design Consultation Workshop Resources Box Folder

Style tiles

"Style tiles establish a direct connection with actual interface elements without defining layout." (source: http://styletil.es/ )

Based on the information the client has provided, this section will give you a visual starting point and enhance the discussion with the client.

You may reach out to the UX team to see the wireframe layouts they have created to get started with some elements. These can also be found on the server if you have access: Project folder > Consulting > Layouts

Examples of Style Tiles

2-day meetings

Occasionally, the consulting meeting will be broken up over a couple days. Typically this means the graphic design discussion will be held a later day. In this case, you would still attend the wireframe portion but would modify your presentation from creating a style tile to a more refined mockup**. Using the wireframe, basically you would start designing some of the elements as you would start an initial design, but only provide cropped portions of the design, so they still get a feel like style tiles. 

**If during the wireframe exercise, the client does not decide on a clear direction for the layout, just continue with a regular style tile.

Example of a two-day mockup style tile:

Mood Board

If you conduct a meeting, but will not be the designer working on the project, you will need to create a Mood Board with your notes and information to give direction on the design. We have a Mood Board Invision template that you may use. 

On-Site

Occasionally, the client has purchased a contract that includes the team going on-site to the client for the consulting meeting. These typically take the full day, as you would participate in the whole workshop. Work with the group on travel arrangements.