Presenting Design Work

A Book Apart Briefs #11

by Donna Spencer

Do you love doing design work, but dread the inevitable design reviews that follow? Dread no more! Donna Spencer has the blueprint for a winning design presentation—one that conveys confidence, communicates your vision, and nets you frustration-free feedback you can actually use. Brimming with real-world expertise, Presenting Design Work will reshape how you share your work with clients, colleagues, and stakeholders, consistently leading you to better project results.

Genres: Design, Business

52 pages, ebook

First published October 20, 2020

Reviews

[MaryFran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presenting is a skill I constantly have to work on, and learning how to plan and prepare has really helped build my confidence over the years, so I was excited to see what other tips/strategies are out there by reading this book.

Donna Spencer offers concise, concrete, actionable steps to better structure and prepare for presentations based on your goals and audience. Though I was familiar with some of the advice already, I still learned new strategies to apply to my own presentations, especially when it comes to being explicit about what you’re looking for in feedback and framing your work with a story, whether it’s a user or job story. Spencer also included some resources/recommended reading at the end, which is always appreciated—looking forward to digging into some of her suggestions.

[anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presenting Design Work by Donna Spencer captures everything I've learned about that harrowing process of presenting a web design for review and turned it into a six chapter book you can read over two lunch hours. 

I am thrilled that this book emphasizes rigor in the craft of creating and presenting designs. 

So many times I've sat through reviews where the designer couldn't tell me what the business problem was, why the user needed the changes, how the user would get from place to place, or what the unhappy paths looked like. They failed to take notes (sometimes showing up without even a note-taking device, like, say, a pencil or a laptop), gave me a tour of our components on the page instead of telling me how someone would use it, and thanked everyone when done -- but never followed up to let us know what they'd decided. Then, later, they complained that the product manager steamrolled their input on designs or ignored their feedback. 

This book demands a lot of the person who wants to be successful. You have to think about your audience, practice presenting, take notes (or find someone who will), understand the problem you're building against, understand the feedback you're given, and be rigorous in your feedback decision-making process. 

It also works. It works so very well. And it garners trust between us and our business and engineering peers way better than any less-rigorous process is capable of doing.

As soon as I started reading it, I started messaging people I know mentoring designers and said "yeah this book? this is the one you want."

[Justin Thor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presenting work is possibly one of the most territorial and anxiety-ridden, anger infused, face-palming activities of the modern collaborative workplace.

- Too many people are invited
- The wrong people are invited
- The presentation isn't prepared, specific or outcomes focussed
- The presentation is treated as a singular moment, rather than a before, during and after journey

Donna's book is a guide. A check-list. Part narrative, part how-to. Donna has managed to insert nuance into an every day or every project activity which will affect every part of creation, collaboration and celebration within projects.

Do yourself and your career a favour and read it. It'll change how you work.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick and useful. In a nutshell: own the room.

[Stuart Wainstock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read. Lots of easy actionable takeaways.