Client Communication, UW lecture with David Conrad

To follow up my previous post in Communication is a design problem,

David Conrad, an interaction designer, held a presentation at UW on communication with clients.
He outlines some pertinent ideas, most importantly language is complicated and we need specifics to guide how we interact and what we hope to gain from the interaction.

I went to this talk precisely because of the communication gaps I'd witnessed and that no one I worked with seemed to think needed a clearer, more systematic approach or thought we had the time to develop. I come from the place of thought, where you can't afford not to establish common ground and clear approaches to conversations about design, whether amongst team members or with clients. 

An excellent point he referred to is Donald Norman's distinction between complexity and complicated. We seek to integrate complexity, solve complex problems, but we should not relay things in a complicated way. We solve for complexity and seek clarity in explanations.

He asked, What is a good conversation about design?

1. Talk about you process, make transparent where you need input, what kind of input, and what are the client expectations.
2. Say what you are gonna do, Do it, and Follow up.
3. Describe your decision-making to the client, make clear what inputs you need from them.
4. Don't ever show anyone work without being able to walk them through it.

Transparency build trust, knowing where someone is coming from and what is expected builds cohesion.