Today I wanted to go over a prototype I’ve been working on with a client. Normally I prefer doing that in person but today was more like a quick status update and arranging a meeting would have been a bit too much. Instead I decided to pick up the phone.

The thing is: if I show a prototype to clients I’m pretty much in control. Sure, they will need to test it for themselves, but I can get my points across more easily if I guide them through my thought process. That usually involves me switching viewport sizes in the browser and explaining my approach.

Today I wanted to do it on the phone, so I needed a way for the client to access the prototype and very easily switch viewport sizes. There are some services out there that let you enter a URL and then show a preview of your site in various different viewport sizes, but none of them really suited my needs.

Then I thought about what would be necessary to build such a tool myself and I realised that it shouldn’t be too hard. So that’s what I decided to do because I think this situation will come up again. And that’s what I learnt today.

I’m working on a redesign for one of my clients’ websites at the moment. Their website is not yet responsive and needs to be rethought in terms of structure and information hierarchy.

I’m in the very early stages of the process and the first thing I did was a quick mockup in HTML and CSS to outline the new content hierarchy of a page. Today I reviewed this prototype with the client, got valuable feedback and explained my thought process behind the new page structure.

I got the impression that the client was very pleased with being included at this early stage. Because there wasn’t anything fancy to show in terms of design yet, we focused primarily on the structure of the page. Considering the feedback I got today, I’m convinced that involving the client from the beginning is very important for any project. That’s what I learnt today.