 Hello, everyone! Welcome to Europe 23! This is amazing. Well, before introducing myself, let me tell you a personal story. I want to talk to you about the birthday problem, also known as the birthday paradox. The birthday paradox states that in a group of 23 people, there is a 50.7% probability that two of them share the same birthday. For a group of 57 or more people, the probability of two of them sharing the same birthday is greater than 99.666%, almost 100%. In other words, in a crowded city bus, it is very likely that there are at least two people who share the same birthday. The probability is almost 100%. This is awesome, isn't it? However, this probability drops to 0.059 if we choose one of those people. By selecting one person, we will need at least 253 more people to have a probability greater than 0.5% of someone sharing the same birthday. In my life, I have chosen one person. She uses Drupal, which we respect according to the code of conduct. But she also uses WordPress. She is volunteering at this workhouse as a media partner. Her name is Helen, and today is her birthday. So happy birthday to you. Okay, so thank you. I am a digital business designer with over 15 years of experience in design. In the beginning, I started with print and graphic design. I specialized in typography and branding, and then I learned website development. I have worked with WordPress for almost seven years as a freelancer. I have been contributing to the WordPress community since 2017. I have worked on the design team, core plugins, WordPress TV, polyglots, and community. I contribute to the community team by running the Torre Lodones Meetup and Workup. This is a beautiful little village near Madrid in Spain, and you are, of course, all invited to the next work come in March next year. I am also a proud brand ambassador of Piensa Solutions. There is a little hosting provider specialized in WordPress with a free plan. I also run a podcast. If you want to learn Spanish and if you like WordPress, you can listen to where I talk about marketing, web design, and digital business with my partner Pablo Moratinos. By the way, this podcast is a work on view of media partner. And we also run an online academy in Spanish. And please, you can also follow me on Twitter. What is asking for feedback? Feedback is a communication tool where you share your design and get criticism from others to see if expectations are aligned and to improve and advance the project. It would be ideal for all the stakeholders involved in the project to give feedback, but it's important that only those people who have authority over the project give feedback. We ask for feedback from other designers to get other professional perspectives. Detecting some problems or areas where we need to improve and can also help us to validate our desired decisions. We ask for feedback from developers to involve them in the design phase. We ask for feedback from clients to validate the design. And we ask for feedback from the users to check if the design works for them. So we ask for feedback from all these people, but in this talk, I'm going to focus on asking for feedback from clients because they pay for their work. Okay. Why is it important to ask for feedback? Well, because we may not have all the information about the project. It's necessary to have an external perspective to improve the project and make sure we are on the right track. If we ask for feedback, we can improve the final design, we can meet the client's expectations, and we can stay within the project's technical and financial scope. When to ask for feedback? Well, ask for feedback constantly. Don't move too far ahead without requesting feedback. The farther you go without asking for feedback, the more time and money you could waste. If you don't ask for feedback throughout the process, you may spend weeks working on a design idea that is ultimately rejected and discovered too late that it wasn't viable. Asking for feedback is essential to effectively move forward with the project and ensure its success. Not doing so can result in a significant loss of time and effort. And in some cases, it may even damage your reputation. Therefore, it's always better to save the story and to not forget to ask for feedback at all stages of the project. So, are we all on the same page? Just want to check that we are all in agreement about what feedback is, why we should ask for feedback and when and who to ask for feedback from. So, why aren't we as designers continuously asking for feedback? I think it is because we may not be asking for... I think it is because we lack confidence, we suffer from imposter syndrome, and don't want our designs to be negatively criticized. Or maybe because we think asking for feedback will delay the project and we don't have time. Or because we don't know how to do it or don't have the necessary tools. Or maybe because we don't want to be asked for changes. We don't want to work more or deviate from the original idea. So, how can we ask for feedback effectively? Let's take a look at some tips. As I said before, I'm going to focus on how to ask for feedback from the client, but some recommendations apply to asking for feedback from any stakeholder on the project. One tip, tip number one. Ask for both real-time and asynchronous feedback. As a designer, it's crucial to explain and justify each design decision and user flow to the client first time they see it. We never just send the design and wait for their feedback. That approach doesn't work because we need to sell our design to the client and give them a real-time experience that conveys our emotions and passion. So, the first time someone sees a design, it's better to show it in real-time, sharing your screen, displaying and explaining the design during a video call or even in person. Afterwards, they can view it and use it more lazily and provide asynchronous feedback using tools like Slack, Discord or Trello. It is important to use collaboration tools. Use the tool that works best for each stage of the project. These are the ones I usually use, but there are many. Try them out and choose the one that best fits your way of working. For design, Figma or Pempot. Pempot, if you don't know, is an open-source tool for collaborating in real-time, designing and with the developers also. For review, we can use WebVisio or Iriu for tax manager Trello Asana. For communication, there are many. Also, email is good, Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. You all know Slack and Discord. Build trust and respect. Don't take it personally. Make them feel comfortable to give feedback without hesitation. If you have a good relationship with your client, the project will turn out better. Building a good relationship with clients can improve the outcome of a project. For ask specific questions, the responsibility of communication is ours. Ask the professionals, not the clients. Ask the right questions. Don't ask what they think because we need specific feedback. If we ask this, we will get open-ended responses. Don't ask if they like it because you don't want them to just say no. And because it's not about liking. It's about fitting business, objectives and client needs. We need to explain well how we made each design decision and have the client tell us if those decisions are aligned with business objectives. Provide context. Explain the context and the purpose behind each decision. It's important to provide enough context when asking for feedback so people understand the purpose of the design and can give more relevant comments. Always appreciate feedback. The feedback will improve the project and that is good for you. Always receive it with a grateful attitude. And this goes for most things in life. Liberate the benefits of co-creation. The client has different perspectives, pays attention to different things and may notice things that you haven't seen. This is the moment to find errors or missing elements. Some problems have different solutions. There is not a single valid solution. We can give the client a choice between two or different versions and later we can do a testing to find out which solutions converge better. Also, there are clients who want to make decisions and participates very actively in the design. This way, we give them the possibility to have an opinion on some aspects of the design and not on others. Be confident when explaining your design. Presenting the project to a client as a collaboration, not as a mission for approval, can help build trust and encourage honest and constructive feedback. You don't want the client to correct your design. Don't present the project as you were in class presenting your work to a teacher. If you treat them like a teacher, they will act like one. And if the client has had a bad experience with designers who maybe were not very good and had to do a lot of correcting, they will remember that and repeat this behavior with you. Give them confidence so they know they don't have to start designing themselves. Describe the problem, not the solution. Focus the feedback on the business, not on the design. Explain the intentions and business objectives pursued in each page or section. Don't explain what you have done. Explain why you have done it. Consider the feedback, but don't always follow it right away. Although it's important to consider all feedback received, as a designer, you're the one who makes the final decision about the design. It's important to discuss with the client the reasons behind their request and work together to find a solution that meets their needs and goals. We need to make sure the client understands the reasons behind each decision. Even after learning the reasons for our decisions, if the client wants to execute a different solution, even if we consider it wrong, we should do what the client asks because they are the ones paying for the project. Understand your client and anticipate their needs. We need to know our client's needs very well to be able to anticipate the possible changes they may ask for. There are changes or requests that most clients tend to have. Knowing these needs, we can take them into account both when designing and when asking for feedback and those anticipate so that they don't ask for those changes. I have three examples of common client requests. What do you think one of the most common requests from clients is? I really love that because it's what I think. So, when a client asks for that change, we have to ask why they want that change. Why does the client want the logo to be bigger? Probably because they feel like the design doesn't express their brand. The client isn't telling you the problem. They are giving you a solution that they think will fix it based on their limited design knowledge and terminology. The client may not know how to say, the design doesn't express my brand. They know how to say, make the logo bigger because they lack design knowledge. But as designers, we know that there are other ways to express a brand besides making the logo bigger. We know that the brand is reflected in the design through colors, typography, layout, images, illustrations and other graphic elements such as icons. That's why both when we design and when we ask for feedback, we must consider that the design reflects the client's brand, not just through the logo, but through all these elements. If we explain to the client all of the resources we have used to express their brand when we present the design, it's most likely they won't ask us to make the logo bigger. We have to combine the client that we understand their needs and that we have met it. So on the left, what the client asks for and on the right, what the client is really needed. Example two. Clients often ask to add more items to the main menu of a website. As they believe it, it can make the page easier to navigate. However, adding more items to the main menu is not always a good idea as it can make the menu too confusing. The more items the main menu has, the more it is for the user to click on one of them. As we know that the client usually wants to add more items, when we show them a main menu with three or five items, we must combine them to of the importance of keeping a simple main menu to ensure usability. To prevent the client from feeling that the user will not access important information, we will explain, for example, that in addition to the main menu, we will have calls to action on the page and, for example, a secondary navigation on the footer. If the client understands the reasons for keeping the main menu simple, they probably won't ask us to add more items. So on the left, what the client is asking for and on the right, what is probably needing. And three, clients are always asking for more and more. Some clients may ask to add more content or visual elements to the design, such as icons or graphics to make the page more appealing and easier to understand. Sometimes we can incorporate more content and rearrange the layout without any problem to meet the client's needs, and we may even agree that this will improve the user's experience. But other times, adding more visual elements or more content to the design can be worse for the usability or user experience of the page. If we anticipate this and explain to the client why we use those elements and why we chose that length of content, the client probably won't feel the need to add more elements or content to the design. So on the left, what the client asks for and on the right, what is probably happening in the design. The Internet is full of memes about clients requesting changes. Clients tend to ask for the same changes all over the world, all the days. So if you already know what's going to happen, anticipate it. All right, that's everything. Thank you. Thank you. And it's time for your questions. You have to go deeper. Thank you. Thank you, Anna. There must be a lot of questions. So we have two mics lined up, one mic over there and one mic over there. So you can ask your question. And I would like to ask everybody to just ask one question per time so everybody gets a chance. And I talked to Anna, and she said also after this session she will be available outside this track to talk more to you if you have more in-depth questions. At least we don't have to ask anymore if people ask you how to make the local bigger. At least we now know what to do instead of laughing about the customer. We are actually doing something wrong and we have to do something about it. Thank you for that. That was a big lesson for me. I see they're the first person for a question. Yeah, I have a quick question. So I find myself now giving a lot of feedback. I would love to ask from the perspective of the client and you're either being a designer what's the best way of receiving feedback? So for instance I usually do the feedback sandwich where I might start with a little bit of positive, then maybe give you a little bit of the negative, and then maybe end up with a little bit of positive. Does that work? What's your preferred method of receiving feedback? Thank you for your question. For the client perspective I can recommend you to focus on the design goals, business goals, not on the design. Focus on the problems you have and you know because you know your business, you know your client, the final client and not focus the feedback on the design, the solutions, colors, typography, layout. This is for each designer's job. If you focus your feedback on your business I think it's easier to the designer to give you a solution and understand what you need to get with your website. It's okay for you? Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. We have the next person for our question. Hello, great presentation. I wanted to ask regarding the asynchronous and the real-time feedback. What do you do when, from the real-time when you go to asynchronous, the client has changed his mind? So you're asking me about the client gives you one feedback on real-time and then you get a message with signals. Yeah, I think I would try to get an appointment to get the real-time again and talk to the client. Why? No, or I don't know if... I guess there is always real-time, the selection of it. You always get the best option when the client talks to you in person. That's why I want to ask when you get different feedback on the asynchronous. It's never happened to me. I always try to make a didactical work and explain a lot the design decisions because I made design decisions when I design. Even if you choose a theme or a third party, you make design decisions and you need to make why you make those decisions. So I always explain a lot the client why. So the client gives me the feedback and we agree, we meet the objectives and the business goals and you are saying that maybe tomorrow the client can change their mind so okay, we can discuss again and you can always agree also because it's not one solution in the design. We as designers maybe have ego and the design is our son and don't want to make changes but if we work with a business perspective we don't mind to change and we don't mind to make two or three versions and test because the final word is clients, the final client, the user. So we need to test the website. We don't have the last... We don't have the truth. I don't know if... Yeah? Does any woman have any question? Because I see... We still have some time left. I like men but I like also women so I think we as women we maybe have... It's more difficult to us to go to a micro and ask questions but I would like to answer if you have any question or if you want to go deeper. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Please go ahead. Together she was great as a client. She approved the design. We talked about the user persona. It works perfectly. It works. Now she was on holidays with her friends and two friends don't like the website. They're not the users at all. It's an educational website for math teachers in the US and they're not. So I don't know what to do. I don't want to change it. It works. I've been there. It's happy but not anymore. Yeah. It's hard. They're friends. They're always asking for carousels in the homes and home page and things like that. Yeah, it's hard. But it's a slider. It's the worst performance on the slider. So the heat map goes blue. They want more slides and also they want to change the color obviously. So in that case, we need to repeat the reasons for not to put a slide on the home page. But even if agreeing that if the client is asking you to the slider, well, it's who pays for the work. So it's frustrated and maybe it's not your client. Yeah, you finish the work and say goodbye and look for another client, another type of client that be confident with you doing the work. I do appreciate her as a client and I think that the issue is really her ego. So I feel like her friends telling her that they don't like the design. It's like somebody telling you your baby is ugly. Yeah, but I think it's a... You need always to talk about business objectives and tell the client if you justify the text, for example, the text is not reading well. So it's your decision but if you do that, this is that you are going to get. Because as a designer, I have experience, I studied a lot and we know the user experience is that. So according to all of these books I read, this is the best thing we can do. But let's try it. Let's do an A-B test and let's see. And maybe the slider is a good idea. Who knows? I'll try that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So maybe I can add a little bit to it. I myself was an agency owner and I always tell customers the website is not for you but it's for your customers. So also in this case with the girlfriends, are they the demographic? Are they the potential customers? If they are not, then it doesn't matter they don't like the website because they are not the potential customer. Always try to talk about that. From my experience. Yeah, that's true. Okay, I see also online there are no questions. If there are no questions anymore, I want to thank and very much for learning more about giving feedback. And as I already said, MakeLoco, I'm not coming to close you. MakeLoco bigger is really something coming home with me that it's actually our fault that they are asking this. It's really something we have to work on when you're on the design team. Thank you very much from WordCamp. We have a small present for you.