September 5th, 2007
What it means when a client says “Pop”
by Joshua Porter | 
18 Comments | shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/672
I was in a meeting the other day when someone said “I think we need to make the logo bigger. It needs to pop”. I looked askance…pop?
What on Earth does “pop” mean? Does it mean that you literally hear a noise when you look at it? Probably not. Does it mean that the logo actually animates a popping action when its loaded? Again, probably not. These two common meanings of the word, I daresay the most common, are not what the person meant.
Non-designers use lots of interesting words when talking about design. They say things like “make it pop”, “it looks sharp”, “it feels cluttered”, “the Web 2.0 look”. All of these things mean something to them, and it becomes the job of the designer to decipher that meaning and take actionable steps.
This problem isn’t limited to non-designers. Everybody has their own way of talking about design. Designers are just more used to translating between one person’s way of talking and another’s.
I’ve come to rely on two design terms that really help in these situations. One term is visual weight, which means how strongly something draws our eye toward it. If a design element is so bold and stands out so well that we can’t help but look at it, it has strong visual weight. In the case of “pop”, the person was asking for more visual weight, not a small explosion.
The second term is visual hierarchy. This means the order in which our eyes are drawn to objects on a page. In a solid design there is a clear visual hierarchy that focuses attention on the right elements and therefore the right message. In a weak design there is no clear hierarchy, so the message is potentially different for everyone and becomes weaker as a result.
If one is to use these terms with clients (as in my case), I have to use them consistently. Every time I use them I must ground what I’m saying to something they can immediately perceive in the design. Showing them good examples of a strong visual hierarchy is an easy way to do this. In many cases they begin to use the same terms after I’ve used them. Most people like using shared terms.
I try very hard to stay away from the teacher/student role. I hate the notion that the designer needs to “educate” the client. When these roles are demarcated it often happens that the teacher becomes the teacher in all parts of the relationship in an effort to satisfy and maintain the role. But, while I may be doing design work, I’m the student when it comes to learning about how they do business. I need to be a student of their strategy if I am to translate it into actionable design.
Instead, I like a partnership role. I may talk about design topics that they aren’t familiar with, and they might talk to me about how their business works. In many cases I discover really important information that I wouldn’t have found out about if I wasn’t in a partnership mode.
I’ve figured out by now that when people say “it feels cluttered” what they are really talking about is visual hierarchy. When they say “pop”, they are referring to visual weight. When they say “Web 2.0″, they are talking about designing with larger, sans-serif fonts, rounded corners, and bright colors: a relatively common style now. And when they say “sharp”, it means they find the design harmonious.
So the next time you hear someone say “make it pop”, don’t think of the loud sound of balloons popping, think of how you can translate that into concrete design terms and a shared vocabulary.
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1. ~bc 9:32am, Wed 5th, 2007
It’s a two way street when working with clients. You need to learn their business needs – I’d say that’s the #1 priority – but I wouldn’t brush off teaching a little design vocabulary. This allows the client to better express themselves to you, and thus get more value out of you as a partner. They realize they’re not design experts – that’s why they hired you – so when breached the right way (the difficult part) a little learnin’ about design is a good thing. It’s a little like being in a foreign country – “ehhh… How do you say…?”
2. Perkin Withersoon 10:08am, Wed 5th, 2007
I am working on a very large project at the moment for my company. In addition to the usual wireframes , mock-ups and the like we have produced a “dictionary” so we can have common names for page elements with our clients. (it doesn’t help that many of them are French speaking). It has saved a lot of toing and froing with the client and prevented at least one cock up.
We also added a few design terms as well just to be on the safe side. That part was very successful as it meant that the client learned a little and also could see our point of view that little bit more easily.
3. Drew M. 10:42am, Wed 5th, 2007
I had a boss whose favorite design criticism was “It’s just not sexy enough.” Obviously the boss wasn’t suggesting adding TnA imagery to a furniture distributor’s website, but that the design lacked visual intrigue/impact.
4. Jason DeFontes 11:17am, Wed 5th, 2007
Needs more pizzazz.
5. Ryan 11:42am, Wed 5th, 2007
That’s funny, just last week I had a client say “we need a brighter blue to make the site pop.” I understood what she meant, but didn’t necessarily agree. But of course, I did what any responsible designer would do, made my case and then did what the client wanted.
6. heri 3:51pm, Wed 5th, 2007
i might be dumb but “visual weight” and “visual hierarchy” are the same thing for me, ie making important elements stand out. or at least they are strongly inter-related. or am i wrong on that one?
7. Sarah Cooper 4:46pm, Wed 5th, 2007
Awesome post. Heri – I was thinking the same thing though – Can something that has the greatest visual weight not also be the highest in visual hierarchy? That is, doesn’t hierarchy determine weight?
8. Josh 9:09pm, Wed 5th, 2007
Heri, Sarah…yeah they are closely related. The only distinction is perhaps the level at which we talk about them…when people say “pop”, they’re usually talking about a single element and when they say “cluttered” they’re usually talking about the whole page.
But certainly the top level element in the visual hierarchy has the most visual weight. I use both all the time in that way.
9. Julian 10:23pm, Wed 5th, 2007
Great post. I always have trouble when trying to design a 2.0 look. Who makes the rules? Like you say in the end, when someone says “2.0″ it sounds like a magic word, and it actually means a specific font, with “x” spacing, etc.
10. Christina Wodtke 11:48am, Thu 6th, 2007
Actually you should be grateful. “Make it pop” is nebulous enough you can come up with multiple solutions– typesize, color, etc. When a client says “make it bigger” they may mean pop, but they’ve stuck you with a crappy solution.
Read Paula Sher’s terrific “Make it bigger” for more….
11. California for Barack Obama 4:03am, Fri 14th, 2007
I used to think web 2.0 meant shiny(and cheesy) graphics that the ceo-level people loved but recently, I’m seeing more of what it was meant to be.. simple and easy to use pages that do what they’re meant to do instead of losing and confusing the user. To me, simple and bold pages are that “pop” you mention.
That’s something the “2.0″ look doesn’t bring with it, but only a truly talented UI designer.
12. pepelicious 3:13pm, Wed 19th, 2007
On the other side of this coin, I feel it’s just as important for designers to learn the language of business.
It’s pretty easy for a creative person to translate words like “pop” or “web 2.0″ in to a design. However I imagine it’s a little more difficult for a business person to translate things like “We did this because it’s more readable” in to revenue projections.
It’s really helpful for a designer to also present the same information as a business case: “Tests have shown that if we do X you’ll retain Y% more users and potentially increase revenue by Z becasue users will have a better experience.”
Bring print outs from the many resources on the Web that back up your claims.
Designers need to understand that this extra work makes the clients life a lot easier because a) they understand what you mean and b) they can make a better case to their boss why they should continue to fund the project.
13. Josh 3:18pm, Wed 19th, 2007
Great point, pepelicious. It’s a two-way street, and those designers who navigate it easiest will be the ones who can frame design ideas in terms of business goals. Well put!
14. plau 11:30am, Fri 21st, 2007
@ drew m.
“I had a boss whose favorite design criticism was “It’s just not sexy enough.†”
Thats is exactly what my boss sometimes said
.
In other words he had no idea how to make better.