Generally, Issue 237 of A List Apart, for people who make websites, is all about education. Specifically, it’s about educating bosses and clients to approve good design and make better strategic decisions.

Stand and Deliver

by David Sleight

You’ve got thirty seconds to sell your work to the well dressed nemesis who’s paying you. Handle the next few moments gracefully, and the project will be one you can be proud of. Flub an answer, and you can kiss excellence goodbye. Are you prepared? Can you deliver?

David Sleight is the Deputy Creative Director of BusinessWeek.com, and writes about design, the web, and anything else that strikes his fancy at Stuntbox. When he’s not pushing pixels or punching code he can be found exploring the wilds of New York.

Educate Your Stakeholders!

by Shane Diffily

Who decides what’s best for a website? Highly skilled professionals who work with the site’s users and serve as their advocates? Or schmucks with money? Most often, it’s the latter. That’s why a web designer’s first job is to educate the people who hold the purse strings.

Shane Diffily is author of The Website Manager’s Handbook and webmaster with one of Ireland’s largest companies. He also publishes regular features about the challenges of website administration on www.diffily.com.

A List Apart explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices. Explore our articles or find out more about the magazine.

[tags]selling design, design, development, webdesign, webdevelopment, education, client education, project management, alistapart[/tags]

Filed under: A List Apart, business, Design, project management

6 Responses to “ALA 237: client school”

1. 
   Deaf Musician said on 8 May 2007 at 1:04 pm:

   Excellent, excellent articles. I am big fan of ALA and have been reading it for 4-5 years now. Great stuff!

2. 
   Kevin said on 9 May 2007 at 12:36 am:

   It’s good to see some new authors on ALA. Is this an effort to expand ALA’s readership? Or expand the newbies readership?

3. 
   Jeffrey Zeldman said on 9 May 2007 at 5:49 am:

   It’s good to see some new authors on ALA. Is this an effort to expand ALA’s readership? Or expand the newbies readership?

   We continually publish new authors. It’s what we do. ALA is very much the voice of the community.

   It’s also a developing ground for talent. Many authors with whom you are now familiar started as relatively unknown contributors to ALA.

4. 
   vanderwal said on 11 May 2007 at 7:57 pm:

   This is a fantastic issue, not that others have not been, but these are nice fresh areas on ALA. Thank you.

Comments off.