I work for a large company that relies on our website to interact with our clients but the website is absolutely terrible and creates one of the worst user experiences out there. This became very apparent since the COVID-19 crisis and has created the possibility for change within the company.
I’ve long been interested in UX/UI and have been dreaming up a better system for our company since I began working there. Design is not my trade and I am very new to it but I’ve read a couple books to help me get started and I have recently been given the opportunity to submit my ideas to one of the top exucutives in the company. My ideas have mainly been handwritten notes and drawings in a coil notebook. Over the last week I’ve started typing up a report kind of thing and creating images of some ideas for the website and phone app in adobe illustrator.
I don’t know your company, the company executive you mention, or how good your idea are, but…
Most company executive I’ve run into think in terms of, “How will this help my career” and “How will this make me look good to the CEO.” It might sound cynical, but they don’t really care about someone else’s ideas unless they can take some credit for them and with minimal risk.
The chances are this executive isn’t all that concerned about the website or an app. If the company’s priorities were there, they’d already be on it. It’s your job to convince this person that it will do wonders for the company, it’s a sure-fire thing, and Mr/Ms Executive will look like a genius for bringing it to the attention of the his or her boss.
Drawings/mock-ups of what you’re proposing are important, but they’re only a small part of the puzzle. The bigger part is convincing them it’s needed and that you’re the person to make it happen. This means rounding up various convincing statistics, comparisons to other companies, a cost-benefit analysis, and a plan with time tables for getting it done. In other words, it’s more of a sales pitch than a design project — at least at first.
“I’ve read a couple books…”
Are you qualified to actually make this happen? Or would you be more of a creative director and they’d have to hire someone else to do the actual work? That’s a sales pitch in itself.