Say for example you want to show your wireframes to your client in the “logged out” and “first time visit” states, Polypage allows you to click through all your wireframes to demonstrate such a case. Later on when you decide to demonstrate the “logged in” state, all you do is toggle it in the top menu and continue your presentation.

Traditionally, developing a prototype like this would have been quite time intensive; tools like polypage and jquery make this kind of work quick and easy. Having a working prototype makes it very easy to show stakeholders and developers what you’re thinking.

Thanks to clearleft for developing it. You may have more fun exploring their example of this technique: mine is for a fairly unexciting government project!

What very quickly emerged was that I hadn’t really achieved the required focus for what I will be selling in my project, and that Ellen’s questions became much more of a strategic discussion (which often happens to me when I’m questioning a client in the early days of ‘just building a website’!).

In less than an hour we’d covered a lot of ground: I’ve now got some strategic clarity, fresh ideas for my product, clearer ideas about how to sell it, and an outline for copy that should practically write itself. I’d highly recommend going through this process with Ellen, and I may well try incorporate the exercise into my next project for someone else.

I believe the ideas are taken from ‘Web Copy That Sells‘. Here are the questions that Ellen asked: we had to write 5 answers for each one.

1. Name the key problems faced by your customers.
2. Why haven’t these problems been solved before?
3. What will have changed as a result of your product?
4. Paint a picture of how things will change for your customer.
5. What actions would you like a user to your site to take?
6. What makes you different from the competition?

Ellen really helped me to refine my answers into something very friendly and readable, all in under an hour. Thanks again Ellen!