Make A Mood Board Your Conversation Starter With Your Client

UX Design Essentials: Article 7

Mood boards are your anchors in your design talks with your clients and teams. And yes, that includes your UX team.

When you have a conversation with your client about their product design vision, you need to be prepared with real physical ideas of your own. Most often, what your client thinks as strategic and impactful does not match what you, the designer, has in mind.

Mood boards bring foundational value to your project and design discussion

Undoubtedly, at some point in the design evolution, your client will want to see their product in some preliminary shape or form. They might want to see a thematic exploration, a look and feel, colors, a photographic style, typography, illustration, icons, active states, and overall mood and feeling.

This is where mood boards come in

Mood boards are discussion material. They are not brand guides. They invite your client to react, to tell you what their gut reactions are to a preliminary design exploration.

Keep in mind, as designers, especially as UX designers, we are non-judgemental. We try to align with our client’s needs early in the process, while carefully nudging our clients into an appropriate design direction, emphasizing quality…