Needless to say from my tone, neither the client nor I felt it was appropriate to demonstrate the ease-of-use of a product with a presentation that was anything but. This is the hardest thing to teach to young designers: that not everyone who will see their work is also one. That there are non-artisans who simply want to see the features of a product in a nice, relevent environment with quick, intuitive nagivational elements that compliment the product being offered.

I reluctantly took the project back after much discussion and conceptualized an HTML/JavaScript page where the user is invited to click on a color swatch for the front and one for the back. Real photos of the phone update to show the front, side and back results of their selections. This way they can understand how they can create a unique look to suit their personality or mood.

To really drive home how easy it is to snap the covers on and off, we created a Flash demo linked prominently with a visual icon and instruction set at the bottom of the page to show, step-by-step, the process via a close-up view also with real photographs. The user can select to repeat the step or continue and whether they want to see how to change the front or the back covers in a vibrant presentation with subtle animations and bright colors, just like the covers themselves.

A series of special ‘IMD Covers’ are also available. These contain patterns, not just flat colors. We designed a series of passive Flash movies to set the style and tone for each of these.