What we do is if we have the opportunity to look at the whole project, we sit together, if ever possible, with the top decision makers, and try to explain to them that this is not a mere matter of pushing pixels, or making things pretty, but it’s a matter of structuring the information at the very top level. Defining the basic containers of what you want to communication throughout all the channels, and making them understand that they have to, and sometimes put the marketing department in place, sometimes put the corporate design department in place, to allow us to simplify.

If we don't have that top-level license to kill, it’s usually impossible to get there. If we want the CEO to actually understand how important it is simplify, and then once the understanding for simplification is there, and how much interaction benefits from that simplification, we try to map out two things—one is the mental model, which is what the user expects, and the other one is the content model, which is what the company has to offer, and trying to match them.

Often what the user expects has not much to do with what the company wants to push or what the company has to offer. And that again is a top-level job to find an agreement, ‹okay, this is what the user expects, and this is what you have, now we have to cut this, this, this and this.› And additionally to what the user expects, you offer this container, and then you will have a positive response.

Oliver Reichenstein.