This week’s post is inspired by  New York Tech Meetup. For those of you that are NYC based, I’m sure you know about and/or attended the event. For those of you who are not here in NYC, NYTM is basically one of the biggest, most well known tech/startup events in the area.

Demoing to the New York community is a must for just about any startup in the area. It’s sort of like an initiation into the “you are almost close to making it” world here in NYC. Therefore, the demo, to me, seems like a hugh effort to prepare for… and most if not all presenters do prepare a great deal.

• What then makes a successful demo?
• Who usually gets the most buzz, questions and positive feedback from their presentations?

It’s the presenters that think about what the audience wants to hear, NOT what they, as the presenter, want to say. This is where demoing at the NYTM, and anywhere to be honest becomes a task in User Experience Design.

Step one in preparing for any presentation or demo, is to understand your audience. Of course, this is our number goal as user experience designers. We aim to understand the mental models and behaviors of our user base, as well as to internalize the emotions that our users are going through as they experience our designs. So, before you give your presentation, instead of only focusing on what you want to say, focus more on “if I was in the audience listening to someone talk about this product what would I want to hear?” By doing this you can answer the audiences’ questions before they even think of them. This puts the audience at ease and helps them to tie in, especially emotionally, with what you are saying. You may be creating a customer without knowing it.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is the essence of creating an experience for your audience. Think about when you were a child and you had someone, maybe a teacher or parent, who was a great storyteller. The whole experience that they created when telling a story was full of ups and downs and ins and outs. The story was designed for these emotional pulls and telling it just right pulled you in and grabbed your attention. You can probably think of a storytelling moment that, to this day, you can still remember (even think of the movies you’ve watched). Now imagine that 1, 5, or even 10 years from now someone had that emotion about your demo or product. That is selling power.

Another great example is Steve Jobs. When Steve gets up all he is doing is a product demo. Yes, the products are pretty awesome, but I’m sure that Steve and team have thought about the demo audience and the types of things they want to see before they get up and wow them. The “wow” is really just meeting and exceeding the audiences expectations, answering their questions before they ask them and thereby creating an affinity for the product… basic sales.

The bottom line is this: when you are demoing or presenting an idea or product remember that it is an experience for your audience.

• Are you expecting the audience to be as passionate about as you are?
• Do you want them to take their time to sit and listen to you?
• What are they there to learn or hear, why do they care about your product?

In order to make the most of their time, make it about them.

It’s easy to get up and just talk about your ideas and features and why they are important to you… and sometimes that is a very valid talk. But unless you are standing in front of a mirror, you’ll probably want to think about what someone else, or a group of someone elses wants to hear. What are your ideas and features and why they are important to them. This makes people much more engaged with what you are doing and enables you to spread your ideas much more quickly and efficiently. Oh, and also makes a successful and engagement product demo.

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About the Blogger:

Lis is the Founder of Hubert Experience Design, a boutique user experience firm based in NYC. Her firm has worked with a wide range of organizations, from Fortune 500 to start-up. Hubert Experience Design takes pride in making websites better and easier to use.

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