Present One Recommendation, Not Three Options
Showing a client three routes and asking them to pick transfers the judgement they hired you to make.
The three-route presentation is close to universal and it is a way of avoiding responsibility. If we genuinely believe all three are equally good, we have not finished thinking.
What Choice Does to a Client
Presented with three, a client stops evaluating whether a design solves their problem and starts expressing a preference. Preference is a much weaker basis for a decision than argument, and it invites everyone in the room to have one.
What We Do Instead
We develop two routes, present both in application, recommend one and say precisely why — which parts of the brief it satisfies that the other does not. The second route exists to show the road not taken, not as a genuine alternative.
This Requires Being Wrong Occasionally
Twice in eleven years both routes have been rejected. Both times the honest reading was that we had misunderstood the brief, and both times we went back to it at no charge. That is the correct consequence of taking a position.
The Awkward Corollary
You cannot recommend without a reason, and “it feels right” is not one. Committing to a single route forces you to articulate the argument, which is usually where the weak part of a design becomes visible to you as well.
