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I am planning to give a Technical presentation for a product we are building.
Intended audience is Technical developers. So, most of the time, I will be debugging trough the code in Visual Studio, performance analysis, some architecture review etc.
I have read couple of blogs on font sizes to use, templates to use on Visual Studio, presentation tools, among other very useful tips.
What I am looking specifically for is how to keep the session interesting without making it a dry code walkthrough? How to avoid making people fall asleep? Would be great to hear some stories..
Update1: Nice youtube clip on zoomit. Glue Audience To Your Presentation With Zoomit.
Update2: New post from Scott Hanselman after his PDC talk - Tips for Preparing for a Technical Presentation
Put interesting comments in the code.
// This better not fail during my next presentation, stupid ##$##%$ code.
Don't talk about them, let them be found by the audience.
-Adam
FYI, that Hanselman article has an update (your link is from 2003).
Use stories. Even with code examples, have a backstory: here's why someone is doing this. To increase audience participation, ask for examples of X where X is something you know you can demo, then phrase the walk-through in those terms.
Or maybe you have war stories about how it was different or how it normally takes longer or whatever. I find people identify with such things, then as you give your examples they're mentally tracking it back to their own experience.
I recommend Scott Hanselman's post (previously mentioned). I've written up a post with some tips, mostly for selfish reasons - I review it every time before I give a technical presentation:
Tips for a Technical Presentation
If you're using a console prompt, make sure the font is readable and that your paths are preset when possible.
Take 15 minutes to install and learn to use ZoomIt, so your audience can clearly see what you're showing off. If you have to ask if they can see something, you've already failed.
Probably most important is to have separate Visual Studio settings pre-configured with big, readable fonts.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got for doing demos is to just plain record them in advance and play back the video, narrating live. Then the unexpected stuff happens in private and you get as many stabs at it as you need.
You still usually need some environment to use as a reference for questions, but for the presentation bit, recording it in advance (and rehearsing your narration over the video) pretty much guarantees you can be at the top of your game.
I also like to put small jokes into the slides and that recorded video that make it seem like the person who made the slides is commenting on the live proceedings or that someone else is actually running the slides. Often, I make absolutely no reference at all to the joke in the slide.
For instance, in my most recent demo presentation, I had a slide with the text "ASP.NET MVC" centered that I was talking over about how I was using the framework. In a smaller font, I had the text "Catchy name, huh?". When I did that demo live, that slide got a chuckle. It's not stand-up worthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we're often presenting some pretty dry stuff and every little bit helps.
Similarly, I've included slides that are just plain snarky comments from the offscreen guy about what I'm planning to say. So, I'll say, "The codebase for this project needed a little help", while the slide behind me said "It was a pile of spaghetti with 3 meatballs, actually" and a plate of spaghetti as the slide background. Again, with no comment from me and just moving on to the next slide as though I didn't even see it actually made it funnier.
That can also be a help if you don't have the best comedic timing by taking the pressure off while still adding some levity.
Anyway, what it really comes down to is that I've been doing most of my demo/presentation work just like I would if it was a screencast and then substituting the live version of me (pausing the video as appropriate if things go off the rails) for the audio when I give it in front of an audience.
Of course, you can then easily make the real presentation available afterward for those who want it.
For the slides, I generally go out of my way to not say the exact words on the screen more often than not.
If you are showing code that was prepared for you then make sure you can get it to work. I know this is an obvious one but I was just at a conference where 4 out of 5 speakers had code issues. Telling me it is 'cool' or even 'really cool' when it doesn't work is a tough sell.
You should read Mark Jason Dominus excellent presentaton on public speaking:
Conference Presentation Judo
The #1 rule for me is: Don't try to show too much.
It's easy to live with a chunk of code for a couple of weeks and think, "Damn, when I show 'em this they are gonna freak out!" Even during your private rehearsals you feel good about things. But once in front of an audience, the complexity of your code is multiplied by the square of the number of audience members. (It becomes exponentially harder to explain code for each audience member added!)
What seemed so simple and direct privately quickly turns into a giant bowl of spaghetti that under pressure even you don't understand. Don't try to show production code (well factored and well partitioned), make simple inline examples that convey your core message.
My rule #1 could be construed, by the cynical, as don't overestimate you audience. As an optimist, I see it as don't overestimate your ability to explain your code!
rp
Since it sounds like you are doing a live presentation, where you will be working with real systems and not just charts (PPT, Impress, whatever) make sure it is all working just before you start. It never fails, if I don't try it just before I start talking, it doesn't work how I expected it to. Especially with demos. (I'm doing one on Tuesday so I can relate.)
The other thing that helps is simply to practice, practice, practice. Especially if you can do it in the exact environment you will be presenting in. That way you get a feel for where you need to be so as not to block the view for your listeners as well as any other technical gotchas there might be with regards to the room setup or systems.
This is something that was explained to me, and I think it is very useful. You may want to consider not going to slide heavy at the beginning. You want to show your listeners something (obviously probably not the code) up front that will keep them on the edge of their seats wanting to learn about how to do what you just showed them.
I've recently started to use Mind Mapping tools for presentations and found that it goes over very well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
Basically, I find people just zone out the second you start to go into details with a presentation. Conveying the information with a mind map (at least in my experience), provides a much easier way for the information to be conveyed and tied together.
The key is presenting the information in stages (ie, your high-level ideas first, then in more detail, one at a time). The mind-mapping tools basically let you expand your map, as the audience watches and your present more and more detailed information. Doing it this way lets your audience gradually absorb the data in smaller stages, which tends to aid retention.
Check out FreeMind for a free tool to play with. Mind Manager is a paid product, but is much more polished and fluent.
Keep your "visual representation" simple and standard.
If you're on Vista hide your desktop icons and use one of the default wallpapers. Keep your Visual Studio settings (especially toolbars) as standard and "out of the box" as possible. The more customizations you show in your environment the more likely people are going to focus on those rather than your content.
Keep the content on your slides as consisce as possible. Remember, you're speaking to (and in the best scenario, with) your audience so the slides should serve as discussion points. If you want to include more details, put them in the slide notes. This is especially good if you make the slide decks available afterwards.
If someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, don't be afraid to say you don't know. It's always better than trying to guess at what you think the answer should be.
Also, if you are using Vista be sure to put it in "presentation mode". PowerPoint also has a similar mode, so be sure to use it as well - you have the slide show on one monitor (the projector) and a smaller view of the slide, plus notes and a timer on your laptop monitor.
Have you heard of Pecha-Kucha?
The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep
presentations concise, the interest
level up and to have many presenters
sharing their ideas within the course
of one night. Therefore the 20x20
Pecha Kucha format was created: each
presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20
images, each shown for 20 seconds.
This results in a total presentation
time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a
stage before the next presenter is up
Now, i am not sure if that short duration could be ok for a product demonstration.
But you can try to get some nice ideas from the concept, such as to be concise and keep to the point, effective time, space management etc..
Besides some software like Mind Manager to show your architecture, you make find a screen recorder as a presentation tool to illustrate your technical task. DemoCreator would be something nice to make video of your onscreen activity. And you can add more callout to make the process easier to understand.
If you use slides at all, follow Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule:
No more than 10 slides
No more than 20 minutes spent on slides
No less than 30 point type on slides
-Adam
Related
I'm a recent graduate who is looking to get a job doing user experience. Next week, I have a technical interview in which I will be given a website and will have to talk about its usability issues as well as come up with ways of improving the user experience. I feel I have the natural skills to do this and have been doing a fair amount of reading into the subject, but I would like some further advice on how to effectively critique different kinds of websites.
Does anybody have any suggestions of common faults I should look out for, or advice on ways of structuring my evaluation in order that it is relatively air-tight and I do not miss anything obvious?
As I've said before, I'm already doing a lot of reading and I realize that practice makes perfect. However, I'm hopeful that those that have long-term experience with this can help me by imparting their wisdom on gotchas, common issues, and what to look out for in a good/bad website.
Thanks in advance!
How easy navigation is
Whether a user can easily find what he needs without resorting to "search" function. Edge case: whether a user can find the search input field without using the browser's search function (Ctrl+F)?
Whether a site is browsable with images turned off
How many clicks it takes to accomplish an operation. Is that many really necessary?
Are the most important / frequently used features right there in front of the user?
Whether you communicate with the user in geek language
Whether you overwhelm the user with long literary texts where one or two words will suffice
Whether you use standard ideas in your UI. Do buttons, links and menus look like buttons, links and menus? Do they also work that way?
If UI is made up of a limited set of controls with consistent look and behavior? Or each page is unique and has to be learned from scratch?
Whether UI is accomplished with mostly 2-3 colors or uses different colors everywhere to look cool
Also check out the following questions:
Worst UI You’ve Ever Used
What are common UI misconceptions and annoyances?
Why is good UI design so hard for some Developers?
What is the best UI you’ve ever used?
As the other answers have talked a bit about usability I'll mention some things about accessibility (although good accessibility and usability go hand-in-hand).
First of all you need to get the usability correct - a site with poor usability will straight away mean that it will almost certainly also have poor accessibility. Make sure it makes sense, is easy to navigate and is structured meaningfully - for good accessibility that needs to be reflected in the markup as well as visually (so use headings correctly, use things like (strong) instead of (b)old, etc). Automated tools can provide some limited help with this.
Secondly make sure you use the various pieces of markup that are available which will enhance usability (e.g. alt tags on images). Automated tools are excellent for this.
Next if you're going to use technologies like javascript try to use progressive enhancement so that users without those technologies available still have a workable experience. Automated tools won't help much with this.
Finally don't get lured into thinking that an accessible website is a dull boring featureless one - for every user with visual difficulties there will be many more who have cognitive difficulties such as dyslexia. The aim is to make it engaging for everyone, not cripple it for a minority of users (who will likely also be penalised if you start slashing content - for example youtube is one of the most popular sites for blind users).
My thinking process :
See what's different. I mean ask yourself, "is this button here also done that way on youtube/google/basecamp/whatever has been proven good enought".
If it's not the case, I ask myself "does it make sense to do it differently?". If it doesn't make sense, then it shouldn't be that way to avoid confusing the user.
If it makes sense, I ask myself "If it's not obvious, what's the learning curve for the user?", always keeping in mind that "the user" is not IT.
Then I'd see if I can improve it. If I can't, maybe you can't improve it, so even if the control is not perfect it's good enough.
Finally ask yourself "what does the website wants the user to do?". Is it buying something? Subscribing? It's all about figuring out what's the objective. Then see if the website is oriented toward something aiming to complete this objective.
As well as practical ideas about usability problems, you might want to think what kind of process you'd use to do this work (and how it would fit into the company's development process). Would you start out with research? How would you present your analysis and feedback?
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You and I want to be the expert on computer programming or website design, but sometimes a customer would rather try their hand at your specialty than concentrate on real estate sales, marketing, or being a former member of the Israeli army. Then we have a choice: either figure out how to tell the prickly customer their logo would NOT be better spinning in 3-d with a righteous lens flare, or perhaps suffer the small indignity of making link texts as verbose as possible in direct opposition to any style guide ever written.
Have you been able to convince your customers to focus on whatever it is they are trained to do so they will let you execute your technical skill to the best of your ability?
I always try to point my clients in the right direction with regard to design. Sometimes it's just not possible though; they want something that's dreadful design, but they're convinced it's essential to their system. If they're unconvinced after a modest pitch, I just do what they want. They are, after all, the ones paying me (usually) thousands of dollars to build to their spec.
Often the reason the client wants to get involved is they are concerned consciously or unconsciously you don't understand the details of their business or how they do it.
The best approach is to work with the client to learn their business. This involves zero assumptions and learning the "how they do it" of their business. From that, discover all the data they use, what states the data sits in at what point in their process.
Keep taking it back to them and eventually they will realize that not only do you understand their stuff, what they want, and what direction they want to go in, but that you might even know the implications or impacts better than them.
After this they will usually stay out of your hair. This can be hard though when working with micromanaging types, or engineers. By nature they want to know how everythign works which is great. The timing of when it's best to learn how it works is the tough part.
Often you can get stuck in more conversing about solving a problem than it would take to just fix it. Maybe you can tell us more about the client's personality.
The trick is to get them to make the right decisions, but think it's their idea. :-)
You can't have this conversation with them easily in the abstract, but you can drill down and guide them towards the side of righteousness on each individual decision. Eventually, after you've been through this a few times, they'll start to trust you.
If possible, it helps to wait a day. Tomorrow they may be less clear on exactly what they asked for. (Do they really have their heart set on a flaming logo, or was it just a whim?) Then, in your response, you: describe what you recommend, and why. Restate agreed-upon objectives, and show how the solution meets the objectives. And make it sound like it was their idea. ("The point you made yesterday about xxx is really excellent, and I think that suggests a yyy solution.")
At this point you have a choice. You can ideally pretend you never heard their silly suggestion. Or if you feel you have to, respond to it tactfully and explain costs. ("I'm a bit concerned about the animated logo idea, because it may not convey the brand image the way you requested. Of course if you want to go this route, we certainly can--in which case I'd suggest we get our graphic design consultant involved. Let me know if you want to explore this further and get a quote from the consultant for his services.")
I found that customers are always easier to convince by "optical evidence" than by theoretical arguments - so you could e.g. show them logos or the general style used on websites which won a price for their usability, or maybe even show them how some big competitor is doing it, and then point out the benefits based on what they see.
I've also once managed to get rid of a really terrible user interface suggestion by making screen mock-ups of how this feature would actually look and work - and I made sure to make thes mock-up as unappealing as possible ;-) When I presented them, the client quickly realized that there were better ways of achieving his goal.
Knowledge is power. When you know a client is doing something wrong, have the facts ready as to why and present them quickly and in plain english. You need to remind them why they hired you in the first place.
Bearing that in mind, sometimes clients insist on shooting themselves in the foot. Have backups ready, use version control, but most of all: don't antagonize them. Your reputation is worth a lot more than their 3d-logo-spinny site.
Very carefully.
You've got several conflicting issues here: you want to keep the relationship (and the revenue), you want to do good work, and you don't want to end up with your name on a turkey.
Start by asking lots of questions about the business aspect: what do you want it to do, who do you want to reach, what impression do you want to give. Sometimes that will let you turn the discussion to more useful topics.
If that doesn't work, sometimes it helps to mock up the customer's idea and your idea, and compare them; if yours is clearly superior, they may see it.
If not, sometimes you have to remember that contracting/consulting is a form of prostitution; you do what the customer wants, whether it's your favorite thing or not.
The other thing to remember is a lesson I got from another consultant years ago: some customers aren't worth the trouble. he recommended that once you have enough business to live, you make a practice of firing your least liked 10 percent of the customers. Over time you develop a customer base that you can work with, and give the turkeys to someone else.
The problem with customers is that they are the customer. They have hired you to do a project to their specifications. What they seem to have missed in your example is that they have hired you because of your experience. You need to remind them of that fact in a gentle way. Perhaps a story such as "At one client, we used a logo like that and they expereinced a drop in traffic. Once we switched to a flat icon the traffic returned." Doesn't have to be true, per se, but you need to sell it.
All you can do it explain to your customer that they hired you for your expertise in design, but at the end of the day, the customer is always right.
If you find you don't enjoy working for customers like that, simply state at the beginning of a new project that you require complete creative control. If they still want rotating logos, then you'll have to put up with it for that project but at least you can decline any offers from the same customer in the future.
Say for instance I'm going to do some seat of my pants coding adding a feature to an enterprise app. What are some good examples/tenants/cardinal rules a person can follow for making a fairly complex setup/config screen not look like feet.
What I'm looking for is along the lines of "Don't put one thing in a group box". But I'd also like some help with symmetry if anyone knows what layouts are most likely to achieve a relative amount of good looks that would be helpful.
Here's a cardinal rule you asked for: line up the controls vertically /horizontally and equally space the various related elements. And use correct spelling on your labels!
We've all come across screens where there are misaligned controls (even a couple pixels is noticeable) or misspelling on labels. When this happens to me I can't help but subconsciously look for other mistakes, plus it decreases my confidence in the application I'm using!
This is actually a huge topic. I frequently go to the Microsoft UX Guide for reminders on how to do this.
Some basics:
Make your app read like a book: left
to right, top to bottom
Use goal-oriented language instead of
technology oriented language
Not a cardinal rule but a great resource:
Apple UI Guidelines (good info for any OS)
EDIT: Re: achieving symmetry - things don't have to be perfectly symmetrical, but you want a feel of balance. Take a step back and get a sense of whether the page or form feels like it's leaning/falling to the left or right.
E.g., with stackoverflow, the main content is to the left, but it's nicely balanced by the extra stuff on the right.
I find that paper is my friend. I like to write out a list of objectives the form has to accomplish, and then sketch the form by hand, labeling the parts. Drawing it out lets me get away from making sure it looks perfect and that everything is aligned just right, and lets me focus on making sure that all the components I need are placed, hopefully somewhere logically. It also forces me to lay out the UI twice, so by the time I open my UI designer, I've already designed the form once and you hopefully know what I am doing
Some basic rules for you.
Try to make effective use of whitespace. Don't cram everything together in an effort to get as much stuff on screen as possible. This will make grouped controls more clear and text more legible.
Basic typography. Limit your use of fonts to 1 or 2. Don't use bold too much or it loses its emphasis.
The same goes for colours. Don't use too many, the fewer the better most of the time.
Don't just use icons to save space. Tiny icons with no explanation are useless.
Copy. Not wholesale of course, but if you are not well-versed in UI design yourself, it makes sense to take elements of interfaces you know work and apply them in your own designs.
Be clear about the purpose of the interface. How does it fit within the broader application for example? And what are the specific objectives you are trying to satisfy with it?
Get people to test it for you, early and often. I don't know what setup you are working with, or what kind of organisation you are in, but getting some kind of human feedback on your work will always be helpful, even if you lack the time and expertise to conduct proper usability evaluations.
Since you use the term, "seat of your pants," I'm assuming that you don't want to spend too much time on the UI. If you are willing to devote some time to the UI, you may want to look into custom control or UI development that will suit your situation. Like Firefox's Options UI or the .NET project properties in Visual Studio 2008.
If you are looking for something using standard controls, it is probably best to separate out different sections of related items into tabs or some other type of stacking control (i.e. Ribbon control). A good example of the tabbed version would be the Notepad++ Preferences UI. Many other programs use a similar scheme.
The best way to get a UI that makes sense is to follow Joel's advice:
Eat your own dog food.
Do it a few times to your own UI, and you'll notice some things you didnt think of intially.
I've found that a really good test is getting someone non-technical to use your GUI. Watching someone use it for 5-10mins normally gives me a very good idea about what is/isn't easier to understand.
This series by Joel Spolsky is a pretty good read and Jakob Nielsen's stuff Usability and Web Design is pretty useful.
Specific rules I try and use are:
Put items in logical groups
Line everything up
Use sensible images/icons
Spend 5-10 mins thinking through why things are the way there are
Only use words that make sense to the user not to you!
Start from the setup/config UI of an existing application that you feel is both simple and usable.
Most tenants/cardinal rules apply to UI in general and fill hundreds and hundreds of pages in UI design and HCI books, so you probably want to just work your way by example for now, while trying to capitalize on existing user experience (habits), i.e. obeying the rule of "least surprise": e.g. if your application is a Windows application, use the Installation Wizard pattern, if it's an ncurses app for a particular flavor of *nix follow the style of that particular OS's actual installation UI, etc.
You might be interested in the book "Don't Make Me Think," (author's web site) or "About Face 3.0". Both come highly recommended for reading about how to design interfaces.
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I find way too many projects to get involved in, way to many languages to play with (and way too many cool features within those languages), and way too many books to read...
How do you guys stay focused and actually get anything done, rather than leaving a trail of partially complete "experiments?"
Seems like there are two types of developers: Tinkerers and Entrepreneurs.
Tinkerers want to know how every little thing works. Once they get the hang of something, they're distracted by everything they don't know. The tech world is brutal for a Tinkerer because there's so much to learn and each new year creates more. Tinkerers are proud of their knowledge.
Entrepreneurs want to know enough to build something really great. They think in terms of features and end-user experiences. You never hear them argue about Python over .NET over Java over C because they just don't care. They're more interested in the result of a language versus the language itself. Entrepreneurs are proud of their user-base.
Sounds like you're struggling with your Tinkerer tendencies. I've got the same problem and have found only one thing that helps - find an Entrepreneur developer that you thoroughly respect. When you put the two together, it's unbeatable. The Tinkerer plumbs the depth of every technical nuance. They keep the Entrepreneur technically honest. In turn, the Entrepreneur creates focus and opportunity for the Tinkerer. When they catch you browsing the Scala site (assuming you're not a Scala developer), they reveal a new challenge in your existing project. Not only that, they're much better at understanding what non-Tinkerers want.
Money, and the feeling of accomplishment that goes along with actually finishing something. When I first thought about working for myself I started coming up with ideas of software that I would develop and then later sell. Of course, I really didn't know if what I was making would actually sell, so it was easy to get distracted and jump at new ideas.
So I decided to go with being a contractor/consultant. When you know that there is a buyer for what you're making, and that somebody is waiting on it, it gives you motivation. If it's an interesting or challenging project, there's a rush associated with finishing it. So that adds extra motivation because you want that rush more and more.
Once I got a fairly steady flow of work-for-hire projects, I found that I can stay focused on my side projects better because I have incentive to practice good time management. I give myself a certain amount of time every day or week to work on my side projects, and it helps me stay focused when I take that time.
Of course, I still go off on tangents occasionally and start new side projects as well, but the ones that I am most interested in I have been able to stick with.
Also, after you finish some projects, then you get a better feel for what it actually takes to go from conception to completion, and it makes it a lot easier to do it again and again.
I think a good programmer may well have lots of unfinished "experiments" hanging around, this is a good thing.
Usually with a good manager, you will be held accountable if your work is simply not getting done. If you're a student, though, it's tougher. I realized that it is impossible to learn everything you want to.
I limit myself to only learning 1 or 2 new languages per year, and only 1 book per month. That seems to be a nice balance between programming chaos and getting my job done well.
Kudos for having a great learning attitude :)
Probably the best motivator (for a team or an individual) is to set goals early and often.
One of the best methods I've observed in project management was the introduction of "feature themed weeks" - where the team (or an individual) was set goals or deliverables which aligned under a general flavour, e.g "Customer Features", "Reporting and Metrics" etc. This kept the team/person focused on one area of delivery/effort. It also made it easy to communicate to the customer where progress was being made.
Also.. Try to make your (or your team's) progress visible. If you can establish an automated build process (or some other mechanism) and "publish" incremental implementation of work over a short period of time you can often gain traction and early by-in which can drive results faster (and help aid in early course correction).
1) I leave a utterly MASIVE trail of unfinished stuff, all side projects of course.
2) When I need motivation to work I open my wallet... That usually does it for me.
I'm building an app I plan on selling and see it as a way of making extra money or reducing the amount of time I spend working for other people.
My wife likes this idea and her encouragement has managed to keep me focused longer than normal as it's now "work" rather than "play"
I find that getting involved with the "business" side of the equation helps tremendously. When you see how much benefit the actual users of your program can get out of your creative solutions to their problems - it's an extreme motivation to provide those solutions to them. :-)
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How do you show your clients/employers that you understood their requirements?
What do you recommend to use? Use-Case diagrams? Flow-Charts? Data-Flow-Diagrams? Decision Trees?
I'm not really asking for a very detailed answer. Just something simple to help me communicate with the person who wrote the requirements and to see if both of you are on the same page.
I usually put together a PowerPoint deck fairly early in a project, giving a high-level overview of the project, along with some architectural diagrams (the simpler the better) and screen mockups/wireframes. Then I have a "kick-off" meeting for requirements review, and talk through the business problem and proposed solution.
I simply explain the requirements back in my own language, supplying my assumptions and adding in limitations.
The requirement may be "Button turns green when clicked"
I would ask "Ok, so when the user clicks on the button, the background color of the button turns green, but the text stays the same color?"
Basically prompting the person giving the requirements to explain how THEY envision it working.
My role has a lot of requirements gathering. The best way I find is a two pronged approach, talk through a PowerPoint presentation keeping it all simple and high level, and showing a Proof of Concept or a mock up. Walking and talking the customer through will see them responding with many "what if's" such as "Can I chance the colour?" this gives everyone a broad idea of what they are getting. If you can get something the users can touch and play with that works really well at uncovering the hidden what if.
Then, back this high level up with really detailed low level requirements. Spell out the dotted "i" and crossed "t". Get the users to read through and sign them before anything more than the POC is done. Generally word with a lot of screenshots works well.
Unless the users can bring you UML's and data flow charts, don't use them in anything the customer sees or signs. If it is signed by the customer and you had to regigg the back end to meet a "what if" you have to totally get everything resigned.
The final thing is to ensure that the customers can talk to you in their own words about their requirements and spell out what they are getting. One way to do this is to sit in on any middle management sell to higher management.
Don't try and bamboozle the customer, if they want something changed at the last minute, explain what the cost will be, in time and money, and ask them if this totally required. Doing this, will often stop people making trivial changes, and force them to think about why they want the change.
Requirements are getting what the customer needs from what they say they want.
Edit-
To the point about showing screenshots early- this sometimes requires a good PM to let the customer know the time scales and where everything is at. If the PM helps to set some decent time frames and expectations, the customers won't get excited. The good thing of POC and screenshots is people get an image of what it could be like and can often work that inside their minds.
If you want to avoid screenshots do a wire-frame look or use a whiteboard and 20 mins of drawing. Just remember to save the whiteboard as a photo before you whipe it.
Whiteboarding (and the good old OHP) can be a godsend to requirements gathering- developing a good clear style of drawing concepts can save hours in workshops.
Flow charts tend to confuse some non-technical people (ie clients), as well as data flow diagrams. Use Cases are good and understandable, as well as Business Requirement and Technical Requirement documentation, possible some sort of rough wireframe sketches.
It really depends wich requirements you're talking about.
Functionnal requirements? Maybe that UML is the rigth tool for. But I would prefer a test o test specifications
GUI requirements? Nothing beats a paper and a pencil.
Security requirements? By describing the limits of your security, you avoid unexpected deceptions.
Reliability requirements? Both testing mechannism, and software/hardware backup/recovery plan.
Other requirements: depends of your client.
But anyway, keep in mind, and explain to the client that requirement WILL change during the development phase and that it will always be a discussion and a compromise between cost and functionnality. Being honnest give more confidence to your customer.
I think that the best way to show that you really understand the client idea is to build prototypes.
By the way I was present in the last edition of the Requirements Engineering conference and in one of the workshops (MERE), Siemens was showing and interesting software based on composing a video of the client idea (it was for projects not limited to software) just to ensure that all the requirements are fully understood.
Any way, the thing is that some times a creative way to show them is better. Don't limit yourself to the standard diagrams.
I have had good experiences with creating a simple vocabulary, with terms from the domain and their meanings and relationships, and then go through it and make sure everybody agrees on everything.
Writing and discussing the vocabulary forces you to think, rather than just thinking that "we'll figure that out later".
It's no silver bullet, of course, and should be used along with other means such as a functional requirements specification and possibly a prototype.