Creating Engaging Reports & Asynchronous Presentations

Summary: To keep your stakeholders and team members engaged, incorporate storytelling techniques such as writing for your audience, adding anecdotes, and using analogies in your asynchronous research deliverables.

There is a misconception in the UX world that research data speaks for itself and shouldn’t need the addition of a narrative or extra polish to convince others. We often think that by laying out all the facts in front of our teams and stakeholders, they will come to the same conclusions that we did. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

Telling an interesting story and sharing findings in an engaging way doesn’t have to be the exclusive advantage of live presentations. Whether we share insights from research or sell others on a recommendation, a compelling story can arise interest and get buy-in. When our team members and stakeholders care about users, it’s less of an uphill battle to sell them on our ideas and recommendations.

But how do we communicate a compelling story and keep our audience engaged with a report? Whether the report is a lengthy Word document or a presentation deck, it’s meant to be consumed asynchronously and the author doesn’t have the opportunity to insert a meaningful anecdote to illuminate some of the data like they would in a conversation. This article discusses ideas for how to make your asynchronous research deliverables engaging for your audience.