Two common misses in UX design presentation

First let me start with acknowledging the fact that its a constant learning process, which like any other skill doesn’t improve by just reading about it, present and present more.

Over the past several years, besides my own design presentations, I have had the opportunity of sitting in multitudes of other design presentations. What I am highlighting in this read are a couple of important misses, not all, that designers tend to overlook.

Missing the Context

Before you dive into your presentation, you need to set the context as to what you will be presenting. And, this doesn’t start with the presentation, in fact it starts with title/subject of the invitation you would have sent out to your audiences. Folks accepting/declining your invite are already forming opinions/setting expectation basis the invitation. Do spend time in thinking about the context you will like to send as part of your invite. Once everyone is in, reiterate “Why are we all here?”.

Secondly, context is not just about the product you are designing, it should infer:

1. What stage of design you are at,

2. What fidelity of design you will be presenting?

3. And most importantly what is the goal of your presentation, is it a sign-off, early feedback, or just brainstorming.

Last but not the least, right context for the right audience is critical too. Know your audience, their expectation and what background information they have on the subject you are about to present. From your org’s leadership looking at the eventual design, to your product team interested in discussing options, to engineering team looking for all use cases, have that know how while setting the context.

In my experience, how you set your presentation’s context right at the beginning, decides the course of how your next 60mins or so, will go.

Missing storyline

It’s not just a bunch of slides, it’s a story that you need to stitch, with an absolute essential start of what is the problem statement that you are trying to solve for and why is it important. Like any good story, there are some must haves for it to be engaging.

1. Define problem statement in a crisp and clear format, setting the stage.

2. Share the background, using either usage data or anecdotal data from user research (ideally both) establish why this problem is critical and should be solved for and how its adversely impacting the user.

3. Walk through the journey, its impeccable that you take your audience through the design journey that you went through. Be it whiteboard sketches, personas, customer journey you drew, options you discarded, empathy maps, or even a view of the wall with your brain dump.

4. Keep user in perspective. Work backwards from your customer and always keep them alongside in your presentation as you progress through your story. Don’t forget the fact that all of this work is for that “User” and ensure your viewers understand and acknowledge it as well. Keep referring the fact that how this approach/ solution/ screen design or whatever is that you are presenting is going to work for the user and solve the problem you citied above.

5. Conclude, with your recommendation.

Give your stakeholder an opportunity to empathize with your effort. Avoid just presenting the final solution, instead walk them through your design thinking.

Spare the obvious fact of UCD (User centered design) process. You want to give a 10,000 ft view of your approach right at the beginning?…well summarize your approach.