10 Tips for Captivating Your Audience

A compilation of the best bits of feedback I've received from hundreds of design review meetings.

Here's the best ten tips I received:

Focus on the spirit of what we want to achieve. Most people call what we're coming together for "the agenda" but the word 'spirit' which is the root word of esprit d'corps' implies a more genuine approach. How do we capture the spirit? By creating meaningful, value-driven design stories, and joining the conversations with the intent to get everyone involved."

Involve your audience. Remember this is a group setting and the key contextual experience here is 'We'. Your initial pitch should pull together everyone involved - the client, designer and the product user so they immediately feel a part in the process. Everyone wants to feel like they have a voice. Describing the fundamental problem, which WE as a group would like to solve. Also lay proper foundation by referring to those who contributed their feedback, subject matter expertise or discovery.

Tell the story. Remember this isn't only about sharing the team's creative process. The main goal is to advocate and delight the users of your product. Users may not be present, so as a designer, be their representative voice in the meeting. Storyboards are highly effective means of adding the voice of the customer. Suggest creating two storyboards - one with all the pain points and a second with the proposed success.
Keep it simple, memorable and measurable. Studies show that after leaving a presentation, most participants retain only about three-five pieces of information. All the reason to share only one, two or three primary goals and proposed solutions. With your stories, hypotheses and wireframes, clearly show that you've identified the spirit or essence of the problem and filter out everything that's unrelated, for example, if your goal is to engage more customers, stick with the engagement piece and leave out alternative flows unless these are key decision points or provide a smoother user flow.
The 30-second pitch. Start the meeting with first screen already displayed, and begin with a 30 second pitch or compelling statement that immediately identifies the problem. If you're having trouble keep it under 30 seconds, frame it as the answer to a casual question, "What are you working on now?" Rather than describe the whole process, describe it's essence.

Outline the problem in real world, live context. Here's a quick example: "The goal for this next series of iterations is to make the medical testing experience faster and more efficient. For our survey research on patient experience we discovered that 80% of total patient experience involves waiting. Waiting for appointments, for test results and for treatment. Our goal with the new and improved product is to cut this wait time in half."
Use visual assets that are sharable. Use compelling visual design and color language. Share only your best work. It only takes one negative reaction or cringe to ignore the brightest and brilliant.
Lastly, design review meetings are typically scheduled for 30 minutes, so be brief, be definitive and be over within 20 minutes, leaving 10 minutes for discussion.
Justify your design decisions with measurable results. Share your learnings throughout the process in a way that validates and authenticates the end design deliverables.

What next? If you start by making your initial pitch brief it sets the stage for clarity on what the meeting is about. At the end of your presentation, refer to the original pitch and ask the group to propose additional ways that the success outcomes may be measured, This will keep the conversation going, and also provide basis for your next steps.