Four research-based tenets for report design that resonates.

We interact with brilliant people every day. They perform in-depth research, analyze data and curate the findings into a series of insights that will help their clients quickly understand the opportunities the research has uncovered for their business. 

Translating this knowledge into a clear, visually compelling story isn’t always a primary, or even secondary, talent for these teams. And it shouldn’t be. But data scientists and other professionals we work with are being asked to write and design final reports and other critical client deliverables more often, and, because they are not designers, they may be delivering less-than-optimal reports. 

When motivating researchers, there’s nothing better than good research to help us make our point, so here are four pillars we cite to help non-designers understand the role good design plays in delivering information that resonates.

1. Avoid cognitive overload by designing clean and clear reports.

You see this all the time. Deck design that features paragraphs of 9-point text adorned by scores of meaningless icons with an accompanying data graph so tiny, it’s incomprehensible. 

One of the primary principles we talk about during Insight Story Studio sessions is cognitive load theory, championed by Richard Mayer, which builds on multimedia research by John Sweller. Combined, these scientific approaches explain how bad report design undercuts your efforts with clients. 

The good news here is less is more, which reduces the workload and pressure on teams and design departments. Some of our favorite guidelines: 

• Cut anything extraneous. If an image or text doesn’t directly support the insight, get it off the page. 
• Use “signaling” to cue what matters. Develop a clear hierarchy in your report so there are quick visual cues for section breaks, and use a consistent style for calling out important information throughout the report. 
• Avoid redundancy. Each element on a slide needs to support the main idea, so avoid repeating the same idea in a headline and chart title, for example.
• Group like things with like things. Spatial contiguity is the idea of keeping related ideas close together. For example, keep a chart and a short explanation of the key finding grouped closely together so that your reader can easily absorb that information.

At times, it can feel wrong to reduce data down to a few points, but doing so ensures that the pool of working memory your reader has remains focused on the insight, free of clutter, so the brain can decode and understand the information. 

The best moments are when we see teams interacting with each other using a newly-forming “shared language” to talk about how to improve a slide.

2. Build instant recognition and insight retention by applying dual coding theory.

Some of us are natural readers, and others are visual thinkers. When you bring both together elegantly, you’ve got a better chance of making your point and ensuring it sticks. This is dual coding theory at work. Allan Paivio started talking about this in the late 1960s, noting that the brain processes verbal and visual information through two separate channels, so when you can activate both channels by pairing a chart with a very clear label rather than text alone, you’re creating two independent memory traces, which will give your client a better opportunity to recall the material.

3. Take time to select images that support the data and resonate with your client.

We’ve been exploring AI design assistants for reports, and while there are some really amazing ways AI can help you develop reports, one of the key frustrations we have with AI is its “lowest common denominator” approach to visual imagery. 

For example, if you’re working with a client who specializes in online ordering and delivery, and your research shows that young mothers are using their service more to save time to spend more quality time with their children, AI will inevitably read “young mothers online” and deliver an image of a smiling woman using a laptop. 

If we see one more image of a person on a computer we’re going to go mad. 

Visual rhetoric theory notes that images are, in their own right, a rhetorical argument or emotional appeal (see dual-coded information above) and visual memory has a strong impact on what and how we remember. Pairing an image of a mother on a laptop misses the point completely. What’s influencing mothers to order online is spending quality time with their kids. A much stronger approach would be to pair the data with the outcome and lay the statistics over an image of a young mother waving at the delivery person as she runs through the sprinkler with her kids on a sunny afternoon.

4. Take cues from your client’s branding whenever possible.

Visual cues trigger instant recognition and reaction. So try to build elements into your presentation that reflect your client’s style. This will help them acclimate to the presentation much faster, and help you deliver information quickly.

Mary Potter, writing in “Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics”, found that the brain identifies what’s in an image within 13 milliseconds. That’s really fast processing, and why going the extra mile to ensure the visuals you’re presenting match with their brand is essential. For example, if your client sells potato chips, ask them for branded images to include in your report, because, believe us, clients who work with potato chips day in and day out can spot their competitor’s chips in an image in far less than Mary Potter’s 13 milliseconds, and if you make that mistake, it’s all they’ll see and retain from your presentation.

Use your consulting skills to check your deliverables.

Report design should be an important element of your first conversations about a project. This helps your team, and your design team (if you’re lucky enough to have one) begin prepping for the report well in advance. Feedback on style guidelines, imagery the client might be able to give you, and preferences for the executive team vs. the data team can save you hours of re-design time later in the process.

Measure the success of your reports as much as you do with the reporting. Get feedback from client teams about the report and use your talents as a researcher to ask good questions to gauge how well the report structure, visuals, and flow helped or hindered their process, and ask open-ended questions to find out where you can improve. 

We build a lot of hands-on exercises in our training so that teams can get practice on integrating design ideas into their presentations. While we’re helping each individual develop new skills, the best moments are when we see teams interacting with each other using a newly-forming “shared language” to talk about how to improve a slide. This is our real goal, to help you build an internal system, team-by-team, for better client outcomes.

How can you know it’s working? Measure the success of your reports as much as you do with the reporting. Get feedback from client teams about the report and use your talents as a researcher to ask good questions to gauge how well the report structure, visuals, and flow helped or hindered their process, and ask open-ended questions to find out where you can improve. Build results into client-specific style notes to create stronger deliverables in the future.

Want to build your team’s report skills?