Eight simple steps to tell a design story.

A few months ago, I received a particular invitation from an EdTech (educational technology) with operations across all Latin America to talk about design processes. When we met, I remember they had tons of topics to develop around the world of UX. They wanted to know me and discuss if some of those topics would fit my experience to create a complete presentation for students.

Throughout the conversation, one of the collaborators suggested that maybe I should work on one of the many items, “how to pitch an idea.” This recommendation was pretty interesting to me because the process of structuring and presenting a design idea is something that I had never thought of as a formal thing.

Thinking on this, I realized there are already tons of information you can easily access and use to improve your pitching skills. You can find Bestsellers books, videos, articles, business gurus, and an uncountable amount of data that will explain the topic ten times better than me. So I returned to them, asking why they wanted me to describe something already solved. Their answer made total sense to me; They wanted to know and spread knowledge from regular people in the design business on how they approach this strategic skill in companies nowadays.

Here are some lectures I found:

On my first discovery around this topic across the internet, I found out that most of the information is related to the investment environments, so I started to wonder if we could use, in a way, some of those insights in the UX world.

So after taking a few days thinking about how I structure my thoughts when I pitch a design idea and what can I possibly say that represents something new to people that want to start to strengthen this skill, I found out that I use eight simple steps to tell a story.

1. Think from general to particular

In my opinion, this step is the foundation of everything. Structuring a presentation from the general parts or problems into specific key actions (as a funnel) will provide you an initial order to elaborate an idea: it is also the perfect excuse to include a metaphor or develop fantastic storytelling.

This step reflects a primary human way to understand problems and learn. Think about how we get to know things across an education system; in high school, for example, we get all kinds of general concepts about the world such as geography, maths, science, sports, and more. After that, when we get into college, that knowledge will reduce its scope into something more specific; here is when we decide to focus on a particular career or discipline. Then, finally, we can keep reducing that funnel of learning into something even more specific, like a master’s degree, doctorate, and so on.

Naturally, we first understand things in their most general expression or activities and then deep dive into specific concepts and tasks.

One significant advantage of this step is that it enables a scalable understanding that will work for different audiences. On the first part of the funnel, we can set the significant components of a problem and concepts for an overall understanding. This information, for example, can be relevant for stakeholders that maybe be just interested in understanding the general situation; this part also can work as a strategic summary if you prefer. The second part of the funnel shows specific information related to processes, questioning, actors, iterations, problems, flows, hypotheses, whatever you want to add as a part of a hands-on context. Here, you can think about how your idea starts to look from end to end.

A scalable understanding for everyone

2. Know your audience

What my experience tells me on this part is that it is not the same talking you can have with prominent executives, peers, teammates, students, or even people away from your expertise field. Why is this step necessary? First, knowing your audience will help you define so many things in your speech, such as tone, rhythm, knowledge, even the takeaways. Covering this step will prepare you to identify levels of understanding within the group or anticipate your answers to any possible questioning, discussion, point of view, o pushback you may receive. This part is a sort of intelligence before getting into the battlefield. I have learned that if this step is not covered, it is possible to face the unknown, and we may open new discussions and interrogates that may not help the purpose of our goal. In the end, this is not good most of the time, and we want to control the outcome somehow.

3. Provide context

This step is the common ground you should prepare before the conversation. This part aims to evidence, share, and understand your intention or vision with a purpose. Why is this important? No matter how great your idea, request, problem, or proposal is, if people have a different understanding of the context or problem, it is highly probable that your discussion will bring more doubts than certainties. Therefore, starting from the same version of a problem, situation or opportunity will focus participants into a single idea. In this part, it is also relevant to enounce objectives and goals to start to envision what should be our outcome.

I struggled a lot early in my career due to this context’s disconnection between squads or teammates when we faced a project. Not being aligned from the beginning makes everyone go in their development path or prioritize according to their unique reasons. How much might it cost? Valuable time, tons of effort, and, why not, money for the company.

4. Create an agenda

I’ve seen how many great ideas failed throughout my career due to a lack of structure. Sometimes we’re not skilled enough in connecting narrative dots, which may sacrifice the conversation’s potential. When you don’t organize how you present something and jump around ideas, everything will probably start to look messy and eventually fall apart. So besides the order of topics, another thing to cover here is prioritizing ideas to get people interested and focused.

Sometimes, according to the primary purpose of the pitch, we can also use this step to evidence a status or progress.

Another excellent tip is to think about timing, especially if we have some co-creative part in the session or workshop; We need to take complete control of rhythm and not fall into an extensive presentation that will bore everyone.

5. State the argument

This step is the core of everything. Here, we need to materialize with arguments what is in our minds. To achieve this, I suggest following the golden circle of Simon Sinek; This approach is as fundamental as well known for everyone. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed as designers how often we tend to focus on the final shape of a solution rather than the reasons and the process for doing it; This can be why some good ideas end up dying.

If you are not familiar with the Golden Circle manifest, let me explain it in a summarized way; it enounces three reasoning levels in three layers of understanding. The first one, the inner circle, refers to the WHY. This level is the most important because it represents the value of creating a purpose or a cause before a solution.

As humans, we tend to connect and identify ourselves with some profound reason or idea before a form.

The second circle is about the HOW. Here, we define the path we choose to follow to achieve a goal; we can shape processes, milestones, actors, and everything needed to materialize a solution. The final level is the WHAT; this is the final result and shape of a solution.

The golden circle and Apple computers

I tend to think that the golden circle represents, in a way, the UX process;
the actual value of everything starts from the internal understanding and representation of our needs as users.

6. Interaction with the audience

If everything has gone well, this is the moment to involve people in the discussion; This is not mandatory when pitching an idea, but sometimes we need to hear people’s thoughts to get a broader picture of possible scenarios. One strategic tip here is to control this audience intervention; not always opening this door of opinions is a good idea because it can lead the conversation in non-desirable directions. Knowing your audience (step 2) is essential to anticipate this step and control the time and rhythm of the intervention to get what you are looking for.

7. Conclude

No matter whether you got your goal or not, please conclude! Exposing a summary to the audience will wrap up all ideas and action points into a common understanding. Why is this important? Sometimes we fall into the most innocent error when we define the following steps; assuming we all understood the same could backfire shortly. Sometimes, double-checking on actions is better than damage control in an advanced project stage.

8. Define next steps

Even though this step sounds ridiculously obvious, the thing is that sometimes, it can be a lifesaver; Do not ever walk out from a presentation without exposing the following steps to your audience or teammates. Maybe this step is meant for young designers who start facing crucial meetings to promote their ideas. Sometimes, the final form of the following actions doesn’t matter; it can be an email or a slack, but it is essential to evidence agreements in the project.

The complete anatomy of a design pitch

Some valuable tips to take into account:

Use comparatives

If you intend to evidence some improvement or point out some opportunities, the best way to do it is to show the scenarios you may have in the same context; in this way, people will see and understand the same situation you have in mind. This tip is helpful for design artifacts such as mock-ups, flows, metrics, etc.

Killer facts or killer data

You can control the audience, and the best way to avoid some pushback feedback or even some mean comment is through numbers or strong evidence. With these items, you can elaborate solid foundations of your idea build a plan without any doubt of the reasons behind the need.

Metaphor or storytelling

This tip is well known for everyone, and there is no need to be explained; before starting, double-check that the way you want to prompt the audience will be familiar enough to make your pitch more effective.

Similarities between travel and UX processes

Tone and rhythm

As a result of step 2, this tip is crucial. A clear notion of tone and rhythm will demark the line between success and a horrible failure. Be aware of the language and tools to use before launching all your arsenal, and anticipate possible pushback.

Planning

As Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans Are Worthless, But Planning is everything.”

We need to disclose our ideas and intentions into something tangible and not settle with possible plans; Not having clear action points in a roadmap is the same that has done nothing so far.

A final thought

If you have read so far to this point, you will find that many of these ideas come from a frame of the day by day experience design; maybe this is something that I do without any methodology, but so far, it has worked, and I wanted to share it.