On design presentations
10 steps to help you crush your next design presentation.
Presenting can be difficult and downright terrifying. Trust me when I tell you that I personally struggled with every presentation that I have ever done. If you hear someone say, “I don't get nervous before presenting.” More than likely they are not being truthful.
Presentation skills are an extremely important part of being a good designer. Whether you’re presenting new features to stakeholders, explaining user flows to colleagues, or you’re trying to convey new ideas and concepts for a new product…Your presentation ability will unlock several opportunities to progress not just your career but will give you a greater sense of confidence and meaning in your work.
I want to be clear…People are not born with good presentation skills (Ok, maybe some are, but 99% of us are not naturally good public speakers). Just like most things in life we have to practice, and learn these skills through the act presenting and practicing.
It takes a special skill to retain the attention and interest of listeners and even get buy-in, in the end. I'm going to go over what has helped me over the past few years when presenting designs and ideas.
Although the design process is never linear and changes from project to project, these steps are what work for me when I present my designs.
1. Come prepared!
Before you start creating ANY slides, make sure you are using a template that defines global properties like typeface, colors, and object/chart styles.
If you want to craft more custom decks, you can design them in Sketch, or any design tool of your choice.
Personally I like to use Sketch for all my decks. Design the screens, export @2x in PDF format, and use a tool like Adobe Acrobat to combine your screens into your deck.
A small investment of time in the beginning, will really make your presentation stand out!
If you want to take it a step further…use XD or Figma to create your decks and use some of the cool auto-animate transitions to give your slides some really interesting interactions and transitions! Prototyping does not have to be limited to your software designs!
My colleague Dave Hughes does this better than anyone I know and is an extremely powerful presenter. Shoutout to Dave 👾
2. Start with a quick introduction to the problem you are trying to solve and the goal of the user.
Its important here to focus on the problem that you’re trying to solve. Create a slide with 1 or 2 bullet points (MAX). Use these bullets to guide the presentation and your speaking points. Don't be too prescriptive with these bullet points. Limiting your bullet points will allow you to do the talking and your slide deck to act as a visual aid to keep the audience's attention.
3. Tell a story!
We hear this all the time as designers. “tell a good story.”
My take on telling a good story comes down to your process. Create a slide that shows where you started, but make it brief. You can show user flows, customer journeys, happy paths, anything that you would normally use to convey the first step in your process of finding a solution. Be sure to walk the audience through your thought process here so that they can understand how you are inching closer to that defined goal.
Again, it's important to show some visuals, but be sure to explain them with each slide.
Where/what is the problem… how do you understand that problem? Is that the real problem or is there something deeper here?
Don't be hesitant to show your thought process too.
I love using Whimsical for my user flows and wireframes. You can create notes around what your thoughts were inside the wireframe and you can speak to these thoughts during the presentation.
The best part is, you can export all the artifacts to use in your presentations.
It’s important to show your thought process here.
5. Research & findings.
People love seeing data.
Maybe you conducted some user interviews or UsabilityHub tests during your process. Definitely use some of the data that you collected in your presentation. Show some numbers here, but not too many, you don't want the audience to become entrenched in the data. Walk the audience through the questions you asked during some of your studies and why.
Convey how you allow this data collection to guide the direction of the design!
“ The reason I did X,Y,Z was because the data lead me in that direction.”
Doing this will show your audience that you have done your due diligence and drive home the “why” behind your final solution. It will also create some more confidence in why you designed a solution the way that you did.
Data-informed design is the name of the game so let that shine in your presentation!
6. Be confident!
If you have put in the work to really craft a solid presentation, take some deep breaths, and be confident.
Easier said than done, I know. However, there are a few ways you can build confidence in your presentation.
- Do a dry run with a friend the night before. Time yourself.
- Anticipate the questions you will get from the audience. As designers you should be questioning every single thing you do. So be prepared for those questions to come up.
- In most cases, the questions you get from the audience are questions you have thought of during your process.
- Record the dry run of your presentation and play it back to see where you can improve.
I record my practice runs for a few reasons. Personally, I can say “um” often during my presentations…doing a dry run will help you pinpoint where you do this and help you avoid it during the real presentation. Also timing. Make sure you’re keeping track of how long your presentation takes.
7. It's ok to take a pause.
When we’re nervous, sometimes we can speak really REALLY fast. I'm guilty of this sometimes. Remember, it's ok to take a few seconds to take a drink of water and collect your thoughts before you proceed.
8. Include some hi-fi designs.
Alright, so you by now you have described the problem, goal, user flows, wireframes, and research. Now its time to show off some of your great hi-fi designs.
Include some images in your presentation. If you’re like me, you have done a lot of iterations by now so show where you started and where you ended up.
Definitely be sure to include why you went certain directions with your design.
9. Pull up the prototype.
Doing this will give the audience a preview of the interactions and workflow.
Be sure to stop and ask if anyone has any questions along the way. This will ensure your audience is engaged and not typing to another colleague on Slack while you’re presenting.
10. Leave time for Q&A
By now you have shown your process to the audience and how you landed on your final solution.
Be sure to express how you could have changed the design even further to create a better overall experience for the user.
- How will this solution scale?
- Can it be used across other products?
- Are there similar patterns that overlap?
- Are there still things that need to be uncovered?
Maybe you can touch on more research that you want to do before the final review.
Open it up for Q&A! If someone asks a question you are not sure of, just tell them that you can circle back with them after you look into it.
In conclusion, presenting is tough, I'm not denying that. If you follow the steps above when presenting your next case study or your product idea you'll do great! Remember: Come prepared, be confident in yourself and your work, tell a story, show your research, show your work, and conclude.
One important thing to remember is that no one LOVES presenting, your audience should empathize with that. They know how hard it is to present and I'm positive they will commend you for your preparedness and confidence once you’re done!
Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn.
