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FreshSpectrum Information Design

Making Evaluation & Research More Accessible

Modern Report Design

Are you trying to create a modern report?  One actually designed to be shared in the 21st century.  On this page you'll find blog posts with modern reporting resources, theory, tips, tricks, and examples.

The Reporting Three-Step Method

Summary: In this post I’ll show you a quick way to set up your own continuous reporting system.

I’ve been working on my follow-up to The Reporting Revolution. I think I did an okay job of setting up my basic argument, that it’s time to change how we report and move beyond the PDF.

I focused a lot on the why, and was less clear on the how. While I shared a handful of reporting strategies, I didn’t come out and say which I thought was best.

But the more I work with organizations on their reporting, the more convinced I become that continuous reporting is not one of the ways. IT IS THE WAY.

The Reporting Shift

Continuous reporting is what you do when you report as you go.

It can be as simple as it sounds. The biggest barriers are not from the technology required, but from habit, lack of training, and silos.

In most organizations, the people who evaluate the programs are different from the people who write the blog posts who are different from the people who design the website. So what would be easy for a little organization, one that has just a few people who wear many hats, can be incredibly complicated for a larger one.

But for the sake of this post, let’s pretend it is easy. That you, the evaluator, have the power to do the following three things.

[Read more…] about The Reporting Three-Step Method

It’s not enough to know.

Evaluation is a systematic process to determine merit, worth, value or significance…

But then what?

Let’s say you followed a systematic process and came to some conclusions about the value of a program. Your evidence shows that this particular program *doesn’t work so well.

What comes next? It’s pretty unlikely that your work is completed once you come to your determination. Once you know.

Do you just write it up in a complicated precise report that few will ever read and call it a day?

Perhaps.

I think for some evaluators, that’s the job. To make a determination. For these evaluators, deciding what to do with that determination is for somebody else.

But if that’s not you, do you spend additional time breaking down your findings so that the evidence and rationale can be explained to your primary audience of likely decision makers?

Perhaps.

It is usually the likely decision makers who pay your bills. They are your boss or your client. As long as they understand your determination, and are happy with your work, maybe that’s when you call the job done.

But let’s say you don’t stop there, do you spend time adapting your evidence and rationale to meet the specific needs of other audience members? The people who are directly or indirectly connected to the program, the funding stream, or the outcomes.

Perhaps.

As long as we include everyone as an audience for our reporting, and create a string of reporting products to meet a variety of needs. And these reports will be shared by the organization’s communications department. That should be enough, right?

But maybe you want to know if it actually reached all these different audiences, or at least some of the major ones. You also want to know if the audiences actually understand the evaluation findings and their implications. Do you then evaluate your sharing efforts and adapt your reporting strategy based on the findings?

Perhaps.

At this point, you’ve put in a lot of effort to see that your findings reach all your different audiences. Could anyone ask for anything more?

But what if the findings are contrary to popular belief? Your determination means a program that people believe in, one that looks good on paper, doesn’t actually lead to desired positive outcomes. It does not work as it is designed to work.

Do you put in the effort to build a level trust with all of these different audiences, so that they believe you when you share your results? Do you put in the work to convince these different audience members that your determination is right, even if it’s hard to believe at first.

Perhaps.

At some point in this blog post did you start to feel overwhelmed?

Did you say to yourself, “okay, but we just don’t have the budget or time to do all of this…”?

When I see evaluators describing evaluation to others, they often focus on what it means to do an evaluation. The process they follow, the methods they use, and the people they involve. The “then what” piece is always a little bit on the fuzzy side.

So my question for you, when does it end?

*This is all pretend, of course, because rarely does any program you are called to evaluate show little to no merit. Nor does any program ever seem like it works flawlessly. In other words, most determinations are “complicated.”

One Page Dissemination Plan

Dissemination should be easy.

It’s just sharing our findings and ideas with people who we think might be interested. If it’s hard, it’s because we make it hard.

Let’s make it easy instead.

The One Page Dissemination Plan

At the bottom of this post you’ll find both a link to a Canva template and fillable PDF. It’s landscape, 8.5 in by 11 in.

How to use the plan.

In short, you break your different audiences into three groups. Then for each audience group, you ask who is in the audience, decide what product you will create to reach them, and then jot down how you will share that product.

This is a content strategy plan.

What does that mean? It means that you adapt your work into different pieces of content with the intention of reaching different audiences or communicating through different channels.

You can think of it as report diversification. A printable executive summary might be great for the next board meeting. But it would not make sense to share that PDF executive summary on LinkedIn. It would make far more sense to adapt that summary into a social media carousel.

Adaptation creates more opportunities to share, without diluting or distorting original work designed to be more technical.

This should NOT include your technical report.

I suggest treating your technical report as the product of your evaluation. It documents your methods, defends your decisions, and delivers your analysis.

While a technical report is often a key source in support of your dissemination efforts, it is a mistake to treat the technical report as if it’s easy to share content. It’s probably not. And honestly, it’s also not worth the time it takes to make it easy to share content.

The three audience approach.

Perhaps you’ve gone through the step of thinking through your reporting audiences. And if you’re like many evaluators and researchers, you might even have a list of audiences.

The audiences might include your boss, your boss’ boss, a non-profit board, program managers, program staff, participants, clients, politicians, funders, etc.

It’s hard to design for a list. It’s also overwhelming and time-intensive to design reports for each audience individually. So I suggest splitting your audience into three.

Who is in your Core Audience?

These are the people who would feel compelled to read your report even if it were ugly, long, and boring.

It’s a small group. It likely includes your boss or your client. It might include a few other highly involved stakeholders or board members.

Designing for this group is about making the technical more approachable. Normal reporting content like executive summaries, one-pagers, and presentations usually work just fine.

How will you share the work? Probably through an email from your personal account. Or maybe through a Zoom meeting or an actual in-person get together.

Who is in your Primary Audience?

I like to think of your primary audience being the people who could get the most value from you sharing your work. This might include program managers, project staff, politicians, and funders. Compared to the core audience, they will not be compelled to read your report.

Designing for this group is about making the technical report more relevant and accessible. All audiences are overwhelmed right now so you need to make the reporting as easy to access as possible.

Some of the reporting content that works particularly well for this audience includes visual reports, case studies, slidedocs, blog posts, infographics, video, interactives, html reports, and webinars.

You may have direct emails (if you do, use them). If you don’t have their emails you’ll have to use social media, search-friendly content, and referrals. By referrals I mean gaining access to spaces where the target audience already has a relationship. For instance, a partner organization that already sends a newsletter to the people you want to reach.

Who is in your Secondary Audience?

I like to think of your secondary audience as being people who may have an interest in your work, but it’s not necessarily clear-cut. Or they may have an interest in just a very specific aspect of your work.

These are your “general public” audiences but could also include program participants, families, and academic colleagues.

You likely do NOT have a direct path to reach this audience. Reaching these audiences means leveraging social media, search-friendly content, and referrals. Small infographics, short videos, and targeted social media can help your work travel to these secondary audiences.

3 Audiences, 3 Questions, and 9 individual blocks.

You can access the Canva template below (just make sure to sign up for Canva/sign into your Canva account first). You can fill it in online or print it out. It’s also simple enough to just draw the grid on a whiteboard or piece of paper.

Or, if you prefer a fillable PDF, here you go!

One-Page-Dissemination-Plan-FillableDownload

Good luck. And if you use it or plan to use it, let me know.