For UX designers, the presentation of our work is often just as important as the work itself. Being able to effectively present your work – by engaging with your audience and reading important cues such as eye contact, body language, and facial expression – is a necessary skill to develop.
However, as remote work continues to trend, we must approach design presentations with different methods than the usual face-to-face. It’s a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges but can prove to be fruitful with effective planning.
In this blog, we will look into six strategic & effective ways of presenting UX designs remotely.
1. Make the Meeting Purposeful
Prepare thoroughly before each meeting.
- Make an agenda with clear objectives and goals, so everyone is on the same page. It tends to be easier for others to interrupt or derail other conversations during online presentations. Keep everyone focused.
- Prepare all the documents and designs that you will be share beforehand.
- Figure out which screens you will share, close unrelated applications, and decide how you’ll take notes.
A UX designer must make content that is relatable and informative. Designers can keep the audience attentive by establishing clear expectations about how the design concepts will be relevant.
2. Group Information Logically
A succinct presentation with a logical flow of slides directs focus to the UX design’s key concepts. Concise and well-organized slides communicate preparedness. Use the moments before (e.g., meeting-agenda email or calendar invite) and after the meeting (follow-up email, action items) to drive home the presentation’s overarching goals.
A designer must make the presentation manageable and easy to digest for the attendees. A flexible schedule dictating how designs will be presented and when feedback will be discussed essential. This plan has to be tailored to the audience, which will take some trial and error before finding what works for everyone.
3. Request for Feedback
Feedback is paramount in any discussion or formal communication. It helps the presenter grasp how useful the presentation was and what could have been done differently. Input from others helps a UX designer steer the ship in the right direction.
Here are some of the benefits of continuous feedback during or after a remote presentation:
- Strengthens the UX designers and audience collaboration
- Improves audience engagement
- Adds greater meaning to the presentation
- Increases Self-awareness
- Promotes Dialog
- Measures the effectiveness of the presentation
- Removes ambiguity
- Improves working relationship
- Increases audience accountability
Feedback should be a two-way road that emphasizes teamwork and mutual benefit. The benefits of giving, getting, and proactively asking for feedback are given below.
Here’s the continuous feedback cycle that will be useful to evaluate remote presentations.
Questions like “What are your thoughts on this feature/page?” or “Any questions/feedback/comments?” will show that the UX designer is concerned about the opinion of others and is open-minded. The UX designer must give time for others to gather their thoughts on the call.
They must acknowledge that people might need more time and thus follow-up with an email on the design ideas or designs asking for feedback. Even though feedback can be insightful, there is a possibility that the discussion starts to stray away from the original purpose of the meeting. In such cases, redirect the conversation and/or suggest adding it to the next call’s agenda to keep the discussion organic.
4. Implement Visual Elements
This includes taking notes directly on the screen for everyone to see consciously, comprehend, and agree/disagree with ideas, concepts, or action items. Visual elements also help clear up any miscommunication that may arise later.
Doodling a UX concept or idea adds to clarity, grabs more attention, helps derive insights or changes to the UX design on-the-spot, leads to audience buy-in immediately, and helps with higher retention of a UX designer’s presentation.
Taking notes on the screen will let others understand a designer’s thoughts and vice-versa. Visual rhetoric is an effective method used by UX designers, especially during remote presentations.
Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through images, typography, and texts. It encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Besides, jotting down important points on the shared screen is convenient for impromptu presentations.
Adding different elements, which delineate a different purpose; for example, a circle relates to emphasis, arrows depict flow or direction, the cross demonstrates negation, color schemes relate to different results.
This fosters critical thinking, emphasizes the process, helps share keynotes, and paves the way to organic comprehension of the UX design ideas.
5. Summarize Collectively
Every presentation culminates at one point, the summary. How a UX designer concludes his/her presentation creates a lasting impact on the audience.
It also helps the UX designer focus on the action items for every participant in the remote presentation. The meeting summary gives a quick account of what was discussed, what needs to be done next, and whom. Summarizing ensures that the discussion’s important points are embedded in everyone’s minds and help align everyone’s thoughts.
Every participant must be on the same page while winding up the discussion.
Here are essential tips on summarizing a remote presentation.
6. Staying Objective
The presenters should be open-minded to feedback and try to remain objective. UX designers must be confident, trust in their expertise, and explain their design decisions without getting defensive.
Change is inevitable, and accepting that requirements change and design iterations are inevitable is imperative. The setting of SMART goals is often a boon to UX designers presenting remotely.
A practical outlook to presenting a UX design can be fruitful when embracing challenges, addressing shortcomings, handling loopholes gracefully, and bridging gaps effectively.
Conclusion
Remote presentations are convenient and enable you to communicate with many co-workers or business leaders from and to anywhere at a magnitude in-person presenting may not offer. With the right strategy and approach in place, presenting remotely can help set the stage for persuasion or a call to action, ultimately bettering the UX design process.
The UX Design team at Radiant Digital has successfully implemented many complex designs remotely using the tips mentioned above for presentations and discussions. Talk to us to learn how you can apply these ideas as well.
