Presenting & sharing your deliverable

slide with 'presenting & sharing the deliverable' text on it

My second section of “The Usability of Deliverable” was on how to present and share your deliverable.

I talked about how knowing your audience (or audience culture) should impact your presentation style, some tips & tricks for presenting/sharing, and two approaches on organizing and presenting your deliverable.

Let’s start with your audience.
Depending on the personalities in the room and/or the culture of the business group, you may want to approach your presentation differently.
Here are three common types of audiences and ideas for how to handle them:

Three cartoon characters. One says "Gimme the data!", another "What's the vision?" and the third "Will everyone agree to this?"
3 common audience types*
  • Analytical and data-driven
    • Focus on the details, and either explain rationale as you go along, or be ready with it when they ask
  • Expressive & forward thinking
    • Consider telling the story of where this project is going, long-term, before diving into the short term
  • Risk-averse and looking for consensus
    • Reassure them in advance, telling of successes in similar situations
    • Ensure you understand the relationships/roles involved on the client/stakeholder side to help them gain consensus

Some misc tips & tricks:

  • Practice your presentation 
    • If nothing else, it’s a great way to QA your deliverable 
  • Consider your language
    • Try not to sound defensive or offensive. Instead of “you misunderstood me,” try “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” In place of “You told me to use purple,” how about “I have in my notes that we agreed on purple”
    • Check out this article on “Quick Tips to Improve Client Relationships” for more
  • Check your sharing experience
    • Look at the sharing experience in another browser where you aren’t logged in
    • Ask someone else to check it out, ideally someone with a different OS and/or monitor
    • (This is good both as QA but also to see if you need to explain anything when you share it, such as how to download the document!)

Then I discussed two approaches to how you organize and present your deliverable. 

Consideration 1: Let them navigate
We may present in a linear fashion, but our deliverables are often used in a non-linear way. Let the users of your deliverable navigate. (This can come in handy during presenting as well, if stakeholders ask you to jump around)

A screen showing 3 categories (High-Fidelity Screens, Full Flow, and Components), each with options under them.
This shows the viewer what the types of visuals are, and lets them easily navigate to the one they’re interested in
An example of a 'table of contents' in Excel
No matter what software you use, there’s usually a way to hyperlink information


Consideration 2: Progressive disclosure
Only show the info needed at a given time. It will help keep your audience focused on what you want them to look at.

Showing one slide 'building' content, i.e. adding more content
Consider “building” slides as you present to avoid overwhelming and keep attention focused

*Work created with Scenes™ by SAP AppHaus (https://experience.sap.com/designservices/scenes)

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