Crafting Impactful Case Studies with Storytelling

Leah Cunningham: The case studies in your portfolio might be the most powerful tools at your disposal to get an interview or even a job offer. If that’s the case, why do so many people get them wrong?

Mistake 1: The first thing people get wrong is forgetting that their case study needs to tell a good story in order to keep their visitors engaged.

Mistake 2: The second thing people get wrong is using two high-fidelity deliverables without showing the thought process.

Hi, my name is Leah Cunningham. In this tutorial, you’ll learn three strategies for making a visually compelling project case study for your portfolio. To begin, let’s look closer at a case study that’s not effective at telling a story.

This designer does a good job of describing the project and her role in it. And the visuals that follow are also professional and impactful. This is all good, but the problem is the visuals lack context. What are we looking at, and why does it matter? Without this information, the visitor will lose interest quickly.

Big Idea: The lesson here is your case study is not a collection of images.

Best Practice: Instead, I suggest you use visual storytelling to help take your case studies to the next level.

Visual storytelling is the art of conveying complex information through a combination of images including photographs, screen captures, and product shots, as well as data visualizations, videos, and text. If that seems too abstract, let’s look at an example.

Product designer Caroline Win uses a strong and concise narrative to tell the story of how she helped design an internal platform for Disney. Her case study starts with a solid project background, problems to be solved, research outcomes, processes followed, and the impact of her work. This is all accompanied by relevant and compelling visual elements that support her story. Her case study starts with clear descriptions of the goal of the project as well as her individual role and, importantly, her role within the team. The rest of the case study is accompanied by compelling visual elements that are tightly paired with relevant text.

One takeaway from Caroline’s case study is the inclusion of her low-fidelity wireframes and brainstorming sessions, early work that some might consider disposable.

Best Practice: You should include examples from the early stages as well. So take photos of those hand sketches, whiteboard sessions, et cetera. It’s all about showing your thought process and the evolution of the concept.

To create a case study that tells your story, you need to first understand your audience and then move on to the next stage. At the bare minimum, try to answer these three questions. Are you making assumptions? What are their specific needs and interests? What questions might they have?

Don’t assume the specific needs and interests of your audience. Corporate clients could have a very different set of expectations than a design agency, for example. We can’t cover all of this advice here. So to help you do effective research, take a look at our tutorial Knowing Your Audience, located in our resources section.

Big Idea: Another big idea is making sure your visuals are relevant to the story you’re telling.

To do this, you need to be a ruthless editor of your own work. This is easier said than done, because it’s tempting to dump everything you’ve done into the case study, but this is counterproductive. Whether it’s a journey map, wireframe, or some other visual asset, your imagery and your text need to work together to tell a strong story. If you need more direction on this topic, we recommend another tutorial called Storytelling for Designers, which will help you focus on what’s important.

Big Idea: The last big idea I have for you is to share your project’s impact through measurable results.

Best Practice: One best practice for this is to show how user research was incorporated to improve your designs.

Don’t shy away from showing the good, bad, and ugly user feedback on your project. It can also be impactful to show the evolution of how feedback was incorporated during the design process.

Best Practice: To conclude your case study, emphasize the impact and results of your project.

Use visuals to present metrics, user feedback, and the tangible or intangible benefits your project delivered. As I said in the beginning, sparkling deliverables won’t do the trick. You need to show your work, know your impact, and prove your value.

You can learn more about pulling all of these ideas together into a cohesive narrative in our Take 5 tutorial entitled Taking Your Portfolio Case Studies to the Next Level and by checking out the Resources section in this tutorial. Thanks for watching. And be sure to check out the rest of our Take 5 tutorials at thegymnasium.com.