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Today I’m sharing 2 of my favorite storytelling frameworks with you.

I've used these repeatedly to persuade stakeholders to follow my design recommendations.

And if I can do it, so can you.

Does this sound familiar?

You understand the problem.
You do the research.
You create the solution.

Blood, sweat, and tears go into designing something good.

But when the time comes to show your solution to a stakeholder…

You draw blanks about exactly how to do that.

Or you present your work and it doesn’t go well.

Unfortunately, this is a common situation for Jr and Sr designers alike.

Why?

Most design education doesn’t give you all the tools you need to succeed in the design profession

In most situations, the designer doesn’t have the final say over design decisions.

Whether or not that’s right or fair is a topic for another time.

The reality is: Most of us have to work with other people to make products.

Most of us have to persuade one or more stakeholders to approve our design work.

And we want that design to be something we’ll be proud to have in our portfolio.

If your design education was anything like mine, you’re left to figure out how to go about this on your own.

This curriculum doesn't teach the skills designers need to present their work to stakeholders.

Let’s chip away at this gap in design education.

Here are 2 storytelling frameworks that I’ve used time and time again to:

• Ship products used by 10s of millions
• Influence stakeholders—from peers all the way up to FAANG CEOs
• Get results like a 343% increase in conversion for an eCommerce app redesign
  
  

Framework 1: Problem Agitate Solution (PAS)

I love this framework because 1) it works and 2) it’s unknown to most designers.

PAS is a proven copywriting framework. But I use it for design presentations. Sneaky, right?

Here’s a copywriting example:

The beginning introduces a problem to the reader.

The next section drives home the impact this problem has on the reader. It gets under their skin and creates an emotional response. It agitates them.

This primes the reader for the conclusion: A solution to their problem.

You’ve likely read or listened to thousands of ads or marketing messages that use the PAS framework. And chances are you've bought something because of it!

Ok great. But how do we use this for a design presentation?

Here’s the outline of a presentation I gave last year to a product manager.

I was proposing we redesign a key feature before an upcoming product release.

Each box represents a slide or series of slides in the presentation.

I introduce the problem by showing our current design along with some other context I wanted the PM to have.

We’re trying to make this easy on customers. But we inherited a clunky, outdated feature from elsewhere in the platform. And it’s an essential piece of the new product we’re about to release.

Then I agitated the pain. A competitive analysis was the first agitation. Followed by a detailed audit of usability problems.

Our competitors are beating us in this area. Our customers get frustrated when they use the existing feature. Our current design doesn’t meet our stated project goals.

Finally, I present my solution.

I show how the new design directly addresses project goals. Next, a series of mockups show solutions to every pain point that the audit identified.

It’s gonna be ok—here’s the solution to our problems. Whew!

This presentation persuaded the PM to implement the feature redesign before shipping the new software.

Boom!

Framework 2: Options and analysis

This framework is exactly what it sounds like.

Provide the necessary context. Then show 2 or 3 different ways of solving a problem. Finally, present a summary of your analysis and recommend which one the team should go with.

Here’s an example:

The end of an options and analysis presentation. This summary would be shown after an introduction and more detailed walkthrough of each option.

It doesn’t have to be 3 options. 2 will also work. But don’t show more than 3 options—it will overwhelm the group and stall progress.

This framework might stir up strong opinions. Some designers feel like this is what I call a design buffet: Showing stakeholders options and saying “ok, tell me which one you want”.

That would lead to the designer being undervalued by stakeholders, who would see the designer as someone who “just makes the mocks”.

That’s not what we’re talking about here.

Communicate the problem. Present and analyze options. Make a recommendation. That’s very different than saying “we have two options, tell me which one you want”.

I’ve found that trust, credibility, and influence increase when this is done the right way.

If you use this framework, it should be in one of two ways:

1. As a structure for delivering your analysis and recommendation
2. As a way to facilitate a discussion when you don’t have enough information to make a strong recommendation

Options and analysis works well when:

• Stakeholders care about the design details and want to be involved in the decision making process
• You’re moving fast and don’t have time or resources to make decisions based on quantitative data
• When a decision gets made before the design is 100% done, and problems are found when you did the detailed design

Options and analysis does not work well when:

• The design is all the way done and the team is in agreement. Move forward, not backwards
• Presenting to secondary stakeholders who don’t need to agree to the design
• Presenting to a group who simply wants your recommendation and a check in on high level direction
  • If you want to, include discarded options in an appendix that you can refer to if needed

I hope this gives you ideas for making your presentations more persuasive.