What are they?
Downloadable PDF and/or printed reports have long been Longitude’s bread and butter. Usually 4,000 words, but potentially anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000, they are a prestige product designed to be the showcase for a thought leadership campaign.
Because Longitude has been doing them for so long, we might think we’ve mastered them. But there’s a lot we can do differently to move our reports on. This is especially true now that our design team works on many of them.
Readers can:
- Gain a comprehensive overview of our research findings
- Put those findings into context by reading relevant case studies and insights from interviewees
- Experience our storylines in a linear way, guided by us. Unlike our interactive products, reports put us in control of the pace and order of the narrative — not the user
However, a downloadable PDF will contain internal hyperlinks that allow for some user-led navigation around the document (e.g. they can use a hyperlinked contents list to jump to different sections). Obviously, this is not possible in a printed report.
Process
We can create two types of report
1.
A downloadable PDF
- Written in Word, designed in InDesign
- Might also be called an ‘interactive PDF’
- Traditional page-based format
- The narrative might unfold in a traditional, linear way, but hyperlinks give the user some control over the navigation
- You can also hyperlink external references and sources to support your story, but be careful with these: you don’t want to encourage people to click away from the report
2.
A print PDF
- Written in Word, designed in InDesign
- Traditional page-based format
- Typically follows a traditional, linear narrative, so you are in control
Before you start
Before you start writing a report, ask yourself:
- Is there an interactive story to accompany it?
- What’s the purpose of the report as part of the products we are producing — how do they work together?
- Where will it live?
Your approach should change depending on how you answer these questions.
New ways to write reports
1. Write your first bits last
If you have an introduction, try writing it after you finish writing the report.
This will focus your mind and help you to include only relevant storylines — the ones that you expand on in the report. And sticking to that script will help you write a more targeted, concise and powerful introduction.
2. Vary the pace
Most of our reports consist of pages of text, arranged in neat columns of paragraphs and punctuated by the odd chart and a pullquote or pullstat or two.
That’s fine. It won’t repel any readers, who will expect that kind of experience and may well plod through the report in the usual way. But it’s also unlikely to knock their socks off.
We could instead think about using different types of content to liven up the reading experience. Consider magazines: most don’t have paragraph-based articles cover to cover. Instead, they alternate between shorter and longer features in a variety of formats to vary the pace and keep readers interested.
What this might mean
- An interview/Q&A after your first section to illustrate the points you raised there
- A profile/case study to bring to life the findings you outline in your second section
- A full-page (or double-page spread in print) timeline or other infographic
- Full-page boxouts that explain a technical term or a particular finding
3. Bring the outside world in
Research data and interview quotes are not the only ingredients available to you. To place the findings and stories in context, and to give them currency, reports should include third-party references.
Whether data, quotes or case studies, well-researched references can make a report timely and authoritative. And when dealing with complex or well-covered topics, these examples become more than footnotes — they make the report feel relevant to the reader.
One point to note: always link to the original source of the research, not a news/opinion piece quoting that research.
4. Give it a human touch
We know that stories engage people and stick with them in a way that pure theory never will. So gather case studies that humanise the abstract concepts you’re writing about.
And stories need characters. So make sure your reports contain voices, in the form of quotes and profiles. Also think about getting headshots of your interviewees: the design team can use these across our products to make them more relatable.
If we don’t see ourselves and our experiences reflected in texts, we switch off — because we can’t relate to abstract concepts. So we might seek out a case study that relates to our own experience, or a quote from someone working in our industry or role.
If you don’t have any interviewees or case studies, you could humanise your report by creating personas based on your survey findings. For example: the Collaborative CIO, the Cautious Investor, the Techy CFO, the Optimistic Energy Executive. You could even go one step further and give them names. The design team can then use illustration to humanise these even more.
What this might mean
- An interview/Q&A after your first section to illustrate the points you raised there
- A profile/case study to bring to life the findings you outline in your second section
- A full-page (or double-page spread in print) timeline or other infographic
- Full-page boxouts that explain a technical term or a particular finding
5. Help your reader to skim
We don’t tend to think of reports as a digital product, but they need to appeal to people who are now accustomed to short bursts of digital content. So remember the ‘Writing digital’ guidelines and help your readers to scan the page.
What this might mean
- Short, active subheadings that pull them into the text — e.g. What this means for CFOs, Why energy firms are struggling to hire, Your next hire is a robot, Can your CEO survive the next five years?, The finance function is slowing us down
- Chart titles that tell the story in the data (see point 7 below)
- Bullet lists
- Pullquotes and pullstats
- Bold and/or different-coloured text that highlights important phrases
- Short chunks of text
- Boxouts
- Clearly marked action points for each section/theme
6. Pare back your charts
Your charts should tell the story you want to tell instead of simply regurgitating all the data. Most of the time, they don’t need to be exhaustive.
Instead of making your audience work hard to interpret 15 bars in a chart, be selective: find the story and only show the data that tells that story. You can even try showing single data points that tell that story.
Another way to get away from the overused and overcomplicated bar chart is to think about different ways to present your data: single-statistic graphics and side-by-side comparisons can be especially powerful.
7. Use chart titles to tell your story
Our audiences are time-poor, so we need to make every word work hard and give them ‘signposts’ that catch their eye as they skim-read.
So if you have charts with titles, try to use a statement that tells the story that’s in the data.
What this might mean
Yes: CFOs in the US are less collaborative than CFOs in Europe
No: Collaboration among CFOs
Yes: IT businesses are getting less innovative No: How innovative are IT businesses?
8. Consider ditching the conclusion
Too often, our conclusions read like rushed afterthoughts — a box-ticking exercise. We think we have to include them, but we’re not too sure why.
So think: do you need a conclusion? Will your readers read it? And if they do, what do you want them to get from it?
Instead of a conclusion, consider providing action points throughout your report. After all, your readers are there to learn something relevant to them — something they can act on. And if you distribute these throughout the report, closely linking them to each section, you will:
- Ground your theory in reality and show how each of your sections relates to the reader
- Keep up the momentum — they are less likely to lose interest or skip sections if you show that each bit contains actionable information
- Sustain your own focus as you write — if you have to come up with action points for each section, you will keep your own narrative focused on your readers and how you can help them
How to be a good partner to the design team
Here’s how to prepare your scripts for design:
1.
Remove any comments and track changes from the script.
2.
Use square brackets for any text that shouldn’t be included in the document. You can use this text to tell the design team what is:
- The title
- The subtitle
- A standfirst
- A top-level/section heading and lower-level headings (if it’s complicated, you can use an A/B/C system to show the hierarchy of headings)
- A boxout/sidebar
- A call to action
3.
Format your footnotes consistently, or if you’re using hyperlinks place them on the right text.
4.
For reports, include a clear contents list, because it’s not always obvious what should be included.
5.
Suggest pullquotes and pullstats using comments in the Word file. It’s a good idea to format these correctly in your comment box — i.e. put the name and job title underneath the full quote.
6.
Provide a clean, proofread data sheet, which could be linked from the charts in the Word file. Make sure that the design team knows exactly where the data is for each chart.
7.
Charts should have only the key storyline data included (see ‘Pare back your charts, below). Make sure the data sheet matches this and the labels have been proofread.
8.
Designers should not be rekeying/typing any words, because that’s how errors creep in. So don’t just provide screenshots/images of your charts or tables — make sure they can just copy and paste the text from the data sheet.
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