What are the best practices for evaluating the impact of visual storytelling in design projects?

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you start creating your visual stories, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you will measure their success. Your goals and metrics may differ depending on your design project, but some common ones include engagement, such as how many people view, share, comment, or interact with your visual stories; conversion, which is how many people take the desired action after seeing your visual stories; satisfaction, based on feedback, ratings, or reviews; and learning, based on quizzes, tests, or surveys.

2 Choose the right tools and methods

Once you have your goals and metrics, you need to select the appropriate tools and methods to collect and analyze your data. For example, you can use online platforms, such as Google Analytics or Facebook Insights, to track the performance of your visual stories. Additionally, online tools like SurveyMonkey or Typeform can be used to create surveys for your audience to ask them about their opinions, preferences, or experiences with your visual stories. Interviews can also be conducted with your audience to get more in-depth and qualitative insights. Lastly, testing sessions with your audience can be conducted in a lab, in the field, or remotely, to observe and record how they interact with your visual stories and what challenges or problems they encounter.

3 Compare and contrast your results

After you have collected and analyzed your data, you need to compare and contrast your results with your goals and metrics, as well as other sources of information. For example, you can compare your results with industry standards, best practices, or previous projects to get an idea of how your visual stories perform relative to others. Additionally, you can compare your results with the visual stories of your competitors to find ways to improve or differentiate your design project. Lastly, you can also compare your results with the feedback from stakeholders, clients, or peers to see if they align or differ from your data.

4 Communicate and apply your findings

Finally, you need to communicate and apply your findings to improve your design project and your visual storytelling skills. One way to do this is by creating reports that summarize and visualize your findings, highlight key insights and recommendations, and share them with your team, clients, or audience. Additionally, you can make presentations that showcase your findings, tell a compelling story, and engage your audience with your visual stories. Moreover, you can use your findings to make changes, adjustments, or enhancements to your design project and visual stories, and test them again to see the impact.