Hi ,
A few months back, I listened to the live stream of a prominent Australian court case as the judgement was being read.
The judge spent over three hours outlining his reasoning
before the verdict was finally announced.
There was probably some legal reason this had to be so. However, for the parties to the case, the three hours must have felt like an eternity. And even for a curious spectator, like me, it seemed the judge took far too long to get to the point.
Contrast this with internet backup service AFI.ai. Each week, subscribers receive an email giving the status of their account. And if everything is OK, that's the first thing the email says.
As with the court ruling, the details are also provided - in case you want to know. But if you don't have the time, that's fine. You know upfront the parts that
count.
Here's the thing...
Details matter, but often they matter more to those who created them than those on the receiving end.
If the results of your analysis are that everything is OK, then say that first before explaining why.
No one wants to wait three hours for you to get to the point - even if the point is what they want to hear.
Talk again soon,
Dr Genevieve Hayes.
p.s. This is the philosophy behind Brian O'Neill's CED framework for presenting analytical results. We discussed this and other techniques to help data scientists improve the design and usability of their data products in the latest episode of Value
Driven Data Science.
You can listen to our conversation at the link below: Episode 44: Designing Data Products People Actually Want to Use
