One of the most exciting parts of conducting an online survey is showcasing the findings and results when data collection wraps up.
And with the user feedback you’ve gathered, you can now take your survey results and turn them into awesome, insightful presentations that paint a clear path for how the organization should proceed.
However, there are certainly some do’s and don’t’s when it comes to how you’ll go about presenting your survey’s findings. In this post, we’ll look at the importance of strong visuals, how charts and graphs help highlight trends, what to do with those open-ended responses, as well as a few presentation tools that help pull everything together.
Visuals Matter When Explaining Survey Results
In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Author Daniel Kahneman discusses how ideas need to be quickly and easily understood, and then built upon over time. In doing this (specifically within presentations) you create a scenario in which comprehension can be one of both depth and breadth.
So how do you do that? Start by leveraging visuals.
Research indicates that the human brain can interpret images 60,000 times faster than text because more than 93% of all human communication is visual. So when we want to communicate information (like survey results) effectively and efficiently, we know that visual representations are essential to success.
This is where charts, graphs, and visuals come into the equation for your presentation of survey results. Showcasing your survey findings in a highly visual format (like charts and graphs) helps you command attention and gain buy-in from your audience by indicating unmistakable trends.
The next step, then, is gathering those visuals that will showcase your survey results in a simple and compelling format.
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Use charts and graphs
Since we already understand how translating the multitude of survey responses into charts and graphs allows you to effectively disseminate survey findings, we’ll want to figure out where we’ll find those existing assets.
If you’re using GetFeedback as your survey tool, you’re in luck–beautiful charts are built right in (like in the example above.) In most instances, these automatically-generated survey result visualizations take the legwork out of producing quantitative graphs and charts (and make it simple to capture and share a clear picture of survey data.) To use the GetFeedback charts just screenshot them and add the screenshot images to your presentation.
However, if you need to generate additional charts and graphs, you can export your survey data to an xls/csv format and use a chart / graph tool of your choice.
Note: The type of chart you’ll want to use will depend on the type of information you’re examining.
Focus on numbers
Along with the story, your charts and graphs will tell, you’ll want to put a focus on hard numbers and statistics that resonate with your audience. Often times, people in leadership roles are used to looking at the business from a numbers standpoint–so it’s important to remember to speak their language with a focus on data. Presenting survey results in a highly visual format will keep your audience engaged.
Within your presentation, you can leverage statistics such as:
Percentage of responses
Number of respondents
Customer Satisfaction or Employee Satisfaction percentages
Again, If you’re using GetFeedback for your online surveys, you’ll automatically have beautiful visuals for these types of statistics as seen here:
So rather than focusing on a lengthy narrative that tries to explain concepts with words, remember: Leverage percentages, numbers, and statistics in each slide of your presentation.
Spotlight open-ended responses
If your survey included questions that allowed open-ended responses, you won’t be able to translate those into a chart or graph. You would likely be limited to noting which words and adjectives were commonly used in these responses (like “easy” or “valuable”) via a word cloud.
You could, however, pull out some of the interesting comments and highlight them during your presentation as quotes from respondents. Say, for example, one survey participant has a positive comment about your product. He writes,
“I find myself coming back to this company because the jackets here are the warmest, most durable I’ve tried–and they never fall apart over time.”
That’s something you’d want your audience to hear, right? These comments offer extremely valuable insight into what your audience thinks about feels about your business–so be sure to put them to good use in your presentation (and consider using them as testimonials for your product, too.)
Pick a presentation tool
The last step is to pick a presentation tool that will best showcase your survey results and its accompanying design elements. There are many different options to choose from with various features but look for the tool that meets all of your functionality requirements.
Consider tools like:
PowerPoint
Google Presentations
Prezi
Empressr
Pro tip: If you’re using a presentation tool like PowerPoint, you can use animated gifs to bring even more life to your survey results. These animations show real-time progressions of data collection and are easy to create.
No matter which resource you use to design your presentation, remember to keep design elements cohesive, to use company branding, and to leverage survey results as numbers throughout.
Make your survey results shine
When you transform your survey results into a masterful presentation, you get even more mileage out of the feedback you’ve collected. So instead of sharing data only with a specific team, take the time to repackage your results into an insightful, company-wide learning opportunity.
You may find that not only do presentations make it easy to share findings with your entire team, but they help everyone gain clarity on what to do next.
