How Do Listeners Listen and Readers Read? 8 Considerations for Centering Intended Users in Our Reports

Abstract Information: Evaluations have primary intended users. They may be groups or individuals; government, private sector, or nonprofit; national, regional, or local; sectors or site-based. These users can hold very different histories, missions, and ways of making meaning as they interact with our evaluation stories. So, the way we write these stories matters.

In this Ignite session, we explore how the reporting media we adopt can influence use of findings. Evaluation resources are limited, and we have only so much time. Our skills and comfortability can vary widely for creating written reports, presentations, debriefs, infographics, videos, social media posts, or podcasts. How, then, do we decide which medium is best to share results?

Taking a utilization-focused approach, we propose centering our intended users. We challenge evaluators to consider eight concepts when deciding which reporting method(s) best align with their evaluations. Seven of these interrelated concepts culminate in attention to one, overarching consideration: equity.

Relevance Statement: In utilization-focused evaluation, one of our central goals is to encourage use of findings. It is, therefore, essential to consider our primary intended users’ skills and abilities, preferences, environments, and overarching mission when we write our evaluation stories. Even so, our own skills, preferences, and resources for creating reports and other deliverables are limited. This leaves us with the question, how do we decide which medium is best to share results?

The written report may be the convention, but there are many other options. These include more visual presentations such as slideshows, videos, and infographics; oral information exchange using presentations, data parties, podcasts, and debrief forums; social media postings; and even communication through art (for example, weaving stories into quilts).

In this Ignite session, we explore how the reporting media we adopt can influence the use of findings. Through a utilization-focused lens, we challenge evaluators to center the primary intended user(s)—in conjunction with the evaluator’s own skillset—to determine the most appropriate reporting methods for any given evaluation.

With just 15 seconds per slide, our goal for this Ignite session is simple: get evaluators thinking. What are some of their many options for reporting? How can the eight considerations below help them to decide which medium or media would work best? Importantly, the concepts below are interrelated and culminate in attention to one, overarching consideration: equity.

1. Literacy (ability to read, write, listen & speak)


2. Numeracy (ability to understand, reason with, & apply numerical concepts)


3. Visualcy (ability to create & interpret visual representations)


4. Personal Preferences (what medium or media do individual users prefer? How does language & tone vary by medium?)


5. Cultural Preferences (how can the medium or media respond to users' cultural preferences for meaning-making and communication? To what extent do users perceive the medium & messaging as accurate & trustworthy?)


6. Engagement Preferences (on a continuum from “inform” to “empower," how much interaction is embedded in the share-back medium? Does this respond to users’ preferences?)


7. Accessibility (how might the users’ environmental context influence their ability to access your report? Consider built environment, e.g., internet or printing access, and social environment, e.g., capacity & time)


8. Equity (given all previous considerations, does the reporting method inadvertently or purposefully prioritize one group over another?)