Know Your Audience

If your report cannot grab and hold the attention of your audience, your message will be lost.

Who is Your Audience? What Do They Need?

Knowing your audience will help you create a more effective report that will engage your audience, reduce confusion, and enable your audience to more easily consume and analyze the information that you are presenting.

If your audience consists of distinct groups, considering everyone’s wishes and constraints beforehand will help you meet their expectations.

Examples

• Data scientists want to explore your data.
• Business analysts need to see different views of the data by year.
• New employees may benefit from guidance on the meaning of different terms.
• Executives who scan the report like to know who to contact for more information.
• Researchers require multiple ways to filter the data.

Consider These Factors Prior to Creating Your Report:

1. What value does your report provide to your audience?
2. Will most of your users be looking for specific data, or changes in the data, or scanning for overall patterns?
3. How often will your report be viewed, and how long will your users spend each time?
4. What level of familiarity will your audience have with the information in the report:
• Should you include explanations of the data?
• Should you describe the interactions?
5. How will your audience use the information in your report?
6. What actions, if any, will your users take after reading the report?

For any report to succeed, it must be suited to the needs of its audience.