now if you have ever presented your case studies like this or like this it's okay though we've all been there before in this video i want to share with you and show you exactly how i present my case studies to clients that have paid up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per project now i'm sure there are many different and better ways out there but this has worked very well for me now hopefully you are able to learn a thing or two let's get into it oh and by the way if you do want access to this presentation file make sure to check the link in the description it's free it's built with figma and it's also responsive hi my name is michael better known as mizco and i'm the founder of the designer ship where we teach designers how to become legendary in this video i'm going to first present to you a case study that was based on a true story then i will share with you four learnings that i've made that most designers don't know and it's the reason why their presentations fail so let's get right into it guys redefining the way that australians buy and sell automobiles back in 2019 in january a company a which was also a fortune 500 company which means that they were in the top 500 largest u.s companies based on revenue wanted to expand their product offering into australia so the problem that we realized was that in australia there is no seamless experience that handles the end-to-end sale of an automobile that customers are truly satisfied with so through further discussions with their team the objective that we defined was that we wanted to research strategize and design an end-to-end pwa in other words progressive web app experience to help australians buy and sell automobiles with a focus on increasing conversion rates by 20 on the previous mvp so i've broken down the project into three key phases empathize conceptualize and also design so in the very first stage of the project we really lacked understanding in what customers really wanted needed and expected from us so there were three key questions that we wanted answered at the beginning of the project in phase one which was current frustrations and pain points what do they really want and what do they really need so then we dived into a very intensive two week research sprint and we did over ten user interviews with ten different user user participants we also investigated forums public forums reddit and also facebook groups and then we also mapped out a competitor and swot analysis to help us understand what was the current product offering that the industry was providing our users so we dived deep into user research and user interviews and there were three key takeaways that we learnt from this one two and three and with our facebook group investigations we also discovered some really interesting insights which included one two and three so once we got all the primary research done and we had all this data we then had to jump into the conceptualization of the project we needed to take all that data and actually understand it and synthesize it so in stage two of the project once we had all this primary data we were quite overwhelmed with all the insights we needed to start to prioritize to start forming a strategy on what is the actual experience that we are going to design as a team so first we need to understand the key pain points wants and needs from our customers or potential customers that we learnt from these interviews we then need to classify all the insights that we got gathered we need to be able to bucket them into categories where we were able to understand the priorities of them and then we need to present all the synthesis to our stakeholders we need to understand the data form our strategy and then present it to them to get stakeholder buy-in so then we just jumped into secondary research to really form our product strategy and experience so there were three key things that we did in this stage we created affinity maps to better understand our general audience as a whole we then also prioritize customer pain points once and needs so then that would also help us prioritize our very own road map and solve the features that we want to pack into the second version of this product and then we need to present all those insights to our stakeholders and really document it in a way that we were able to get their buy-in so first thing we did was we jumped into an affinity map and there were three key takeaways once again that we were able to pull out which was one two and three we then jumped into a customer journey map so we really plotted and really understood exactly where were the gaps where were the inefficiencies where were the areas that we really wanted to focus on to take this product to the next level and that included one two and three and then overall because there was so much data these were some of the key takeaways that we were able to gather from this project that really helped us redefine the way that australians would buy and sell motor vehicles in australia and this included one two and three so now that we've done all our research we've also synthesized all the research formed a strategy and also got stakeholder buy-in what we wanted to do is move into the design phase so now that we're in the design phase we actually realized we were very we're on a very tight deadline and developers need to start building very soon so three of the main questions that we really need to answer before we start design was first should we design mobile first and this was a learning and an insight from our research that a lot of people and most people would be taking photos of their vehicles with their mobile and what that meant was that could be an opportunity for us to seamlessly transition them into our experience simply from their phone so we wanted to make sure that the mobile experience was really top-notch second do we need to design a design system right now we really need to understand efficiency and we also want to make sure when we build this product it was done right from day one so we need to understand did we need the design system right now and also what was our overall visual design language because this was an american company a us-based company coming into australia were we utilizing the exact same design language that they were using based in the states so once those questions were answered we pretty much jumped straight into design because we were on a very tight deadline so we built a design system as a priority to make sure that the design to development handover was very efficient we also moved forward with a mobile first approach and we really focused on building the home page and the funnel first to get stakeholder buy-in and once the overall design language was approved we were able to scale out the operation and design all the subsequent screens very quickly so here is a glimpse into our design system and there were three key takeaways that was very interesting while we were building out a scalable design system for this project which included one two and three now also as we were designing specific features and flows for this project there were also some very interesting insights as well including one two and three now overall with all the designs that we created all the different flows all the different devices that we really focused on the interesting insights included one two and three now that leads us over to the outcomes we successfully launched this project three months later and we celebrated at a rooftop bar with the entire company a team now these which were also facts we actually gained over 90 000 car listings within the first three months we increased the conversion rate by 30 percent based on their previous mvp and ultimately this product was also acquired by ebay classifieds in i believe 2019 so that wraps it up for this case study over to you guys for any questions or any concerns or anything that you want to dive deeper into you can also read the full case study at thedesignship.com gently smash the like button now here are four things that you probably didn't know when you were presenting your work to potential clients or even potential employers now the first one is it's not about your design process it's not that you started with research you went into wireframes and then uh design it's about the narrative what were the challenges that you were facing and why did you take those next steps that you did an employer is not assessing you whether or not you remember the design process that you taught in the boot camp or that you read online they are really assessing you on your mindset the way that you think the way you solve problems and how you form relationships between insights and solutions and the way you communicate those ideas now the second thing is it's about the narrative now there's a thing called the three act structure which is a model that divides the story into three parts set up confrontation and resolution without going too much detail the goal is to set up the story build the confrontation which are the challenges linked with the solutions and then the resolution where everyone lives happily ever after now this model was created by sid field in his 1979 book screenplay and has been adopted by world-leading script writers movie producers and so much more as a designer we can definitely learn from this and make our own case studies more interesting by contrasting the problems that we face with the solutions that we form now the third key takeaway is don't overwhelm your audience if the person on the other end loses concentration or is overwhelmed you've lost that opportunity already now obviously there's a lot you need to cover in a case study but when it comes to presenting i always lean on the concept of the rule of thirds if you noticed everything i was explaining to you were in threes three stages three key insights three examples and if you notice that let me know in the comments below i personally find three is a perfect number it's neither too little or too overwhelming now last but not least the story needs to be interesting those key insights that i kept repeating throughout the presentation those need to turn heads now i obviously couldn't publicly share all the insights from this case study because they were quite confidential but these need to wow your potential employer or client so hopefully you found a lot of value in this video make sure to download the free template link is also in the description if you want to level up as a designer head over to thedesignship.com and i will see you in the next video very soon