Making data storytelling accessible to all
Kontinentalist
About client
Kontinentalist is a leading creative data storyteller in Asia that engages their audiences with creative and immersive stories to make data simple, beautiful and memorable.
Kontinentalist uses innovative, rigorous storytelling, data visualisation, cultural context and empathy to cut through the noise around Asia’s key topics and give meaningful voices a platform for their stories.
Challenge
Kontinentalist had a product idea: an easy-to-access platform where anyone can engage in data storytelling, then create and share their data storytelling piece. They needed to understand the needs and pain points of their target users and inform the direction of the product ideation.
Solution
In-depth research to decide who to target and what type of solutions to offer
Results
Qualitative insights to make informed decisions
We interviewed two groups: data storytelling professionals - researchers in academia and local public organisations and data communication experts in global non profits. We also talked to non-professional data storytellers - media specialists and researchers.
We examined each participant’s workflow to try to identify where their pain points lie in their own context. This research helped us discover qualitative insights about how the solution could be shaped with How Might We questions:
Help users reduce the time it takes to create content
How might Kontinentalist help non-professionals in data storytelling create a good quality data storytelling piece faster and easier?
Embed into their current workflow
How might Kontinentalist design a solution that supports users’ current workflow and system?
Go beyond the template solutions
How might Kontinentalist provide a unique solution that does not overlap with existing solutions?
These, together with the three personas we synthesised from the user interviews were the insights Kontinentalist needed to properly assess the feasibility of their product idea. This gave them clarity to decide which pain points make sense for them to address, and what would be helpful to users given their current workflow.
"55 Minutes' extensive research among multiple user segments allowed us to zero in on a specific user need with more confidence. Given our limited time and resources, we wouldn’t have overcome that initial hurdle and developed our data storytelling platform Lapis into what it is today without their support."
Joceline Kuswanto, Senior Designer, Kontinentalist
