By Lindsay Lamb and Andrea Hutson
We are going to be talking a lot in the next few weeks about the wonderful tool in your evaluator’s toolbox called the One Pager.
One Pagers have all sorts of uses, and can help you get funding, pitch an idea, or share high level results with board members or executives.
To be effective, they need to grab your readers’ attention and give them just the right amount of information to make them want to know more.
This is more difficult than it sounds.
TMI
One of the biggest traps you can fall into with a one pager is putting too much information on the page.
Check out this example. Sure it is a one-pager, but can you easily see and read what is going on?
To be fair, I’m sure the doctor who created this was in a fit of anxiety, and desperately wanted to get all of this information out to others to help save the world… but it is safe to say that this is a bit much.
How about this one? It’s actually pretty good. We’re definitely going in the right direction.
Things I like about this one-pager:
- Three columns that break up the text,
- Consistent color, headers, and branding, and
- Cool infographics
Things that could be improved:
- It is too busy
- There is redundant and unnecessary information
- The story gets lost; you really have to jump around the narrative to determine the key takeaways
Makeover Time!
This one-pager contains the same information as the one above, but:
- There’s an image that gives you an idea of what the product is right in the center.
- There is more white space, drawing the reader in so that they can more easily make sense of the data in front of them.
- It states the key facts from the beginning and moves some of the background information to a sidebar.
- It tells a story. Note that the flow goes from Problem to Solution.
- It keeps the branding of the organization but adds a bit of color.
It’s still not perfect. This is probably something we’d submit to a client as a draft, noodle over for awhile, and then revise.
Tips for Effective One Pagers
How do you create effective one-pagers? Follow these simple guidelines:
- Keep it simple! Ensuring you have a lot of white space will highlight what you actually want your audience to read.
- Break up your one-pager into sections. I try to use three sections per page (a one-pager can be two pages with a front and back). Use a sidebar, pull quotes, and icons to help break things up.
- Use visualizations. Create simple figures or charts, use icons, use bold font and color to highlight key findings.
Ready to build your own on one-pager? We will be launching a mini-course that will walk you through the steps to create a simple, and effective one-pager soon. Stay tuned!