Author: Neil Thompson, Illustrator and founder of Alternative View Studios
Producing robust evidence is only part of evaluation. For findings to make a difference, they need to reach the people who can learn from them, act on them and use them to inform decisions.
Reports remain important, but they are not always the best way to engage every audience. Animation can make complex findings more accessible and open them up to wider discussion, without losing important context.
In this article, Neil Thompson, founder of Alternative View Studios, shares five principles for turning evaluation findings into engaging animation, from understanding your audience and identifying the key message to shaping a clear story and encouraging action.
Five principles for animating your evaluation
Strong evaluation can inform decisions and improve outcomes. However, it can have limited influence if it sits within a lengthy report or is understood only by a specialist audience.
Reports have their place for documenting details – methods, evidence and data – but they may not always be the most effective way to reach or influence decision-makers.Â
Animation can provide an accessible, engaging way to communicate your evaluation, opening the findings to wider discussion and use.
The challenge is to create something engaging without stripping the findings of their complexity or context. Here are five useful principles for turning your evaluation into an animation that creates an impact.
1. Start with the evidence
Before thinking about the animation itself, take stock of what the evaluation has uncovered. Look at the findings collectively. Are there patterns, unexpected results, recurring experiences, recommendations and any important context or limitations?
This stage is about understanding how the evidence fits together and ensuring the animation will accurately reflect the evaluation – even though it can’t include everything.
For this Healthcare in Police Custody animation we developed for Newcastle University, the source material drew on 500 hours of observation, 70 interviews and 3,200 custody-file audits. Researchers identified key themes, including inconsistencies in healthcare provision, gaps in information-sharing, and how staff perceptions could affect detainees’ experiences.
2. Define the audience and purpose
Your animation won’t tell a story effectively if the audience and purpose aren’t defined at the start.Â
Consider who needs to understand the findings, what’s most relevant to them and how they’re likely to view the animation. It might be shown during training, shared with policymakers, or used to support community engagement. It may be part of a wider communications campaign to educate a specific audience.
For example, the University of Sheffield’s Influencing Police Custody and Practice project used four animations to help detainees understand their treatment, rights, welfare and safety. As the films were designed for screens inside police cells, they needed to work for viewers who might be distressed, neurodivergent or have learning difficulties. A criminal justice neurodiversity consultant reviewed the scripts and visual approach to support accuracy and accessibility.
3. Agree a key message
Once you’ve defined your audience and purpose, decide what they most need to take from the evaluation.
Trying to include every statistic, finding, and recommendation will result in an animation that feels crowded, disjointed, and hard to take in. A better approach is to identify the central message and use it as the thread connecting the evidence, narrative and intended response.
A helpful question to consider might be: If viewers remember only one thing, what should it be?
Then select supporting evidence based on how well it explains or reinforces that message, and direct anyone who wants more detail to the full report and accompanying resources.
This isn’t about simplifying the evaluation. It’s about helping your audience recognise why the findings matter.
4. Create a clear and engaging story
Shape your evaluation into a story that guides viewers from the issue being explored, through the evidence, to what the findings mean.
This might, for example:
- follow a person’s experience
- explore a problem and its consequences
- compare different outcomes, orÂ
- gradually reveal what the evaluation discovered.Â
Statistics and key findings can be combined with fictional characters, visual metaphors, real-world examples, and contributors’ voices to make complex ideas relatable, easier to understand, and easier to remember.
5. Communication for action
Consider what you want your audience to think, feel or do after watching your animation. You might want professionals to reflect on their practice, people to understand their rights, policymakers to explore the evidence or organisations to adopt recommendations.
Then consider how the animation will reach your audience – what channels will you use to share it? What are the next steps you want them to take? This could include a direct call to action, links to the full evaluation or practical resources, facilitated discussion, training materials, or the animation becoming part of a wider communications campaign.
In Summary
A useful planning framework when thinking about animating your evaluation is:
Evidence Â
AudienceÂ
MessageÂ
StoryÂ
Action
A well-produced animation can make your evaluation more accessible, demonstrate why its findings matter and help audiences consider how to apply them.
When you carefully consider the evidence, audience, insight, story, and intended action, your findings can have a stronger impact.
Rather than marking the end of your evaluation process, think of your evaluation animation as being an opportunity for learning, discussion and influencing change.
Our thanks to Neil for this guest blog and for contributing their perspective to the UK Evaluation Society’s work.
How to cite this article
Thompson, N. (2026) Beyond the report: bringing evaluation findings to life. UK Evaluation Society article. Available at: https://evaluation.org.uk/beyond-the-report-bringing-evaluation-findings-to-life/ (Accessed: [insert date]).
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the UK Evaluation Society. References to third-party organisations, events or activities are for information only and do not constitute endorsement.
Neil Thompson
Neil Thompson is the owner and founder of Alternative View Studios, which creates short-form explainer animations for the charity, education and health sectors.
An illustrator, animator and designer with over 25 years’ experience, Neil combines creative and technical expertise to make complex and sensitive subjects accessible through engaging animation.
His work includes animations that share research and evaluation findings, helping audiences understand the evidence and its implications for policy and practice.
Neil has produced and directed projects for the BBC, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield, Liverpool’s NHS Children and Young People’s Mental Health Support Partnership (CAMHS), and Medical Aid Films.
