How to produce the perfect case study

Telling someone’s story in the best way possible

What’s the goal?

Good case studies use impactful, emotive language to tell someone’s story. They resonate with people and bring to light the issues we’re trying to raise.

We're trying to show what life’s really like when you can’t access the healthcare you need. We're also trying to show the other side of the story: what's life like when you can access the care you need?

Before you conduct your interview, don’t forget to:

• Have your questions pre-planned and ready to go.
• Make sure the interviewee understands how you use and promote their story. Find out more about consent.
• Get confirmation on whether they want to be anonymous or identified.

Once you’ve developed the case study, send it to them to check they're happy with it and the facts are correct.

Make sure to gather the facts

When interviewing someone, think about the information you'll need to build their story:

Who?
Who is involved? Who is affected? Start with a few lines of background about the participant, including their condition/disability, age, gender, etc. Build a profile of them and set the scene.

What?
What is the issue? What impact might it have on the person's life?

When?
When will or did the story take place?

Where?
Where did this take place? Where do people live who are affected?

Why?
Why is the story important? Why does it matter?

How?
How did the issue come to be? How are those involved affected? How would someone’s experience be improved?

Start with a strong introduction

Your introduction is the most important part of your story. Evidence suggests people spend less than 15 seconds deciding if the content they are viewing is relevant to them.

You should:

• Use an enticing headline that tells the reader what the story is about.
• Open with a short, sharp summary, focusing on the most interesting elements. 
• Use simple, everyday language people will understand immediately.
• You want to avoid having somebody read the introduction and think, ‘So what?’

It's their story, but you’re the storyteller

We want to hear the voice of the person whose story it is. But this doesn’t mean the case study should be just a record of what they said. Your task is to use their words to build a story. You’ll need to include some explanation to link quotes together and create a clear narrative. 

Remember, quotes don’t need to go in the exact order the person said them in. You can edit quotes to improve clarity. Just make it clear you have done so by including ellipses when you remove words or phrases.

Pack a punch with your case study

Less is sometimes more. You don’t need to include everything the person said. If part of their story stands out and has real impact, focus on that and keep it clear and effective. 

When you’re reading back your case study, consider whether a reader would clearly understand the person’s situation and the issues they're going through.

Top tips to keep your audience’s attention:

• Get to the point
• Avoid jargon and acronyms
• Keep it punchy – use short words, sentences and paragraphs
• Break up text with subheadings and bullet points
• Use strong video, photos or graphics to break up the text
• Focus on what your audience cares about
• Include any action the reader can take 

What should the case study look like?

It doesn’t need to be War and Peace! Aim for around 850 words – around two pages of A4. Then, once it’s ready to go, please submit them as Word documents, not PDFs. 

To get an idea of some good practice case studies why not check out:

• Emma's story
• Shaun's story