What are the best ways to teach a junior user researcher to communicate their findings?

Teaching a junior user researcher to effectively communicate their findings involves a blend of mentorship, practice, and constructive feedback. Encourage them to craft clear, concise reports ??, emphasizing key insights and actionable recommendations. Role-playing presentations ??? can build confidence and refine delivery skills. Introduce them to diverse communication formats such as visualizations ??, infographics ??, and storytelling ?? to engage diverse stakeholders. Encouraging active listening ?? and empathy helps them tailor messages to different audiences. Finally, fostering a culture of open dialogue ??? allows for continuous learning and improvement.

One great way to learn how to communicate research findings effectively is to have junior researchers read research outputs or attend presentations given by both junior and senior researchers. It's often easier to critique others' work than our own, so we can learn a lot from these experiences. Integrating oral presentations and other research-related topics as papers and reviews in all classes as much as possible is a great way to strategize this learning process. It is also a great idea to systematically collect feedback, verbal or written, after any presentation/written output. Finally, it would be a great idea to have knowledge mobilization added as a required course in all graduate programs focused on research.

In my experience, using storytelling when presenting UX research findings can greatly enhance understanding for specific audiences. When crafting a story for stakeholders, it is helpful to focus on giving a concise summary of the problem and its importance and the highlighting the impact on business goals (revenue, user retention, market share). When presenting for designers, it is helpful to focus the story on usability issues, pain points, and patterns. In that case, using visual attributes like heatmaps, journey maps, or user flow diagrams is especially helpful. When crafting a story for an executive, it will be helpful for a junior researcher to show correlation between insights and company's strategic goals.

The best way to try to teach communicating findings is showing them that is can actually be fun. It doesn't need to be boring or tedious. People that enjoy learning something, are more likely to actively pursue the learning. When we feel its only a "duty", its harder to do. Finally, teach them how to communicate in a way that fits who they are and their characters. Help them to being themselves into their communication.

Such advice applies equally to the junior user researcher in question. Generic advice found on such a platform only goes part of the way towards developing key competencies. So, yes, any user researcher needs to gain a deep understanding of multiple audiences. Findings matter to more people than those who ask for them. Part of the skillset of user research is in understanding a variety of stakeholders. Leverage that skill to apply to people who will make use of your findings… even if they do so in unexpected ways. Experience with Open Data or collaborative approaches to analysis is really useful in this respect.

In my experience, the choice of the format depends on audience's preferences, the depth of insights, and the level of interactivity needed. Sometimes, it is beneficial to consider a hybrid approach, combining elements of presentations, reports, and videos to cater to different needs within your audience.

In the approach known as “Universal Design for Learning”, we describe the value of using multiple modes of representation. The key insight, here, is similar to the generic advice… with the added value of getting you to think about diverse needs. In other words, there's no such thing as “the” right format. There's a variety of formats you can use to share findings in ways to help diverse people gain insight. Best way to find the right mix of format is to try different things with different people. Easiest when you're aware of specific limitations among people who will consult your findings (including time constraints). Interactive or adaptive formats also help, because different people can access different parts.

While storytelling is trendy, it's important to avoid reducing varied experiences to narratives. A key insight in ethnography, 40 years ago this month, is that transforming cultural diversity in linear writing is as dangerous a bias, if not more, than letting personal preferences colour your writing. An efficient way to strike the right balance between storytelling and rich insight is through “reflexive dialogue”. Yes, it's jargon… that junior members of the UX Research field ought to understand early on (in the US, it's 101 level). You can craft stories integrating diverse experiences, including your own! Make it into a conversation in which you acknowledge the specificity of your own existence. Don't pretend your findings are “universal”.

In certain contexts, visuals are quite powerful. Quite frequently, they're deeply misleading. Even a quick glance at the literature on visualization will help you understand how much care you need to apply when you use visuals to present findings. Bear in mind that, as user researcher, your job has more to do with sharing insight than with convincing “decision makers”. Visuals sound like they can encapsulate a lot of information in a compelling package. The problem with that has a lot to do with selection bias. Not to mention accessibility. If you do use visuals, do so in a way which doesn't give an advantage to sighted people.

Please do get (and provide) feedback as early and regularly as humanly possible. A strong tendency among junior members of any profession is to request feedback way too late in just about any process. Perfectionism, in our field, is often more of a problem than a quality. Sharing early drafts with people who can provide useful feedback is among the most efficient ways to learn the trade. In order to find such people, you need Psychological Safety. Some of the most impactful teams around establish this sense of safety through practices like Team Agreements and Radical Candour. Requesting and giving high quality feedback on incomplete drafts can contribute to the teamwork which sits at the centre of your work.