As a UX researcher, you know how valuable your insights are for designing and improving products and services. But how do you share them effectively with your stakeholders, such as clients, managers, developers, and designers? In this article, we'll explore some tips and best practices for communicating your UX research findings in a clear, concise, and engaging way.
Before you present your insights, you need to understand who your audience is and what they care about. Different stakeholders may have different goals, expectations, and levels of familiarity with UX research. For instance, a client may want to see the business impact of your findings, while a developer may be more interested in the technical implications and requirements. To tailor your message to your audience, consider their main problem or challenge, objectives and priorities, the amount of time and attention they have, how they prefer to receive information (e.g., verbal, visual, written, etc.), and any existing assumptions or biases they have.
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When it comes to stakeholders, money is usually the name of the game. So while I do realize that calculating ROI of UXR is difficult, I would make a strong effort to pin that down. In dollar amounts, how much did this research effort save/create profits for the company? Most of the time, this is what will make stakeholders care and hook them into your presentation. If you're in a position where the research itself generated no profits nor cuts of losses, I would focus on how it enables further work that will achieve such goals.
If you happen to work with teams and companies who have "Vision and Goals" documents handy, identify the clear connections between what you are trying to accomplish with your UX research and how those insights can have a positive impact on the explicit goals that have been written out. When you present the results, directly refer back to visuals of those goals so that your audience can clearly see how those insights will help them succeed. If no such "Vision and Goals" document exists, reach out directly to the team leads to have a conversations about what these goals are. Allow space for them to open up and elaborate, and follow up the conversation with an email summarizing what you heard. Ask them to confirm if you heard them correctly.
When choosing a format and medium for your presentation, consider the audience and the type of insights you want to share. Reports are comprehensive documents that provide an overview of research process, methods, data, analysis, and recommendations. Slides are visual aids that concisely highlight key points and takeaways. Dashboards are interactive tools that display data and insights in a dynamic and customizable way. Stories are narratives that illustrate insights through scenarios, personas, user journeys, or other storytelling techniques; they can create empathy and emotional connection with the audience. Each format has its own advantages and can be used to effectively communicate your research.
I like to start with a statement that can trigger fear and then end with a statement that ensures comfort and safety. Most people are motivated by fear or desire, however I have noticed that fear of losing something is much more triggering than the joy of gaining something. A recent research that was concluded by my team, we started the slide deck with an empty slide that said "Every customer has an alternative source, just waiting for us to mess up." This got the key stakeholders really motivated. We ended the deck with "None of our competition is trying to truly understand the customer's needs at a psychological level, if we do, we can't be touched by the competition."
A great question to ask your stakeholders before deciding on a format is, "How do you plan on using these insights?" Additionally, understand how they communicate information within their teams. That way you can create shareable and digestible content. If you want to go one step further, include some templated messages that they can add when they share. This will ensure that the right context is included for the readers. This is a great place to flex some content marketing skills.
Regardless of the format you choose, your insights should always emphasize the why and the so what. You should link your insights to your research goals and questions, as well as to your stakeholders' objectives and challenges. Additionally, provide evidence and examples to support your insights, such as quotes, images, videos, or statistics. It is also important to highlight the opportunities and implications of your insights, such as potential solutions, recommendations, next steps, or risks. Make sure to use clear and simple language that avoids jargon and acronyms; define any technical terms. Visuals can also be used to make your insights more appealing and understandable - such as graphs, charts, diagrams, or icons.
I find this one of the trickiest parts of insights crafting. However, it's one of the most important parts, if not THE most important, because it's what creates genuine purpose and direction. To help yourself out in this step, begin doing this when you are synthesizing and analyzing your results. You'll have then set yourself up with meaningful results from the get-go, versus scrambling to answer these questions at the end of the reporting process.
Finally, you should not treat your presentation as a one-way communication, but rather as an opportunity to invite feedback and collaboration from your stakeholders. This will help you validate and refine your insights, engage and involve your stakeholders in the design and decision-making process, generate ideas and solutions based on your insights, and create a culture of learning and curiosity. To encourage feedback and collaboration, you should ask open-ended and probing questions, provide multiple channels and formats for feedback, and acknowledge and appreciate the feedback you receive. Additionally, it is important to address any questions, concerns, or disagreements in a respectful and constructive way.
When presenting results, schedule a whole half of your meeting to be for questions and conversations between yourself and the attendees. Have some questions prepared to use in case the audience is not readily engaging. Some other tips: design a workshop with relevant stakeholders to work on plans of action based on the insights, schedule messages to the teams to follow up on if any action has been taken with the results. Finally, keep in mind that timing is important, so you may have to work with those teams to make sure that you are providing them value when it's most helpful for them.