The 3 hurdles of sharing UX research findings effectively

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Each profession has its moments of frustration. For software engineers, it’s spending hours fixing a bug that occurred due to a misplaced comma. Perceived progress on that day: 0

UX Researchers also experience such moments. One of the most frustrating is when they conduct an extensive study over weeks, identify unexpected insights only to realize that once they make their work available to others it doesn’t get any attention. No decisions informed, no impact on the user.

Sharing findings in a way that stakeholders make use of them is still one of the most undervalued aspects of UX Research.

Today software engineers have tools to avoid misplaced commas. For UX researchers it’s not just a matter of applying that one tool or trick. There is no one solution that will work for every situation.

Stakeholders ignore or forget research findings for a variety of reasons. We first need to identify and understand these reasons in order to know which tricks or approaches are effective solutions.

This article covers the three fundamental issues that lead to findings going unnoticed I’ve observed over and over again. All three of them are equally important to deliver research effectively.

It’s comparable to a hurdle race. You can get all the other hurdles right, but missing one will make you fall. In research terms: Missing one of the issues will make your findings do anything but have an impact on the user’s experience.

So are you ready? Let’s tackle the three hurdles of effectively sharing UX research findings.

Hurdle #1: Make stakeholders consume the findings

This first hurdle is the easiest to take. You need to get your intended audience to actually hear about your findings.

This almost seems too trivial to be listed here. But then again you’d be surprised how many research reports are sent via email to spend the rest of their time unopened in some inbox.

You can get over this hurdle quite easily by sticking to some basic rules.

Present findings personally

Danae Paparis perfectly summarizes what to avoid when presenting findings in her article. A central point is this: Never ever just send a report via email. Unless you want to hide it from others.

Your report will be buried among all the other emails your stakeholders receive or end up in some ‘read later’ folder where it remains forever. Plus you’ll deprive yourself of the most powerful tool to make findings stick: Telling a story.

On the rare occasion that coworkers or clients do look at the report themselves, there’s the risk they misinterpret findings and take them out of context.

Don’t share everything you learned at once

It’s tempting to include all your findings and I totally get why. You have put a lot of effort into the study and are excited about sharing what you learned with others. But sharing too much at once is counterproductive as it easily overwhelms the audience.

Instead, try to break it down into digestible junks that you feed your team gradually. This could mean limiting the number of findings to around three per presentation or sharing a few insights at every sprint review.

Focus on the information the team immediately needs to move forward. It’s totally fine to spare some of the findings for another time.

Use creative ways of sharing

Usually, a short and focused presentation is sufficient to make stakeholders aware of your research. As a bonus and if you feel like a bit of change increases attention you can get creative.

For example, try to share findings outside the regular setting of the meeting room and experiment with new formats. You can find some inspiration including mini-museums and UX comics in this article.

Well done. You’ve mastered the first hurdle gracefully. Now let’s take the second one.

Hurdle #2: Make stakeholders fully embrace the findings

Getting stakeholders to merely consume what your research produced isn’t enough. Research really needs to mean something to them in order to inspire action.

The difference is in the depth of processing the information— receiving (shallow) vs. internalizing (deep). The latter has both a cognitive element of comprehending and an emotional element of feeling with the participant. You can tell it’s there when colleagues start thinking or have this Aha-moment.

Here are two tips on how to create a richer understanding among stakeholders.

Use video clips

A practical way to foster understanding is to show video clips of participants talking about a key concept or using your product. Here’s an example of a presentation slide with an embedded video clip.

Videos are a lot more powerful than just text-based quotes. I experienced this myself in a review of a prototype test for an indoor navigation app where PMs and engineers were present. You could literally see their jaws drop in disbelieve when participant after participant didn’t manage to complete – what was believed to be – the “most basic task”. It’s (almost) a life-changing experience.

In a LinkedIn thread we discussed why it is that showing video has much more impact. The most reasonable answers to me: Firstly, coworkers or clients get it directly from the participant and not filtered through you. Secondly, video conveys several layers of information at once including facial expression, gestures and tone of voice. This is a level of information density you won’t get with words on a slide and scientific research (e.g. this paper or this) seems to suggest that it makes communication more effective.

To make the best use of videos don’t share the entire recording with stakeholders, but select a few clips that are representative for a certain insight.

Get stakeholders involved in the process

Whenever possible it helps if stakeholders actively participate in the project. Of course, this is especially true for the beginning phase to jointly define the research goals and setup. But collaboration also has positive effects when conducting the sessions and during synthesis.

Approaching research as a team sport forms an entirely new relationship as you are now in the same boat. It prevents Not-Invented-Here syndrome and creates a feeling of ownership for the research among stakeholders. In addition, you develop a common understanding of user needs which facilitates decision making later on.

If there was absolutely no chance to include participants during the study, you can still create a sense of involvement when sharing the findings. The team at Monzo presents findings in a quiz format. Labeled as “fact or fiction” the audience has to decide which insights are true and which are pure imagination. This starts a conversation and get’s stakeholders to actively think about the research results.

Now you got stakeholders to consume your research and fully embrace it. You think that was it? Not yet. There’s one more hurdle left.

Hurdle #3: Make stakeholders trust the findings

This final hurdle is the most fundamental and takes the longest to overcome. If stakeholders don’t trust in UX research as a methodology or in you personally, you won’t inspire action. This study in the context of market research shows that personal trust strongly influences whether research is utilized or not.

A lack of trust tends to occur more often with regard to qualitative data. Quantitative data brings along this fallacious certainty of numbers giving people the perception of truth and objectivity.

That’s why hints that suggest you are falling flat at this stage often sound like this: “It’s not statistically significant” or “That’s just the opinion of a few people”. But even if you are not noticing any such hints a lack of trust can still be the reason why research is disregarded. In this case, it works like a hidden saboteur of your work.

Here are three things you can do to build trust among stakeholders:

Acknowledge shortcomings

The first thing you can do to increase trust is to be fully transparent where your research falls short. It even helps if you proactively talk about it. I know, this sounds counterintuitive at first because it seems to diminish research instead of supporting it.

However, being radically honest about what your research does not imply signals the audience that you aren’t blindly backing UX research. It shows that you see the limitations and are self-conscious about them. This makes the remaining statements more trustworthy. Christopher Nash from Dropbox wrote a brilliant article on how he uses this approach to counter the skeptics of qualitative research.

Of course, there’s a limit to this approach. You don’t want to acknowledge more shortcomings than necessary and sell below value. Finding a balance is key to showing that you are reflective, but still confident in your findings.

Build relationships

The better the personal relationship you have with stakeholders the higher trust tends to be. So it pays off to invest some time in getting to know your coworkers better. Not only because it makes life at work more enjoyable, but also because it facilitates the creation of trust.

It takes time and requires a genuine interest in the other person to build a relationship. People quickly realize if your interest in them is fake and if you rush things. So ask yourself if you are intrinsically motivated to connect with stakeholders and have the willingness to stick with it for the long term.

Building a relationship often happens outside the context of work. You take time to socialize, learn about your coworkers' lives and exchange favors. Coffee breaks or lunches (either in person or virtually) are a perfect way to start. Reversely it’s important to give colleagues a chance to get to know you.

Do good work — consistently

The third tip I want to share for building trust with stakeholders is to deliver high-quality outputs consistently. You may now ask yourself how this is supposed to help as doing good work is your intention anyway.

The key here is consistency. Trust is a mental construct that forms over time as others continuously recognize the value of your work. Once they see that you performed well over and over again they know they can rely on you.

So don’t expect this to happen from day one. You need to have patience, believe in your skills and discipline which will make stakeholders trust you eventually. Trust me.

Here's an overview of the 3 hurdles of sharing UX research findings effectively and the tips on how to overcome them.

Congratulations! You now know what it takes to be a pro hurdler — at least with regards to sharing UX findings. Keep an eye on all three hurdles for your research to inspire action and to have maximum impact.