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A complete guide to presenting UX research findings

In this complete guide to presenting UX research findings, we’ll cover what you should include in a UX research report, how to present UX research findings and tips for presenting your UX research.

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User experience research sets out to identify the problem that a product or service needs to solve and finds a way to do just that. Research is the first and most important step to optimising user experience.

UX researchers do this through interviews, surveys, focus groups, data analysis and reports. Reports are how UX researchers present their work to other stakeholders in a company, such as designers, developers and executives.

In this guide, we’ll cover what you should include in a UX research report, how to present UX research findings and tips for presenting your UX research.

Components of a UX research report

How to write a ux research report, 5 tips on presenting ux research findings.

Ready to present your research findings? Let’s dive in.

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There are six key components to a UX research report.

Introduction

The introduction should give an overview of your UX research . Then, relate any company goals or pain points to your research. Lastly, your introduction should briefly touch on how your research could affect the business.

Research goals

Simply put, your next slide or paragraph should outline the top decisions you need to make, the search questions you used, as well as your hypothesis and expectations.

Business value

In this section, you can tell your stakeholders why your research matters. If you base this research on team-level or product development goals, briefly touch on those.

Methodology

Share the research methods you used and why you chose those methods. Keep it concise and tailored to your audience. Your stakeholders probably don’t need to hear everything that went into your process.

Key learnings

This section will be the most substantial part of your report or presentation. Present your findings clearly and concisely. Share as much context as possible while keeping your target audience – your stakeholders – in mind.

Recommendations

In the last section of your report, make actionable recommendations for your stakeholders. Share possible solutions or answers to your research questions. Make your suggestions clear and consider any future research studies that you think would be helpful.

1. Define your audience

Most likely, you’ll already have conducted stakeholder interviews when you were planning your research. Taking those interviews into account, you should be able to glean what they’re expecting from your presentation.

Tailor your presentation to the types of findings that are most relevant, how those findings might affect their work and how they prefer to receive information. Only include information they will care about the most in a medium that’s easy for them to understand.

Do they have a technical understanding of what you’re doing or should you keep it a non-technical presentation? Make sure you keep the terminology and data on a level they can understand.

What part of the business do they work in? Executives will want to know about how it affects their business, while developers will want to know what technological changes they need to make.

2. Summarise

As briefly as possible, summarise your research goals, business value and methodology. You don’t need to go into too much detail for any of these items. Simply share the what, why and how of your research.

Answer these questions:

• What research questions did you use, and what was your hypothesis?
• What business decision will your research assist with?
• What methodology did you use?

You can briefly explain your methods to recruit participants, conduct interviews and analyse results. If you’d like more depth, link to interview plans, surveys, prototypes, etc.

3. Show key learnings

Your stakeholders will probably be pressed for time. They won’t be able to process raw data and they usually don’t want to see all of the work you’ve done. What they’re looking for are key insights that matter the most to them specifically. This is why it’s important to know your audience.

Summarise a few key points at the beginning of your report. The first thing they want to see are atomic research nuggets. Create condensed, high-priority bullet points that get immediate attention. This allows people to reference it quickly. Then, share relevant data or artefacts to illustrate your key learnings further.

Relevant data:

• Recurring trends and themes
• Relevant quotes that illustrate important findings
• Data visualisations

Relevant aspects of artefacts:

• Quotes from interviews
• User journey maps
• Affinity diagrams
• Storyboards

For most people you’ll present to, a summary of key insights will be enough. But, you can link to a searchable repository where they can dig deeper. You can include artefacts and tagged data for them to reference.

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4. Share insights and recommendations

Offer actionable recommendations, not opinions. Share clear next steps that solve pain points or answer pending decisions. If you have any in mind, suggest future research options too. If users made specific recommendations, share direct quotes.

5. Choose a format

There are two ways you could share your findings in a presentation or a report. Let’s look at these two categories and see which might be the best fit for you.

Usually, a presentation is best for sharing data with a large group and when presenting to non-technical stakeholders. Presentations should be used for visual communication and when you only need to include relevant information in a brief summary.

A presentation is usually formatted in a:

• Case studies
• Atomic research nuggets
• Pre-recorded video

If you’re presenting to a smaller group, technical stakeholder or other researchers, you might want to use a report. This gives you the capacity to create a comprehensive record. Further, reports could be categorised based on their purpose as usability, analytics or market research reports.

A report is typically formatted in a:

• Notion or Confluence page
• Slack update

You might choose to write a report first, then create a presentation. After the presentation, you can share a more in-depth report. The report could also be used for records later.

1. Keep it engaging

When you’re presenting your findings, find ways to engage those you’re presenting to. You can ask them questions about their assumptions or what you’re presenting to get them more involved.

For example, “What do you predict were our findings when we asked users to test the usability of the menu?” or “What suggestions do you think users had for [a design problem]?”

If you don’t want to engage them with questions, try including alternative formats like videos, audio clips, visualisations or high-fidelity prototypes. Anything that’s interactive or different will help keep their engagement. They might engage with these items during or after your presentation.

Another way to keep it engaging is to tell a story throughout your presentation. Some UX researchers structure their presentations in the form of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey . Start in the middle with your research findings and then zoom out to your summary, insights and recommendations.

2. Combine qualitative and quantitative data

When possible, use qualitative data to back up quantitative data. For example, include a visualisation of poll results with a direct quote about that pain point.

Use this opportunity to show the value of the work you do and build empathy for your users. Translate your findings into a format that your stakeholders – designers, developers or executives – will be able to understand and act upon.

3. Make it actionable

Actionable presentations are engaging and they should have some business value . That means they need to solve a problem or at least move toward a solution to a problem. They might intend to optimise usability, find out more about the market or analyse user data.

Here are a few ways to make it actionable:

• Include a to-do list at the end
• Share your deck and repository files for future reference
• Recommend solutions for product or business decisions
• Suggest what kind of research should happen next (if any)
• Share answers to posed research questions

4. Keep it concise and effective

Make it easy for stakeholders to dive deeper if they want to but make it optional. Yes, this means including links to an easily searchable repository and keeping your report brief.

Humans tend to focus best on just 3-4 things at a time. So, limit your report to three or four major insights. Additionally, try to keep your presentation down to 20-30 minutes.

Remember, you don’t need to share everything you learned. In your presentation, you just need to show your stakeholders what they are looking for. Anything else can be sent later in your repository or a more detailed PDF report.

5. Admit the shortcomings of UX research

If you get pushback from stakeholders during your presentation, it’s okay to share your constraints.

Your stakeholders might not understand that your sample size is big enough or how you chose the users in your study or why you did something the way you did. While qualitative research might not be statistically significant, it’s usually representative of your larger audience and it’s okay to point that out.

Because they aren’t researchers, it’s your job to explain your methodology to them but also be upfront about the limitations UX research can pose. When all of your cards are on the table, stakeholders are more likely to trust you.

When it comes to presenting your UX research findings, keep it brief and engaging. Provide depth with external resources after your presentation. This is how you get stakeholders to find empathy for your users. This is how you master the art of UX.

Need to go back to the basics and learn more about UX research? Dive into these articles:

What is UX research? The 9 best UX research tools to use in 2022

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User Research Report: Key Components and Best Practices

Learn about a user research report and its important components. Understand the best practices for writing a report and presenting it effectively.

Written by Ramotion Feb 21, 2023 18 min read

Last updated: Feb 25, 2024

The field of UI/UX design relies heavily on research and analysis. Whether it is gathering useful data from the users to understand their needs, conducting market research to identify trends, working on collaborative reports, or presenting findings of the analysis, designers have to cover all the aspects of research. When the research team has gathered and analyzed the data, it is also important to organize and present the findings in a way that the information is helpful and can be acted upon to create effective solutions for the target audience.

One of the most frequently conducted research by UI/UX designers deals with the users, such as understanding their expectations, highlighting their concerns, and recommending solutions that can better meet their needs. The end goal of UX research is to produce a usability report which can then help in improving the designs of products and services. For UX researchers, it is important not only to conduct user research but also to learn the art of creating an effective research report.

User Research in Practice ( Udacity )

In this article, we introduce UX research reports and discuss them in detail. This article starts with an introduction to UX research reports. We then cover all the major components of a UX research report, followed by the art of writing an effective report and the best practices to present the research findings.

Read along as we talk about this essential skill for all designers and learn how you can create effective user research reports.

What is a UX research report?

A UX research report – also referred to as a user research report – is a comprehensive document developed to present and explain the findings of the extensive work conducted by the design team. A UX research report includes all the important information about the purpose of the research, the methods used to gather data from the target audience, the major findings and takeaways, and recommendations that can help in improving the design. It is important to be clear about the purpose of conducting UX research and to clarify that in the report. Additionally, methods such as surveys, user testing, and interviews, need to be specified and explained in the report.

What should be included in a user research report?

A user research report includes a thorough discussion of the methods used to conduct the research, followed by the key learnings and recommendations. The purpose of the report is to highlight actionable items that can be taken up to improve the user experience.

User research reports serve various purposes. On the one hand, these reports help in understanding the shortcomings of a design and the needs of the users, thus providing recommendations to improve the products and services. On the other hand, these reports also serve as guiding documents for designers and researchers working on similar projects in the future. Leading design firms and consultancy providing user experience design services rely heavily on the findings of user research, thus improving their process along the way.

What is User Experience Research Report ( Optimal Workshop )

If the researchers do all the work without properly documenting the findings and recommendations, it will not be possible to understand the entire process and methodology, thus leaving huge gaps between research and its application. A research report fills this gap, serving as an excellent resource for the organization and the students of design. For all aspiring designers, it is important to understand how to effectively write a research report. In the next section, we discuss the important components of a UX research report, providing a better understanding of the document.

Components of a UX research report

UX research reports are formal documents that are not always restricted to the design team or the executives of an organization. For example, if you’re working on a public project, the report, or key findings, might be shared on social media and other public platforms. There are some standard elements necessary to create an effective research report. These elements provide a template to present the findings in an understandable manner. If a user researcher gathers data without such guiding principles, the quality and impact of findings will get impacted.

What are the major components of a UX research report?

A UX report contains the following major components.

Executive summary

Introduction, goals and objectives, methodology, recommendations.

The following elements are considered to be essential elements for any research report.

Components of a UX Research Report

An executive summary, as the name indicates, is created for the executives in an organization. It is an essential part of any formal report, where the purpose of the research, methods, key findings, and recommendations are neatly summarized.

The purpose of an executive summary is to provide a quick and comprehensive overview of the entire report. This part comes right after the table of contents, making sure that the audience interacts with this section first. An executive summary can leave a very good impression on the readers by preparing them for the entire report, and also saving them from a lot of technical details.

Like any report, a UX research report starts with an introduction. This is the section where all the background information and context are provided. In the introduction, it is a good practice to introduce the product or service that is being tested.

Additionally, a mention of the organization’s values helps in understanding the purpose of the research. The information in the introduction section helps in laying the foundation for all the technical content that follows. Understanding a research report without an introduction could be quite challenging.

To add more value to, and provide context for, the user research report, the goals and objectives for the entire study must be clearly stated. The overall research goals can be as simple as understanding the pain points of the users and getting their feedback for improving the design of the product or service. These goals give a clear idea of the research plan and indicate that all the designers and researchers are on the same page.

It is also a good practice to refer to the research question – or questions – when talking about the goals and objectives. This way the readers know what the entire report is about and what the major questions will be answered as they move along with the analysis.

In order to find the answers to the research questions and meet the objectives, UX researchers need to follow certain methods and techniques . It is important to discuss those methods in a clear and concise manner when writing research reports. These can include a variety of qualitative methods, such as interviews and focus groups, and quantitative techniques, such as surveys and correlational studies. It is a good research practice to explain these methods in a way that the general public can comprehend the information.

The value of UX research is strictly determined by the types of research methods involved in the process. If wrong methods are used, the findings can be misleading. Additionally, it is also important to discuss these methods for future researchers and aspiring designers, so they know which techniques are appropriate to achieve their goals.

Methodology in UX Research ( SciSpace )

The results section of any UX research report is, arguably, the one that gets the most attention. This is where all the research findings are presented in an understandable manner, so the audience can understand the key takeaways, thus getting a better idea of the needs of the target audience. The research findings do not include any discussions or opinions of the UX designers. Instead, this is where facts are reported based on the data gathered from user research.

Leaving a report merely by reporting the research findings does not help anyone, let alone the decision-makers. Good reports are the ones that do not leave the audience stranded but provide information on the next steps. This is where recommendations come into play. The recommendations section in a UX research report is the one that includes guidance on how to improve a design.

These recommendations must always be backed by the findings. Additionally, the recommendations must always be actionable and realistic. Ideal solutions that seem to solve all the problems are not helpful for the design team. It is also a good idea to identify the limitations and indicated areas where additional research is needed.

When conducting UX research, several materials are created. These can include survey questionnaires, interview scripts, observation sheets, and a lot more documents. These materials can be extremely helpful for future researchers working on similar projects, particularly those working in the same organization.

Providing all of these materials in the body of the report can be overwhelming and confusing for the audience as a user research report is not only read by UX designers. Therefore, it is important to consider providing this information in the appendices – something that interested readers can access if needed.

How to write a UX research report

Writing a research report can always seem to be a daunting task. On the one hand, there is all the background work that goes into conducting research, gathering the data, analyzing the results, and providing meaningful recommendations. On the other hand, there is the process of writing itself, where the information needs to be presented in a way that is clear, easy to understand, and helpful. The components of a UX research report mentioned above serve as a good template for the writing process.

What are some best practices to write a UX research report?

The best practices for writing a UX research report are as follows.

Define your goals

Understand your audience, use plain language, explain your methods, focus on findings, discuss and analyze the results, always provide recommendations, state your limitations.

There are certain best practices that can help in creating effective research reports.

Effective UX Research Report Writing ( Romania Journal )

Like any UI/UX design project , writing a research report has to start with the goals. Before even starting the user research, it is important to identify and clarify research goals. These goals are decided in a way that they coincide with the overall vision and mission of the organization, and also cater to the needs of the target audience. Individuals from different teams, such as product development, marketing, design, and other related personnel need to be involved in the process, to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Once the goals have been defined, it gets easier to define the research questions and write a report that is more focused.

Considering the audience of a research report is extremely important. UX research reports are read by designers, but they are not the only target audience group. These reports play a significant role in decision-making and, therefore, make their way up to the executive offices. Similarly, other teams involved in the design process also benefit from the user research reports. This means that not everyone will be able to understand the design processes, methods, and technical aspects of the report. Therefore, it is important to consider the varying needs of these audience groups to write effective reports.

Different Audiences for UX Research Report

One of the key aspects of good reports is that they are easy to read and understand. Whether it is the technical information in the methods section or the more interesting UX research findings and recommendations, it is always beneficial to explain things in a simple manner.

The use of plain and clear language ensures that non-researchers and the general public can also make the most out of these otherwise complicated documents. All UI/UX designers should get some training and experience in the principles of clear and effective writing so that they can add more value to their reports.

As mentioned above, the methods section can always be tricky to understand, particularly for individuals who do not have a background in UX research and design. There are several steps that designers can take to explain their methods in a better way. One of those is to be specific with their research questions and to state them in a clear manner.

Another important research practice is to provide as many details about the research methods as possible. These details can be as simple and trivial as the need for technology, such as laptops and mobile phones, in conducting the research, and as sophisticated as eye-tracking software. If the readers know about all the techniques, they will be better able to understand the overall goals and findings of the research.

The section containing UX research findings demands a lot of attention and care when writing a report. This is where designers bring all the data and insights together, to present their findings from the extensive research. When writing about research findings, it is important to be clear and specific.

Any ambiguity in reporting the findings can confuse and overwhelm the audience, thus jeopardizing the overall goals of the UX research report. It is also essential for designers to leave their biases aside when reporting the findings. The opinions of the design and research teams should not be mixed with the results, as this can be misleading for the target audience. Remember, the goal of user research is to get insights from, and about, the users, in order to improve the design.

All good research reports include some sort of discussion on the results and insights obtained from the data. One of the best practices, when writing a report, is to shed some light on the research findings.

The most effective way to analyze and discuss results is to tie them back to the research questions and goals of the study. This practice keeps the memory of the audience refreshed, and adds to their understanding. Discussion of results in a user research report also helps other researchers in understanding the thought process behind the overall process.

Discuss the Results Comprehensively ( Pexels )

One of the sections of a user research report that often gets overlooked is recommendations. Many quality reports, sometimes, do not give attention to this aspect, and, thus, leave the audience hanging with some technical details and findings of the report. Successful and effective reports are the ones that discuss the findings and provide guidance for the future.

It is important to ensure that the recommendations consist of actionable items. For example, if the users find it hard to interact with the “sign in” button because of its color, the report should clearly state the reason and recommend possible edits to improve this button. The more specific the recommendations are, the more helpful will be to the design and product development teams.

A single user research project cannot possibly cover every single need and pain point of the target audience. There are several factors involved in a UX research project that can limit the data collection and analysis phases. For example, research might be restricted because of budgetary constraints, time limitations, confidentiality, and other policies of the organization.

It is always helpful to acknowledge these limitations while writing a UX research report. These limitations can help in identifying the areas where more work is needed, thus serving as a guiding section for future research studies.

Presenting UX research findings

Conducting good research, working with users, and gathering valuable data constitute one part of UX research. Then comes the report writing phase, where all the information is brought together, along with insights of the designers and researchers, thus helping in making sense of the data. This process provides good content for a UX research report. However, researchers must not stop at just reporting facts.

There is one more question that needs to be considered: How to present research findings? This is where designers have to wear multiple hats and look at the report from different perspectives. Even if the information is valuable, but it is not presented in an effective way, the usefulness of the report can take a hit.

How can UX researchers improve the presentation of their findings?

Some ways in which the presentation of UX research can be improved are as follows.

Use consistent language

Summarize and discuss the findings, use effective illustrations, avoid excessive use of jargon, make the report aesthetically pleasing, ensure easy navigation.

There are certain best practices that designers can follow to present the findings of UX research in a comprehensive manner. The skills from document design, aesthetics, illustration, and information management come in handy when presenting the findings of any research project. Some of the key aspects to consider are as follows.

Presenting UX Research Findings ( iStock )

All presentable and understandable research reports using consistent language, one that is easy to follow with clear explanations. In this sense, a research report is similar to any other design project, where consistency is a key principle . The use of consistent language means that the voice and tone throughout the report are the same, so the readers do not get confused in the middle.

This can be a concern when the projects and, therefore, the reports are long and written by multiple authors. In such cases, it is important to assign editing to one person who can ensure consistency throughout the document. An inconsistent report is hard to read and can greatly impact the overall quality of any research project.

As mentioned above, UX research findings are the most read section of any report. This is the section that gets equal attention from the technical and non-technical audiences. Therefore, it is important to present the findings in a way that can be easily understood by all groups of audiences.

In order to add more value to the report, it is always a good practice to summarize the findings and discuss them, expanding on their relationship with the research questions. When discussing the results, the UI/UX designers can make use of real-world examples to make the findings more relatable and understandable.

In research reports – and almost all other documents – words can only do so much. The power of media elements, such as images, schematics, graphs, and illustrations can never be underestimated. When working on the presentation of a report, illustrations must be given due attention. With the help of powerful visuals, designers can explain their quantitative and qualitative research results, making the information easily digestible.

Illustrations also make the content more accessible, leaving an overall good impact on the readability of the report. Modern organizations with well-established design teams have specific branding guidelines for their employees when it comes to creating and distributing illustrations, thus creating more avenues for creating a stronger brand image.

Use Illustrations to Discuss Results ( Infosurv )

One important aspect, when it comes to the presentation and perception of a user research report, is limiting the use of jargon. This is something that gets ignored in many reports and is noticed only after a report is published or distributed.

Therefore, when working on the presentation of a report, it is important to get feedback from non-researchers and individuals from other teams, such as marketing and product development. Feedback from someone outside of the research team can help in strengthening the presentation of the report, thus making it more understandable and readable.

A report is only well-received when it is attractive and pleasing to the eye. This might sound like a small element, but if you stop and ask yourself how many times you left a report in the middle because it was not eye-catching, you will find the answer right away. There are several ways to improve the aesthetics of a report. This is where UI/UX designers can bring their creativity and principles of document design into play.

The use of colors, infographics, visual and textual hierarchy, icons, and quality images are some of the ways in which a report can be made aesthetically pleasing. Researchers can make use of the elements in a component library that designers frequently use for various projects. This will ensure consistency and also create a better brand image.

Make the Report Aesthetically Pleasing ( Dribble )

When distributing a report, it is important to consider the way readers will interact with it, and navigate through the entire document. In shorter reports, this might not be a big concern, but when the documents get longer (over 20 pages), it gets tricky for the readers to scroll all the way up and find the desired section.

Therefore, when presenting a report, researchers should always focus on the way navigation can be improved. If the headings, subheadings, and captions are appropriate, and the table of contents is free of errors, then the digital documents can be easily navigated. If the reports are being hosted on an organization’s online portal or a blog, it is always a good idea to create a searchable repository, so the users can find the desired information quickly.

Working with people, understanding their needs, getting their feedback, and incorporating it into future designs are one of the most interesting parts of being a UX researcher and designer. However, this means that as a designer, you have to produce several reports to document your findings, provide recommendations, and make a case for the practice of UX research in the first place.

The reports thus created should be comprehensive, pleasing, useful, and helpful at the same time. This is a challenging task as not all designers are good at writing UX research reports. To be fair, writing and documentation are not easy tasks either. It is a skill that can be learned with time and by focusing on the right areas.

In this article, we covered the basic principles of writing an effective user research report. In order to make your report stand out, you have to focus on the efficacy of your research findings, the quality of writing, and the presentation of the report itself. With the help of the best practices and guidelines discussed above, you can start creating comprehensive reports that are not hard to read and have all the required information.

If you’re an aspiring UI/UX designer and have not been exposed to the report-writing process yet, now is the time to pay attention to this part of the job. The art of good report writing and having better presentation skills can make you more marketable, thus helping you land better job opportunities.

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Writing a User Research Report

• Bartek Dziegiel

What is a user research report?

A  user research report  is a document that summarizes the findings of a user research project.

It typically includes a description of the research methods, key findings, and recommendations for future action. User research reports communicate research findings to stakeholders, inform design decisions, and justify budget requests.

Purpose of a User Research Report

A user research report serves several essential purposes.

First, it helps to communicate research findings to stakeholders in a clear and concise way. It can be crucial for getting buy-in for design decisions and ensuring everyone on the team is on the same page.

Second, a user research report communicates insights that will be used as a basis for making design decisions for your project. By understanding your users’ needs and behaviors, you can ensure that your product is designed in a way that is easy to use and meets their expectations.

Third, a user research report facilitates communications with your stakeholders and the rest of your development team. It can be used to justify budget requests. If you can show that your product is based on solid user research, it will be easier to convince stakeholders to invest in it.

Finally, it can be used to track the progress of a project over time. By comparing research findings from different points in time, you can see how your product is improving and identify areas for further improvement.

Elements of a User Research Report

A user research report typically includes the following elements:

• Executive Summary:  A brief overview of the research project, including the research goals, methods, and key findings.
• Introduction:  A more detailed description of the research project, including the background, objectives, and scope.
• Research Methodology:  A description of the research methods used, including the research questions, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques.
• Findings:  A presentation of the key findings of the research, including user needs, behaviors, and pain points.
• Recommendations:  A set of recommendations for future action based on the research findings.
• Conclusion:  A summary of the research findings and recommendations.

How to write a user research report?

A user research report should not be a document that includes an overwhelming amount of details and describes every step taken during the research study.

The report’s primary purpose is to communicate research findings to the rest of the stakeholders. The research report should include only the most relevant data.

Following these simple steps, you can create a clear, concise, informative report valuable to your stakeholders. 

1. Planning Your Report

Before you start writing your report, it’s essential to take some time to plan it out. Planning your report will ensure it is well-organized and effectively communicates your findings.

Here are a few things to consider when planning your report:

• Define your audience.  Who will be reading your report? What is their level of knowledge about user research?
• Determine your goals.  What do you want to achieve with your report? Are you trying to inform stakeholders, influence design decisions, or justify budget requests?
• Outline your content.  What are the key findings you want to share? What evidence do you have to support your findings?
• Choose a format.  Will you write a formal report, an executive summary, or a presentation?

You can draft your report once you understand your audience, goals, and content.

2. Research Goals

When writing a user research report, it’s important to state the research goals clearly. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

For example, a research goal might be to:

• Identify the top five pain points that users experience with our product.
• Understand the user journey for completing a specific task in our application.
• Gather feedback on a new design prototype for our website.

Clearly state your research goals in your report. It will ensure that your report focuses on your primary objectives and that you communicate the importance of your findings to your stakeholders in a straightforward manner.

3. Methodology

The methodology section of your user research report should describe the methods you used to collect and analyze data. This section should be clear and concise and provide enough detail for readers to understand how you reached your conclusions.

Here are some of the things you should include in your methodology section:

• Describe your research methods (e.g., surveys, interviews, usability testing).
• Describe the data collection process (e.g., how you recruited participants and conducted interviews).
• Include a description of the data analysis techniques you used.

It is also essential to be transparent about any limitations of your methodology. For example, if you only surveyed a small number of participants, acknowledge this and discuss how it might impact the generalizability of your findings.

By providing a clear and detailed description of your methodology, you can help your readers understand the rigor of your research and the validity of your findings.

4. Insights

The insights section of your user research report should present the key findings of your research.

This is a critical section of your research report, so you must ensure your stakeholders will not dismiss it. It is crucial to write this section clearly and concisely. Provide compelling evidence to support your findings, but do not overwhelm your audience by including too many details.

Here are some of the things you should include in your insights section:

• A summary of the key themes that emerged from your research.
• Quotes from participants that illustrate your findings.
• Data visualizations (e.g., charts, graphs, diagrams) that help to communicate your findings effectively.

Focus on the most critical findings from your research and present them in a way that is easy for your readers to understand.

You should also avoid making any personal opinions or recommendations in this section. There will be space for that later in the report.

You can help your stakeholders understand your users’ needs and behaviors by presenting your insights clearly and engagingly. This understanding can then be used to make informed decisions about the design and development of your product.

5. Recommendations

The recommendations section of your user research report should provide actionable advice based on your findings. This section should provide specific and measurable recommendations that your team can implement.

Here are some of the things you should include in your recommendations section:

• A prioritized list of specific recommendations that address your users’ needs and pain points based on the results of your research.
• A plan for measuring the impact of your recommendations.
• A timeline for implementing your recommendations.

Always prioritize your recommendations based on their potential impact and feasibility. Be realistic about the resources that are available to implement your recommendations.

By providing clear and actionable recommendations, you can help your stakeholders make informed decisions about improving your product. You can also use your recommendations to track progress and measure the impact of your user research.

How to present a user research report?

Consider how you will present your research findings. Sometimes, sending a report in a document format is entirely acceptable. In other cases, a formal presentation will be more appropriate.

Presenting a user research report can effectively communicate your findings to stakeholders and influence design decisions. However, you should tailor your presentation to your audience.

Here are some tips about presenting your findings to the stakeholders.

1. Be Concise

When presenting your user research report, it is crucial to be concise.

Your audience’s time is valuable, so you should only focus on the essential findings and recommendations. Avoid going into too much detail about your methodology or data analysis techniques.

• Use clear and concise language.  Avoid using jargon or technical terms that your audience may not understand.
• Focus on the most important findings.  Don’t try to cover everything in your presentation. Pick out the most critical findings and focus on those.
• Use visuals to communicate your findings.  Charts, graphs, and diagrams can be a great way to share complex information in a concise way.

2. Use Plain Language

When presenting your user research report, using plain language that is easy for your audience to understand is crucial. Avoid jargon, technical terms, and overly complex sentence structures.

Instead, opt for simple, straightforward language accessible to a wider audience.

Here are some tips for using plain language in your presentation:

• Keep the tone conversational.  Avoid using specialized terminology or jargon that your audience may not be familiar with.
• Keep sentences short and to the point.  Long, convoluted sentences can be challenging to follow and may cause your audience to lose focus.
• Use active voice whenever possible.  Active voice makes your sentences more direct and engaging.
• Use clear and concise transitions.  Transitions help your audience follow the flow of your presentation and make it easier for them to understand how your points are connected.
• Use examples and anecdotes to illustrate your points.  Examples and anecdotes can help your audience connect with your findings and make them more relatable.

3. Create a Narrative

Incorporating a narrative into your user research presentation can make it more engaging and memorable for your audience. By framing your findings as a story, you can help your listeners connect with the research on a personal level and understand its impact on real people.

Here are some tips for creating a narrative in your presentation:

• Start with a compelling introduction that captures your audience’s attention.
• Introduce your research participants as characters in your story.
• Highlight key findings and recommendations as turning points in the narrative.
• Use quotes from your participants or clips from the interview recordings if possible.
• Conclude with a call to action that encourages your audience to take action based on your research.

By weaving a narrative into your presentation, you can transform your user research findings from dry data points into a compelling story that resonates with your audience and inspires action.

4. Allow Pauses

People giving presentations tend to speak too fast. The reason might be nervousness or eagerness to convey all the information they’ve gathered. To help with that, incorporate strategic pauses into your delivery. These pauses serve several crucial purposes:

• Emphasis:  Pausing after key points allows your audience to absorb and internalize the information, emphasizing its importance.
• Transition:  Pausing between sections of your presentation provides a clear transition, signaling a shift in topic and allowing your audience to prepare for the next segment.
• Engagement:  Pausing during storytelling moments gives your audience time to connect with the narrative and empathize with the characters, enhancing their engagement with the presentation.
• Questioning:  Strategically placed pauses can encourage your audience to reflect on the information presented, prompting them to ask questions and seek clarification.
• Absorption:  Pausing after complex data visualizations grants your audience time to process the information and make connections between the visuals and the overall findings.

Consider pauses not as dead air but rather as tools for effective communication. Pauses can enhance comprehension of your presentation, engagement, and the overall impact of your message.

Additional tips for presenting a user research report

Include quotes

Incorporating quotes from actual research participants can add a personal touch to your presentation and make your findings more relatable. When selecting quotes, choose those that are insightful, representative and illustrate key points from your research.

Make it visually pleasing

Visuals can enhance the understanding and impact of your presentation. This is especially true when you are presenting quantitative data. Use charts, graphs, diagrams, and images to illustrate data, highlight trends, and make your findings more digestible. However, avoid cluttering your slides with too many visuals; ensure each element serves a clear purpose.

Prepare for questions

After presenting your findings, be prepared to answer questions from your audience. Anticipate common questions and prepare clear and concise responses. Additionally, have a copy of your report available for those who want more in-depth information.

Tailor your presentation to your audience:  Consider their level of knowledge about user research and focus on the information that will be most relevant to them.

Practice your presentation:  Rehearse to ensure a smooth and confident delivery. Consider the pauses mentioned earlier – try to plan where to incorporate them and practice them. 

Giving a presentation may be stressful for some. However, by preparing in advance, you can feel more confident. Following these tips can create an informative, engaging, and persuasive user research presentation.

In conclusion, a user research report is essential for communicating user research findings to stakeholders.

By following the tips outlined in this article, you can create a user research report that is clear, concise, and informative. Additionally, by tailoring your presentation to your audience and using visuals effectively, you can create an engaging and persuasive presentation.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your user research has a meaningful impact on the design and development of your product.

Further reading

Writing a user research report: tips and template slides  by Decoding Research

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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How to write and present actionable UX research reports

Regardless of how thorough or valuable your user research is, it quickly becomes meaningless if you’re unable to succinctly put it together and present it in a digestible UX research report.

UX research reporting is a skill just as valuable as being able to conduct the research in the first place. It lets you showcase methodology and findings of your research, and ensure a product’s user experience delivers with the first iteration.

Luckily, how to write and present UX research reports is something you can learn. What’s more, this chapter will guide you through it (and provide free templates for your UX report).

What is a UX research report?

A user research report is an easy-to-digest summary of a user research project that aims to update product stakeholders on results, inform product decisions with user data, and harmoniously guide a product build or iteration.

Once upon a time, UX research reporting was a cumbersome, dreaded box to tick. It was notorious for resulting in unnavigable reports that product teams would rather leave at the bottom of their inbox than try to consume.

The word 'report' conjures images of lengthy word documents, a PDF one-pager, or hour-long presentation with an occasional GIF—but a research report doesn't have to mean that.

Kevin Rapley , Senior User Researcher at Justice Digital, explains a UX report as being “about arming our teammates with data that allows them to decide on the direction of a product or service.”

A useful UX report includes:

• The research goals and research process
• Research questions the report is hoping to answer
• A recap of the UX research plan
• What UX research methods were used and why
• Quantitative and qualitative data sets and conclusions
• Key insights & actionable takeaways
• An expanded data appendix

Why do you need a user research report?

Product teams need a user research report to reflect on research activities and accurately guide a product’s scope with key insights. A UX research report helps sort information, defend research, and affirm (or disprove) a hypothesis. No matter how well-organized your research repository is, sometimes simply having the research results available is not enough. A succinct report will align entire teams in one sitting by presenting findings in a unique way.

In short, a research report helps to:

• Positively influence UX design
• Make sense of data sets and explain complicated graphs or other quantitative research results
• Provide actionable recommendations on next steps
• Summarize key findings, so they can be translated into every role and responsibility of the product team

Where UX research enables product teams to understand the user, prove or disprove hypotheses, and prioritize and generate ideas, a UX research report ensures the user is at the center of every product decision. Presenting that UX report then aligns team members on goals and priorities, and provides authentic user insights to inform every product decision.

We’ve covered what a research report is , but what is it not ? A UX research report is not a static, one-time document that your team reads once. It’s an ongoing reference point; the guardrails and guiding insights that guarantees the entire build stays on track.

How to write an effective UX research report: the essential elements

No matter how you choose to present your research study, there are a few elements that every report needs to include for it to be both useful and effective. Let’s look at how to create a report.

Introduction

Your introduction should lay out your research goals, plan, and scope. It should cover your product team’s pain points, and give a clear study overview. You need to answer what you did and why. The introduction can go on to include sales support data and competitive product analysis that inspired or guided this research project.

It’s a good idea to set up how this research helps to support and answer related company goals, team-level goals, and product-dev goals: so all stakeholders know it’s got something for them.

You can include questions from your UX research strategy you had originally hoped to answer, even if your results have gone on to answer other questions as well. Now’s also a good time to introduce research stakeholders: your fellow research team members.

As a secondary step to your introduction, ensure you’re including the approach you took to your UX research process : i.e. what research methods you used, as well as participant profiles and your user personas .

Don’t feel you need to spend too much time on this, says Charlie Herbozo Vidal , Senior User Experience Researcher at CVS Health. “As researchers, it’s not uncommon to dwell on the methodology for longer than needed. While interrogating methods might be valuable to other researchers, business partners might be disengaged by them.”

Ultimately, while methodology is important, it’s the results that most people are here for.

Key findings

This is where you get people on the edge of their seats! Give an overview of your findings, before breaking them down into more detail. Remind your audience ‘what we thought’ vs. what you actually learned.

Artifacts to use are:

• User personas built
• Insights from customer interviews
• User journey maps
• Prototype testing
• Storyboards
• Feedback & satisfaction reports

At the end of this section, and continuing throughout your presentation, you can pepper relevant atomic research nuggets.

Make sure you champion the user's needs throughout, and make special notes of 'offhand' comments users make. Often, it's the random comments that provide the most insight—they must not be forgotten about when writing the report.

Jack Dyer , Designer at Interactive Schools

Summarize your quantitative and qualitative research , and how they’ll both impact your product design and growth. Lay out opportunities versus risks, good-to-knows versus must-knows. Here you’ll want to convey the impact of each suggested step, roadmap designs, and figure out the long and short-term project scope. A few things to cover in your next steps are:

• Long and short-term goals
• ICE framework (Impact, confidence, ease)
• Roles and responsibilities for each task
• A timeline of events and project map
• A request for resources
• Desired outcomes

No matter how you’re presenting your research, be it asynchronously or not, you’ll need to include a Q&A. These can be subjective (based on what you think your team is likely to ask), pre-collected ahead of the presentation, answered live, or an opportunity to build an FAQ later.

What’s important is to acknowledge and be open to receiving questions. After all, questions are a positive thing—it means people are actually listening!

It’s easy to overlook the appendix after putting together a detailed report, but all that glorious research data needs to be accounted for and referenced clearly. Plus, you never know to what extent your team will want to dive into it. Your appendix is also where you’ll want to include secondary research that didn’t make the cut but backs up your research.

9 Ways to present UX research findings

UX research reporting will look a little different depending on your internal personas and organizational culture. First, ask yourself: who is your audience? Who needs to see the report, and who will benefit from seeing it? This will help determine how to present your user research report.

A few things to consider:

• Are you working with internal or external stakeholders? Tool limitation and file-sharing will differ for both.
• Are you working with an in-office, fully-remote, or hybrid team?
• Are you sitting in the same time zone or not?
• What are the knowledge levels like within your team?
• How does your team communicate daily/weekly/monthly?
• Are there any predetermined knowledge bases or tools your team is comfortable with?

The most common players across a UX team that need to understand your UX research report are:

• Product Designers (UX/UI)
• Fellow Product Researchers
• UX/UI Writers

However , it doesn’t stop at your product decision-making team. More often than not, there will be other stakeholders that can benefit from your research presentation. Your marketing, finance, sales, and even C-suite executives will massively benefit from your findings too. If you can tailor versions of your report or provide key summaries for each collective, even better!

Psst 👉 This is much easier to do when you have a research team that can host stakeholder interviews ahead of your research process.

Now, let’s get into the report formats to consider:

1. Workshops: for real-time, collaborative reports

First up, workshops. Workshops are a unique way of keeping your report interactive and engaging. They can be held remotely or in-person, but are almost impossible to hold asynchronously—so time zones are a big factor here.

You’ll also want to consider workshopping tools if you’re hosting digitally—a few to consider are: Miro, Mural, FigJam, and Gather.

A plus with workshops is that your stakeholders will actively have a say early on in the product development process , allowing you to foster more diverse inputs, minimize research bias you may have accumulated in your summaries, and build a sense of responsibility for the product’s success early on.

A negative of workshops is that they can be culprits to in-the-room or bandwagon bias. People are quick to ride on the coattails of a strong conclusion, without fully understanding or trialing another (less popular) conclusion or suggestion.

2. Slack channels: for an asynchronous and interactive research repository

Slack is a great option (especially if you’re already using it) if your research team needs to deliver insights to a fully-distributed collection of stakeholders. Slack tends to be the go-to channel for startups and creative companies, and there’s some key features you can tap into:

• Canvas: Store files, images, videos, and more in one place
• Huddles: Jump on a quick chat to fill in any gaps
• Clips: Post audio, video, or screen-sharing clips
• Connect: Team up with freelancers and agencies working on the project with you
• Workflow: Build drag-and-drop processes from your findings
• Knowledge sharing: Tag your data accordingly so it's easy to find later

3. Knowledge bases: for self-serve UX research reports

Knowledge bases can be a great home for your research presentation, and work especially well for distributed teams working across different time zones.

However your team is set up, research repositories are incredibly valuable. Sharing your report in a centralized location, regardless of the other ways you distribute findings, can democratize research , showcase the impact of your work, and disseminate valuable insights throughout your entire organization.

Keep in mind that knowledge bases can be tough to navigate if poorly organized or tagged. If you’re storing your UX research report in a knowledge base, ensure you provide clear instructions on how someone can find it, and how to navigate through the report itself.

If you have the time, run a card sorting test with an internal focus group to see how you can logically sort your research for those who are going to be looking for it.

4. Presentations / slide decks: great for the PAS framework

Live presentations tend to be the most impactful, but do risk being short-lived if you don’t have a follow-up plan for after your presentation.

While they’re great for sharing metrics and visuals, and can provide a beautiful overview of your research project, presentations can be a little one-sided. This one-way presentation style can prevent collaboration and innovation from the rest of the team. Consider how you can make your presentation interactive or engaging, whether it’s taking questions throughout or doing a ‘choose your own adventure’ session and asking people which sections they want to review first.

Kevin Rapley , Senior User Researcher at Justice Digital, recommends presenting slides using the PAS framework:

• Problem: State the problem you set out to overcome
• Agitate: Detail the impact or opportunity missed by not meeting the problem
• Solution: Offer a route forward from the research findings and insights, the next steps, and likely outcomes by solving the problem

Kevin explains that the PAS framework cuts to the detail people are invested in: “Stakeholders want to know the path forward: Are we on the right track to build this service? Have we uncovered user engagement or uptake issues? Have we learned that our assumptions are incorrect and we now have a better understanding of user needs? Presenting slides in this way delivers what’s needed.”

5. Written reports: for direct and simple sharing

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. A written report is probably the idea that jumped to the front of your mind when you read the title of this chapter. For many, this may seem like the ‘OG’ of UX reports.

These types of reports often come as a PDF or a word document, making them static, reluctant to change, and resulting in low engagement or re-reads. Delivering a written report via email also means you can’t guarantee your audience is going to read it. On the other hand, written reports can be incredibly detailed, scanable for different stakeholders, and include all kinds of results from visual data to qualitative findings.

For many teams this method still works, especially if you’re trying to communicate findings to a distributed, asynchronous team. Written UX reports enable people to go through things in their own time—and come back to it when they need to.

6. Atomic research nuggets: to eliminate ‘bad research memory’

Deriving from an atom—the smallest unit of matter—atomic UX research nuggets are minute and succinct conclusions from data points. They’re always aligned and tagged with a product direction. Formalized by Tomer Sharon and Daniel Pidcock , it’s described as “the concept of breaking UX research down into its constituent parts”:

Experiments: “We did this…” Facts: “…and we found out this…” Insights: “…which makes us think this…” Conclusions: “…so we’ll do that.”

Atomic research nuggets help to fight ‘bad research memory’—the idea that knowledge gets lost or forgotten amid the depths of a larger report. These nuggets are accessible, usable, and searchable. They can be delivered (or accessed) throughout an entire product build, serving as North Stars for micro goals. Research nuggets can be a firm reminder your team is, or isn’t, taking the right action.

7. Pre-recorded video: for better knowledge retention

People retain 90% of the information they receive via video versus text. There’s no question that, for many, video is a better way of onboarding and remembering information. At the same time, it can be easier to share information via video if your UX researchers aren’t the most confident of writers.

Although pre-recorded video is an easy way to share a UX research report with a team, as with other formats on this list, you’ll need to ensure people actually watch it.

Loom can be a great screen-sharing video recording tool. Some of their features and paid plans will enable you to see who from your team has watched your video, as well as spark conversation and engagement opportunities throughout the video. Alternatively, you can share the video as a watch-along during a synchronous meeting and discuss afterwards, while still sharing the video with those who can’t attend live.

8. Case studies: for sticky storytelling

Case studies aren’t just for winning potential customers. At their very core, case studies are put together to convince someone of something due to a real-life story. This is why they can be great if your UX research report needs to convince a diverse or largely cautious selection of stakeholders.

What’s more, case studies tend to rely on storytelling tactics and a strong narrative to get their point across. They can pull from user personas to further a point and make it more relatable for your design team. Muhammad Ahmad , UX Designer at VentureDive, shares the value presenting reports as case studies holds:

“Case studies show how you think. As a UX Researcher or Designer, how you percieve problems and what framework you use to evaluate them matters a lot. Your case studies are supposed to show just that.”

9. Maze reports: for all-in-one research and reporting

Automate your reporting with Maze. Maze automatically generates a report for each test you run, turning it into an easy-to-navigate dashboard. Add comments to generate conversation, highlight key responses and generate usability scores for your prototype testing .

If you’re working with moderated research, Maze AI can speed up the reporting process with automated sentiment tagging, project naming, and even generating summaries and identifying critical learnings from user interviews . So you can sit back, and let Maze take care of the data processing.

When you’re happy with your report, generate a custom link that you can share with your team, and further internal and external stakeholders.

Using Maze reports will enable you to share:

• Introduction and mission slides
• An analysis of each UX research method: From card sorting to live website testing
• In-depth breakdowns of research data
• Overviews of the report metrics: From misclicks to bounce rates and time-on-screen
• A usability score

These reports will also allow you to download CSV files of your data, and customzie filters and views to bring your stakeholders the numbers they need, fast. Your team will be able to collaborate in a comments section and let AI identify key themes and takeaways if you’re struggling to spot them.

Overall, UX research tools with in-built reporting are a great way to translate and share all of your research into visual data sets that can be digested by the rest of the team in a few clicks.

7 UX research report templates

There are some fantastic research report templates to help get you started on your journey. Here are some of our favorites to help you better present those deliverables, key learnings, and everything in between.

Maze: Usability testing report

Hosted on Pitch, this report template is clear, simple, and follows a lot of the design and framework best practices shared in this chapter.

Access the template here

Aadil Khan: UXR report with examples

A straightforward report template is designed by Aadil Khan , UX Researcher at IBM, who says: “I made this template based on tons of mentoring calls I’ve been in with people looking to land UXR jobs where we discuss how to present UXR case studies during interviews and such. Oftentimes their case studies were too lengthy and lacked some sort of narrative structure to make it easier to present.”

EaTemp: Key findings report

A beautifully-designed template hosted on Figma. Get access to personas, empathy maps, and card sorting. All colors, fonts, and shapes are customizable.

Miro: Research repository template

Build a centralized research hub on Miro. Connect your team in a few clicks and allow them to collaborate with this free template. Note: you’ll need to sign up for a (free) Miro account.

Furquan Ahmad: UX research report template

A sleek and vibrant presentation, this template was created by Furquan Ahmad , Product Designer at Meta, “to help people focus their energy and time on the insights they're providing rather than worry about what the presentation will look like. I'm always shocked at how many people have benefited from the community.”

Estefanía Montaña Buitrago: Atomic UX research canvas

Beautifully designed on FigJam, this canvas by Estefanía Montaña Buitrago , UX Designer at Globant, has been used by over 7,000 people and now comes with several useful remixes too.

Muhammad Ahmad: UX research kit

Muhammad Ahmad , UX Designer at VentureDive, shared this minimalistic template. Here you’ll get 60+ customizable templates in both light and dark modes. There’s a free version, or a (paid) premium version which may be worth the investment for you.

Best practices for writing an effective UX research report

The functionality of your research report will come down to how you write it. Sitting down and being faced with copious amounts of data can make UX reporting feel like a daunting task—here’s some techniques and tips to help you along the way.

Take a leaf from your UX design book with user-friendly copy

No matter the format, you want your UX report to be as accessible and skim-able as possible for your audience. It’s a good idea to mimic some of the same mentalities you would use in UX design.

Gestalt grouping principles are good to consider for UX report writing. Think similarity , proximity , and common-region for grouping relevant information.

Similarly, UI design principles such as the figure-ground and focal point will help direct your readers’ eyes to the most important information first, as well as make for a more accessible read.

Lastly, Gestalt’s continuity principle is a great one to apply to your UX report. Readers naturally follow patterns for easier flows in information, so if you’re including stylistic elements like bolding, italics, asides, indenting, or something else, ensure these run consistently throughout your report.

At the same time, think about the structure, layout, and formatting of your written report. Are you leaving enough negative space for your reader to process information? These are especially important for readers with dyslexia, but will generally lift your readability on the whole:

• Is all of your copy aligned left?
• Is your font choice clear with a good amount of spacing between letters and words?
• Are you bolding important words and sentences rather than underlining them?
• Are you peppering your report with enough headings and subheadings?

Release oxytocin: Follow storytelling tactics

A Forbes article reported that “immersive storytelling releases the empathy-related chemical oxytocin in our brains.” If you’re not familiar with oxytocin, it’s known as a natural ‘feel-good’ chemical, promoting feelings of trust and attachment.

Why else do you think case studies are so effective? They rely on storytelling: they have characters, plots, beginnings, endings, peaks, and pits. User research reports that mimic storytelling threads and tactics are more likely to create sticky data points, as well as hold your readers’ attention throughout. This is why the PAS framework works so well, but whatever format your report takes, bear in mind a story-like structure with a beginning, middle, and end.

Ask your editor to edit your research presentation with the three Cs in mind

Clear , Concise , Compelling . These core principles exist everywhere the written word does, but it can be hard to spot them when editing your own work. Just because something is clear, concise, and compelling for you, doesn’t mean it is for someone else—ask a colleague to read your report (or, better yet—a content editor).

Failing that, if you don’t have access to an editor or are in a time crunch, here are some tools to help you edit your own work.

• Grammarly: Good for catching those little typos and grammatical errors
• Hemingway Editor: Gives a readability score and helps to simplify sentences

Consider your reader, and rethink the jargon

Tailoring your report to meet the needs and knowledge level of each stakeholder is a balancing act. Many will tell you to avoid jargon, acronyms, and technical language at all costs. But, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, using industry jargon is the most direct way of getting your point across, and if you know your reader understands it, go for it.

However, keep in mind that if your report is going to other teams: sales, C-suite, finance, etc, then you may need to find alternative terms that aren’t department-specific—or provide a glossary or acronym dictionary within the report.

Muhammad shares more: “Typically UX folks (or even product folks) are not that well-equipped with research terminologies. So giving them the summary of the research in plain language is the approach that works best for me.”

Wrapping up how to present user research findings

There you have it, a complete guide on how you can write and present your user experience research in a way that everyone can benefit from it.

Remember, be conscious of your audience, your format, and your language. Different stakeholders and team cultures require different reporting styles, it’s up to you to curate the information into a report that delivers the insights you’ve uncovered.

Generate UX reports that have impact

From AI-generated summaries of your user interviews, to usability scores for your prototype tests, automate UX research reporting with Maze.

Finish reading

The right way to structure a UX research report

I spent hours staring at blank Google Docs or Google Slides when creating a user research presentation. Finally, it got to the point where, instead of focusing on the actual content, I decided to try a plethora of tools and templates to help me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to write. I didn’t have the right color palette or beautiful graphics (I’m not a designer, after all). So I tried notes, Notion, Miro, some obscure tools that no longer exist, and I downloaded an obscene number of Keynote and Google Slide templates. There was even a point where I  bought  slide templates on Etsy. 

However, the real problem was not the formatting, design, or aesthetic of my research reports—as much as I wished it was because that was a lot easier to solve than the real problem. I had no idea how to structure my research reports. I was constantly faced with writer’s block, staring at the blank pages, knowing that I had to present findings and the clock was ticking. Nothing is more complex than creating something from scratch.

.css-1nrevy2{position:relative;display:inline-block;} Structure by research themes

The first and most common way of structuring reports is by themes. In this structure, you use what you learned from synthesis to guide how you write the report. But what exactly is a theme?

After  affinity diagramming , you will have clusters of information. For example, if I conducted a study on how people decide on where to travel next, I might see the following groups come up:

Inspiration from social media (Instagram, blogs)

Recommendations from friends, family, or communities

Going to a place you’ve been before and enjoyed

Using package or vacation deals

Partner, spouse, or friend wanting to travel somewhere specific

Discounted trip finders 

Choosing from a bucket list of destinations

Randomly selecting a destination that sounds cool

Now, that is a lot to report on in and of itself! If I could help the team better understand this decision, I would focus on the top three to five themes with the highest number of participants. Let’s say I spoke to 20 people, and the top three decision-making factors were:

Inspiration from social media (Instagram, blogs)—17/20 participants

Recommendations from friends, family, or communities—14/20 participants

Using discounted trip finders—13/20 participants

I would use these three themes as the structure of my report, starting with the most common theme and ending with the least. Within the report, I would include:

Theme title

Theme summary, which includes bullet points of the main one to three findings within the theme

A deep dive section, including the insight behind the finding, quotes, videos, or audio clips of each finding

So, this would then look like this:

Theme title: Inspiration from social media

Theme summary:

Finding one: People follow travel influencers on social media (e.g., Instagram and blogs) to constantly be up-to-date on where to travel next

Finding two: People create lists, boards, or collections to save all the destinations they find from influencers or on social media and return to them when they want to travel

Deep dive into finding one:

Many people love to daydream about travel, and there isn’t a better way to do that than getting lost on social media. Jake opens Instagram during work one day because he overheard a colleague talking about a recent trip. Jake knows he has some vacation days left, so he goes to his favorite Instagram travel accounts and starts scrolling. He remembers he started collecting a few places he’d like to go and looks through them, deciding on the top two. He makes a note to look up the prices later tonight, after work, and look into some potential dates. Although he wishes he could book the trip right then and there, it is too complicated to do during work, so he waits until later.

“Yeah, I just got this travel bug suddenly after I heard some people talking, and as soon as I saw the photos on Instagram, I was like, I  have to go. I wish I could have just booked it immediately, but figuring out dates, airlines, hotels, and budget takes focus, so I just look into it when I have more time.”

By following this structure, you can lay out the most important information you found for stakeholders to quickly get the most critical findings. 

Three unexpected ways a research repository makes your life easier

Research goals and questions.

I used the theme template frequently for quite a few years, without deviating much. However, I still saw confusion at times with some stakeholders. With this structure, the answers to their questions or the research goals weren’t always straightforward. I then decided to try another format.

Instead of organizing the findings by themes gathered in clusters, I went straight to answering the research goals or questions aligned on at the beginning of the project. The incredible impact of this structure was that it directly answered what the stakeholders needed to know.  

If we take the example from above, let’s say the research goals were to:

Understand people’s current mental models around deciding on where to travel to next 

Discover pain points behind deciding on where to travel 

Identify the tools people currently use when getting inspired and deciding on where to travel to next

So, instead of grouping by themes, I would structure it like:

Research goal one title

Finding summary, which includes bullet points of the one to three findings relevant to the goal

Finding one directly related to the research goal

Evidence of finding one

Finding two directly related to the research goal

Evidence of finding two

Finding three directly related to the research goal

Evidence of finding three

This way, the evidence you present is directly related to the study’s goals and the information stakeholders need to make decisions. Take a look at my  sample UX research report template here  (in exchange for your email, please)!

What we learned from creating a tagging taxonomy

Usability testing.

Now, I have found that usability testing is its own type of report and template. So I use one of the initial templates but then add a separate component that analyzes the usability aspect. Since it is slightly more manageable, I usually use the theme template to begin my usability test and then dive into the prototype findings. Still, I usually only highlight the top two themes to ensure the presentation isn’t too long. 

The main difference here is the concept/prototype analysis section. There are a few ways to structure analysis when it comes to usability testing. The two main ways I have had success with are:

Screen-by-screen analysis, which includes a photo of the screen and annotations of feedback 

A flow analysis, which includes bullet points of feedback 

If you are doing any quantitative usability testing, such as measuring time on task or task success, include a stoplight chart

The way I decide whether to use screen-by-screen or flow analysis depends on the stakeholders’ needs and the depth of feedback I received from participants. For example, if I find that each screen received a lot of feedback, I will do that analysis. However, if the team needs to understand the flow of the prototype, I will break that up into several slides to demonstrate the feedback on the overall flow.

So my usability testing reports are generally structured like:

Theme title one

Theme title two

A deep dive slide, behind the finding, quotes, videos, or audio clips of each finding

Concept/prototype analysis 

Reminder of the prototype

Screen-by-screen or flow analysis

If applicable, a rainbow chart 

These three structures cover the most common reports/presentations you will encounter as a user researcher. I highly encourage you to try different approaches within these structures by always thinking of your audience first and gathering feedback after each presentation!

If you’re a Dovetail Analysis+Repository or Enterprise customer, you can make awesome-looking reports in Dovetail using Stories. Check out our guide for building beautiful reports here .

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How to Present UX Research and Turn Insight to Action

Most companies know the importance of UX research in building sustainable and user-friendly products that meet the needs of their audience.  

However, conducting the research is one-half of the equation. Presenting UX research in a way that compels stakeholders to take action is the second half.

Without adequate reporting, research is just a pile of data. Reporting, by way of presentation, makes your data actionable. By adopting effective UX presentation techniques such as storytelling, visualization, and slides, you ensure that your research influences the development process instead of ending up in storage without being used.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• What is a UX research presentation
• Why UX presentations are important 
• The challenges of presenting UX research
• 9 Tips to Improve Your Research Presentations

What Is UX Research Presentation? 

A UX research presentation is sharing insights from your user research findings with stakeholders. You make recommendations for product improvement and capture decisions from research methodologies and testing phases. 

UX research presentations require you to condense your research notes , insights, and recommendations into 8-10 captivating slides that justify the research and compel stakeholders to take action. Sharing your research findings can help the design and product teams to:

• Make design decision
• Refine existing user needs
• Prioritize their workflow
• Develop a product roadmap based on your recommendations
• Write new user stories
• Improve usability of your product

Why Is UX Presentation Important?

Make Sense of Your Research Findings

Research presentations are an opportunity to share your findings in an easy way for stakeholders to understand. A good presentation fulfills the following:

• Describes the goal of the research and gives context about what happened during the UX research process . For example, you may have made some assumptions about your target audience, encountered bias, or failed to include a user group during the planning phase
• Explain the why behind each research outcome that rationalizes why research participants liked or didn’t like a feature of your product
• Inform decision making for the product team to help them prioritize resources during development

Quickly Relay Findings

Sharing research findings ensures that nothing slips through the cracks and decisions are relayed quickly with the team. In this scenario, a presentation is not a 60-page document. Instead, it’s a UX research nugget made up of high-priority action items that require immediate attention.

Capture Insights and Make Informed Recommendations 

The most essential element of a good UX presentation is sharing the right insights and making recommendations that lead to a successful product launch. Research repository tools like Aurelius allow you to analyze large batches of raw research data faster. This way, it’s easy to draw insight and make recommendations that lead to product success.

Document Your Process for Future Use

You can document processes that didn’t work as insights and explain the why behind methods that worked. It ensures that you don’t repeat the mistake in the future. In addition, your team can use your presentation as a reference to make smarter design decisions and as a background for product update research.

Improve Your UX Research Process

You can’t move forward if you don’t learn from the past. A UX research presentation is an opportunity for the product team and stakeholders to reflect on the decisions made during the product development. It’s hindsight that ensures designers will avoid patterns that underperform or overperform in testing. 

What Are the Challenges of Presenting UX Research?

Lack of trust in qualitative data .

This mostly happens with stakeholders who have a background in data science. They do not trust results from qualitative research because they say that findings are not statistically significant and do not hold any value. For example, you’ve interviewed 20 people as part of your research, but your audience is squirming because they think that’s a small sample size.

One way to get past this constraint is to be upfront about limitations in your UX research. Skeptics are more likely to trust you when you admit to the shortcomings of qualitative research.

Another way is to explain that qualitative research may not be statistically significant, but it is often statistically representative of your larger audience.

Keeping Bias Out of the Results

It’s not enough to be aware of your bias as a researcher. It’s also important not to fuel bias among your audience. 

Be careful how you draw insights from research. Share the research findings, tell the audience what the study doesn’t show, and advise how to use the results to make changes. 

Remind your audience that the objective of UX research is to collect information, not create absolute truth. So, you form a hypothesis and try to prove it, but it’s not perfect as some may wrongly assume.

Properly Conveying the Participant’s Perspective to Stakeholders 

Empathy is a huge part of conducting research. It’s understanding the frustrations and emotions of research participants and conveying these unique viewpoints in a way that your audience understands. 

Using visuals such as video or audio recordings during your presentation is a great way to communicate emotion in a genuine and unfiltered way. 

Inspiring Action

Perhaps the biggest challenge for UX researchers is turning research insight into action. You’ve collected feedback through multiple UX research methods , made recommendations, and given an excellent presentation. But it’s all meaningless if stakeholders don’t take action.

Apart from the reasons we’ve mentioned above, such as distrust in research data and lack of understanding, scientists found that personal trust between audience and researcher plays a role in convincing stakeholders to take action. 

Trust-building is a crucial skill for every researcher. It’s easier to drive action when you have a relationship with stakeholders. 

How to Create Better UX Research Presentations

1. know your audience.

You’re better able to capture and retain audience attention when you speak directly to their interests. One of the biggest mistakes first-time researchers make when presenting research is not reading the room and just going through your slides. It’s impossible to make an emotional connection with an audience you don’t know.

When you know your audience, you can tell a story that immediately connects you to your audience and sets the tone for the rest of your presentation. You can also tailor your deliverables and recommendations to the interest and needs of your audience. 

For example, if you’re speaking to C-level executives, you’ll discuss how the research findings could increase conversion rate, revenue, and customer retention. For the product team , you’d focus on how research could improve user experience and remove obstacles that customers previously faced. 

2. Opt for Quick Findings Over Detailed Reports 

One of the debates for teams when presenting UX research is choosing whether to share a full report or quick findings.

A detailed report is long-form. It gives you the freedom and space to describe your findings in detail and make comprehensive recommendations. It usually ends up being 30-40 pages long.

In reality, a CEO or C-suite executive on the move won’t have time to sit through a 30-slide presentation. Instead, they want something quick, efficient, and concise. You can achieve this goal through UX research nuggets .

Making your research presentation efficient forces you to eliminate fluff and stick to the most essential information to help stakeholders take action.

Include the original goal of the research and 4-6 key insights. Then, attach recommendations and next steps to key i nsights.

3. Embrace Storytelling

Stories are the fastest way to connect with a cold audience. According to researcher Paul Zak , stories cause the brain to produce oxytocin, a feel-good chemical related to empathy and a desire to cooperate. 

In another research, Princeton University Neuroscientist Uri Hasson researched the effect of storytelling on the brain . He found that listeners’ brain activity synced on a deep level with the storyteller’s brain activity when telling a story. Intentional stories that have a tie-in with the research topic move the audience to take action.

A few tips to guide you when using storytelling during presentations include:

• Tell a story your audience can relate to
• Use details to transport the reader to the scene so they can experience it
• Make it personal
• Ensure the story relates to the research topic

4. Use an Inverted Pyramid

With the inverted pyramid, your most important information sits at the top. The first section of your presentation contains:

• What is the problem I want to solve?
• Who am I speaking to? (teammates, manager, decision-makers, engineers)
• Why am I speaking? (What is the desired action you want the audience to take)

Use a high-level overview slide to cover the first section. Your audience is more likely to sit through your entire presentation if they understand the value at a glance.

The second section is the body covering the argument, controversy, evidence, and supporting visuals. The final part is the tail that summarizes the presentation and includes any additional information.

5. Simplify Data with Visualization 

Vision is our primary sense for understanding the world around us. The human brain processes and retains visuals faster than text. Your presentation should have more visuals than text. Always remember the golden rule – show, not tell.

Large blocks of text are boring. Visual aids such as infographics, videos, screenshots, gifs, and charts break up text and engage your audience. Where text can quickly become complicated, visuals clarify information and make information easier to digest and remember.

A few visualization tips to remember:

• Use consistent fonts, colors, and icons when designing your presentation
• Use graphs and charts to present data
• Do not add multiple graphics in one slide. One message per visual
• Use the right graph type to communicate clearly
• Edit ruthlessly
• Use muted colors

6. Keep it Short

The human mind can only store 3-4 things at once. So, focus your research outcomes on three to four key insights and recommendations you want your audience to take away.

Keep your presentation within 20 minutes. I know it’s hard, but you shouldn’t share everything you learned in the study during the presentation, or you’ll overwhelm your audience. 

Share high-level information during the presentation and send the research report as a PDF or email so everyone can look further into the research. In addition, you can use Aurelius to share a live link of an automatically generated report with your audience.

7. Use Slides During Presentations

Split your slides presentation into three sections:

• What we did – discuss your research process
• The finding slides – Key Insight slides
• What to do next – Recommendation slides

Each slide should have a heading that summarizes an important finding and explains the impact with visuals. Use quotes taken from research participants to support key insight.

When using video clips, you don’t have to share the entire recording. Instead, trim it down to the key scenes or combine several sequences about the same key insight into a 30 seconds reel.

Ensure you’re using images taken during the research process (ethnography, observation, usability testing sessions) to show participants in action with the product. Again, it’s more likely to elicit an emotional response than using generic images.

Focus each key insight slide on the user. It should distill their personality, behavior, needs, use of your product, and what happened during user testing. Then, prioritize the most critical information into five slides.

8. Give Recommendations and Next Steps

Your UX research presentation should include recommendations based on key research insight. For every problem, have a recommendation. Then, tell your audience how the research should be incorporated in design or product updates .

Also, don’t forget to demonstrate the value of your research. Show your audience how the recommendations will support your company’s goals and impact the product roadmap.

9. Ask Listeners to Save Questions Until After the Presentation 

You can either allow your audience to ask questions during or after the presentation. Asking questions during the presentation will enable you to clear any confusion on the spot and carry everyone along. 

However, it’s distracting each time you’re interrupted during the presentation. You’ll also risk losing the audience if the question isn’t relevant to the specific section you’re talking about.

The second approach is better. You ask your audience to save questions until the end of the presentation. This method ensures that you maintain a great flow throughout the presentation and answer all questions at once.

10. Share Your Research

Your UX presentation only contains high-level recommendations you want your audience to implement. However, you still have great insight that provides context, and you couldn’t share those during the presentation due to time constraints. 

You can create a more enriched report in Aurelius and share it with key stakeholders after the presentation to make it stick.

However, sending emails, PDFs, or a link isn’t enough. People are busy. Emails get buried, and attention span is low. 

If you want your research to be implemented, send follow-up emails and reach out personally to the executives. Share the report in your company’s internal knowledge base with a relevant title and tags, so it’s easy to find. 

If you have a departmental or company Slack, share it there, so they see the presentation in multiple places. In addition, you can integrate Slack and Jira with Aurelius to share your findings with other teams.

Focus on Showing Value That Stakeholders Want to See

Congratulations! You’ve created a value-driven UX research presentation. But it’s not ready yet. Read through your slides again. Does your presentation reflect the goals you promised stakeholders when you set out on the research journey? Have you demonstrated value in a way that even non-UX audience members would understand?  

These are questions to answer as you wrap up your UX presentation slides. Be ruthless when trimming the fat from your presentation. Just because your discovery is exciting to you doesn’t necessarily mean it’s valuable to stakeholders. 

Find out how Aurelius can improve UX research presentations

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From Data to Action: A Guide to Writing UX Research Reports

Successful UX research is one that dives deep into the user's world, understanding their needs, preferences, and challenges to create solutions that not only solve their problems but also provide a delightful experience. 

But what good is UX research if it doesn't translate into actions that drive product development in the right direction? 

That's where a well-crafted UX research report comes into play. It helps you translate the findings into actionable recommendations that your stakeholders understand and care about.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to present your raw data in a clear, impactful manner that will turn your report into a powerful driver of design and business decisions. 

What is a UX research report?

A UX research report is a document that summarizes findings from your UX research, translating them into a language that is understandable to your stakeholders.

It typically includes data gathered from various UX research methods , such as usability testing, user interviews, and surveys , used during your research process.

The aim of a UX research report is to present the data you gathered in an easily digestible format that enables stakeholders to make informed decisions about product design and development.

The benefits of creating a UX research report 

Conducting UX research without acting upon its findings is an exercise in futility. A report can help you gather conclusions and create a coherent plan of action so that no relevant insight is lost.

Here are some of the key benefits you’ll reap by creating a UX research report.

Building empathy for the user

One key purpose of UX research is to build empathy for users among the product team and stakeholders. A well-constructed UX research report vividly conveys user struggles, aspirations, and workflows, fostering empathy and encouraging a user-centered approach to product design and development.

Facilitating consensus

In any product development team, there can be diverse opinions and ideas. A UX research report serves as an objective source of truth that helps align different team members and stakeholders. The clear presentation of user data and findings can foster agreement on priorities and next steps.

Enhancing product value

Insights derived from your UX research reports can help identify opportunities for innovation or improvement, leading to better product-market fit . The report might also reveal unmet user needs or pain points that, when addressed, significantly enhance the value and appeal of the product.

Surveys, including the template below, offer a great to collect user insights on the perceived product value:

Demonstrating ROI

Your UX research reports can also help demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of UX activities . By connecting the insights and recommendations from the report to measurable improvements in key metrics (like increased user engagement, reduced churn, or improved conversion rates), you can provide tangible evidence of the value of UX research.

Enabling continuous improvement

UX research reports serve as benchmarks that enable continuous improvement. By documenting user insights and experiences over time, these reports help teams track changes in user behavior, measure the impact of design changes, and assess progress toward UX goals.

How to write a UX research report

Now that you know the benefits of a UX research report, let's go into more depth on the essential elements it should consist of. 

Introduction

This part of the report lays the groundwork for everything that follows. It should clearly define the product or service you’re working on, the reason behind conducting the UX research , and a high-level overview of the methodology you used. 

It can be helpful to articulate any pre-existing assumptions or known issues about the user experience that inspired the research. The introduction sets the tone and context for the entire report, making it essential for engaging your audience.

Research goals

The research goals section is where you articulate what you aimed to discover through your research. It is the guiding light of your entire study and report. 

These could include understanding the reason behind a drop in user engagement, discovering how users interact with a particular feature, or finding out what obstacles are causing users to abandon the product or service. 

Use the survey template below to discover what stops your customers from completing a purchase:

Business value

Here you should highlight how the UX research aligns with and contributes to the organization's overall goals. You might discuss how improving user engagement can lead to increased revenue, or how reducing user frustration can decrease customer churn. By showcasing the business value , you help stakeholders understand why the research is crucial and how it can impact the bottom line.

Methodology

The methodology section is where you outline the research methods and techniques you used to gather data. This could include surveys, interviews, usability tests, card sorting, heatmaps, and more. For each method, explain why you chose it, how you implemented it, and any particular considerations or challenges. This section allows readers to understand the context of your findings and how you arrived at them.

Key findings

This is the core of your report where you present your research outcomes.

Break down the findings based on research goals or the specific parts of the user journey they relate to and explain the UX metrics you used. To enhance readability, you can use bullet points, numbered lists, or subheadings. 

Keep in mind that key findings are recommendations are the two parts your key stakeholders are most likely to skip to, so make sure it’s easy to understand and gets your points across. 

Recommendations

The recommendations section is where you offer suggestions for improvement based on your findings. Make sure your recommendations are actionable and specific. It's not enough to say, "improve website navigation"; instead, try something like, "rearrange the main navigation menu items in order of user preference as indicated by our card sorting exercise". The more detailed and precise you are, the more value you provide to decision-makers and those who will implement these changes.

Best practices for writing a UX research report

Crafting a compelling UX research report requires more than just presenting the facts. Here are some best practices to ensure your report is insightful, engaging, and actionable.

Know your audience

Before you even begin to write, it's crucial to understand who will be reading your report. Are they designers, developers, or business stakeholders? Tailor your content, depth, language, and presentation style to their needs and understanding levels. Keep technical jargon to a minimum unless your audience is highly specialized. The aim is to make the report accessible and meaningful to all readers.

Turn your findings into a story

Data alone can be dry and challenging to digest. One way to make your findings more engaging and memorable is to weave them into a story. This doesn't mean fabricating narratives, but rather presenting your data in a way that it forms a coherent, relatable narrative. Data-driven storytelling can help to highlight important trends, reveal user behaviors, and create a compelling argument for your recommendations.

The video below explains how to frame your UX data with storytelling:

Combine qualitative and quantitative data

An effective UX research report marries both qualitative and quantitative data . Quantitative data provides broad strokes—how many, how much, how often—while qualitative data fills in the details, revealing why users behave as they do. Together, these two types of data provide a full, rich picture of the user experience.

Explain and visualize data

Data visualization is a powerful tool for making complex information easier to understand. Charts, graphs, and infographics can all help to convey your findings more effectively. But don't just present data—explain it. Make sure to clearly articulate what each piece of data means and why it's important.

Offer actionable recommendations

Your findings aren't much use if they can't be acted upon. Based on your research, offer clear, actionable steps that your team can take to improve the UX. Be as specific as possible. Instead of saying "improve the checkout process," for example, you might suggest "add a progress bar to the checkout process to let users know how many steps remain."

Use different formats

While a written report is critical, consider leveraging other formats and mediums to present your findings. Infographics, presentations, video summaries, or interactive dashboards can cater to different learning styles and preferences. These can also make it easier for stakeholders to digest and understand your research.

Spread the word

Finally, don't let your hard work go unnoticed. Share your report with all relevant parties—designers, developers, product managers, executives, and even customer service representatives can all benefit from your insights. Consider presenting your findings in a meeting, sharing them via email, or posting them on your company's internal network.

Collect better user data with surveys

UX research reports are a vital cog in the UX design process. They unearth invaluable insights and draw a roadmap toward a more seamless, user-centric product. 

The quality of your report is heavily dependent on the quality of the data you collect. One of the most effective tools for this purpose is surveys.

When designed and deployed correctly, surveys provide a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data about your users. They can capture insights into any aspect of the user experience you’d like to discover more about. 

With Survicate, you can deploy surveys at any stage of the user journey, on any platform. Simply sign up for a free account , choose from dozens of UX survey templates (or create your own), and start collecting invaluable user feedback.

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Communicating User Research Findings

Practical usability, moving toward a more usable world.

“No one reads reports!” “PowerPoint must die!”

We’ve all read monotonous reports and struggled to remain awake during boring presentations, but must all deliverables be interminably dull? Conveying user research findings so people can understand them, believe them, and know how to act on your recommendations can be challenging. And providing enough detail without boring your audience is a difficult balance. But there are some best practices in communicating user research findings that can make them more effective—and even entertaining.

Why Provide Any Deliverable At All?

First, you might question whether your project needs a formal deliverable. Some project teams are tempted to simply translate their research findings into a product’s design without producing any documentation of their research findings. This saves time in the short term, but the danger is that, without some kind of description of the findings, the research knowledge remains in the brain of the researcher. When that person moves on to another project or another employer, you’ll lose that knowledge. I experienced this problem recently when I took over a project from a researcher who had left our company. It was extremely difficult to understand the previous research, because there were only raw notes and no deliverables.

Choosing a Deliverable Format

When choosing the type of deliverable that would best communicate your findings, two important things to consider are:

• Who is the audience?
• How soon do they need the findings?

Who Is the Audience?

Ideally, you should tailor your deliverables to the needs and interests of your audience, but a common difficulty is that you often have to serve a variety of audiences. High-level executives typically want only a brief overview. But the people who have to implement your recommendations—the application’s owner, designers, and developers—need to understand the details. So you may need to create several versions of your deliverables, each with varying amounts of detail. For example, once you’ve created a detailed version, you could strip it down to the essentials to create an executive summary version.

Your audience also determines the formality of your deliverables. If you are presenting findings to a client, your deliverable needs to be more formal than if you were doing research for your own, internal project team.

How Soon Do They Need the Findings?

Obviously, how quickly your audience needs the results of your research determines the detail and formality of your deliverables. For example, if you’re conducting iterative usability testing in the middle of a project, your goal is to quickly evaluate and make changes to the design, then test again. In this situation, you may prepare no deliverable at all and, instead, just have an informal discussion of your findings and the design changes your team needs to make.

On the other hand, if you’re conducting more exploratory user research, you may not have a distinct deadline, so it would make sense to take the time to do detailed analysis and present your results. Unless there is an important deadline you need to meet, it’s always best to give researchers time—within reason—to produce quality results. I’m always dismayed when a client spends a great deal of time and money conducting research, yet wants to rush through to the presentation of findings.

Types of Research Deliverables

There are various types of deliverables—from no deliverable at all to a full report. You should choose the deliverable that best allows you to communicate your findings and recommendations, in the time available, and considers the needs of your audience.

No Deliverable

It’s rare that you can get away with providing no deliverable, but if the right people are involved throughout the research, you can just discuss the findings afterward and make changes to the design, without spending any time creating a deliverable. However, remember that there will be no record of your findings for later use.

Quick Findings

If time is a consideration, the quickest deliverable format is an email message or informal Word document with bullet points describing your overall findings and proposed design changes, as shown in Figure 1.

Another good option is to annotate the designs, pointing to the problem areas and describing your recommended changes, as shown in Figure 2. It’s usually quicker and easier to annotate designs than it is to describe problems only in text. It’s also easier for people to understand problems when seeing them in the context of a design.

When you have to document your findings quickly, you usually won’t have much time to go through your notes. Instead, you must rely on your memory of the main issues that you observed. An effective way to document these is to go through your testing protocol, question-by-question, and write down your overall conclusions about each task or topic. You’ll be surprised how much you can remember from the research off the top of your head. When doing this, you’ll naturally document your overall conclusions based on what you’ve observed rather than the details, which is exactly what you want to document in quick findings.

Detailed Reports

A report gives you the freedom to describe your findings and recommendations comprehensively and in as much detail as needed. However, it’s also easy to become verbose. In the past, I’ve written 100-page heuristic evaluations and usability test reports. But did anyone have time to read them? No wonder people have said that no one reads reports.

Though many people don’t read reports, they are valuable to the people who have to understand the problems and implement the changes. Web site and application owners are responsible for understanding any issues and prioritizing which recommendations to implement. Designers and developers need to understand user needs and the problems they face to design effective solutions for them. Even if each person reads only the parts of your report that apply to the aspects of a design for which they’re responsible, a report serves its purpose.

Reports are also valuable as a detailed archive of your research information. Once a project ends, even those who were involved in the research will gradually forget much of the information. Reports usually contain enough detail and context that someone new can read them later on and understand the findings.??

Lastly, reports have value as proof of the value of the research. If a client has just spent a lot of money and time doing extensive user research, they expect to see some substantial documentation from it. A high-level PowerPoint or a brief summary of findings usually doesn’t cut it. The hearty thwack that comes from slapping down a thick report on a conference room table is impressive, even if no one reads it. To some people, a hefty and detailed report says, “Here’s some impressive, comprehensive research. We got our money’s worth on this one.”

Presentations

The problem with a report is that there’s no way to easily present it. You certainly can’t just read it to your audience, and you usually can’t just tell people to read it themselves. You need to present something. So you have to create two deliverables—the report and the presentation.

As with reports, presentations can provide either a summary or the full details. If you have a detailed report, you can create a summary presentation and tell people to refer to the report if they want the full details. The problem is that many people see only the presentation and won’t read the report, so you often find that you have to convey most of the information in your presentation anyway.

To save time and money and avoid the duplication of effort involved in creating both a detailed report and a presentation, some people skip the report and, instead, create only a detailed presentation. However, it’s difficult to convey voluminous user research findings in the format of a presentation. And it’s unreasonable to expect an audience to stare at dense slides or absorb the kinds of data that are characteristic of robust findings.

When your only deliverable is a presentation, you’ll run into the two competing goals of a presentation: You need to optimize it for effective delivery, but because it’s your only deliverable, it also needs to be understandable on its own by those who view it later, without the explanations you initially give during your presentation.

The extra explanatory text that makes a presentation understandable on its own doesn’t necessarily make a presentation a compelling experience when you deliver it to an audience. One solution is to record an audio track, so those who view your presentation later can hear your explanation of the slides. However, not everyone wants to take the time to sit through such a presentation.

You’ll walk a fine line between providing enough explanatory text and overwhelming your audience with too many bullet points. One solution is to provide an appendix of additional material that you don’t present during a meeting, but that others can read later for more details.

Findings and Recommendations Matrix

Reports and presentations provide a lot of context and examples, so people can understand your findings and recommendations, but once your audience has this initial understanding and a project team simply want to view and discuss your recommendations, all that extra content gets in the way. A findings and recommendations matrix is an additional deliverable that gathers all recommendations together in a simple table format—usually in Word or Excel—with a brief summary of the findings that led to each recommendation and, often, a severity rating for each issue. This matrix provides an easy format that lets a project team review the recommendations, prioritize them, and refer to them throughout the rest of a project.

Other Deliverables

Other ways of describing and visualizing user research findings include scenarios, personas, workflow diagrams—like that shown in Figure 6—task analysis diagrams, customer journey maps, and experience maps. These forms of documentation are often better at conveying the information and bringing your research findings to life. For example, people who might otherwise be turned off by the thought of reading a long report often take the time to look at a deliverable that takes a more novel and visual approach—such as a set of personas.

Elements of Effective Research Deliverables

Regardless of the type of deliverables you provide, the following elements can make your findings and recommendations more understandable, more interesting, and more relatable.

Effective Writing

It’s important to clearly and succinctly describe your findings and accurately convey your recommendations. Your audience needs to understand what you’re talking about without their becoming bored by your providing too much information. Get feedback from someone on your project team to make sure your content is understandable. Get a content review from a writer or editor to make sure you have a well-balanced, persuasive piece of work. A good editor can point out where you get lost in evidence or don’t make your analysis or recommendations clear. Also, be sure that you or someone with a sharp eye proofreads your documentation to find and fix any errors.

Screenshots, Illustrations, Diagrams, and Charts

It’s difficult to convey research findings through text alone. Use annotated screenshots, illustrations, diagrams, charts, and other visualizations to show what you’re referring to in the text. In addition to clarifying the information, these types of visualizations break up the density of the text, making the deliverable appear more interesting and approachable. For example, Figure 7 shows a slide from a presentation that used small screenshots to show each of the 22 steps involved in what should have been a simple registration process. Showing that many screens on one slide was far more impactful than simply stating that the registration process involved too many steps.

Mockups and Examples

When it’s appropriate, illustrate your recommendations with examples. Create mockups that show the changes you’re recommending, as shown in Figure 8, or examples from other user interfaces that do what you’re recommending, as shown in Figure 9.

Photos are a great way of displaying the environment, documents, tools, signage, and other physical aspects of users’ context that you encountered during your research. For example, Figure 10 shows photos from a contextual inquiry that convey how much employees still rely on a paper-based process rather than online applications.

Photos are also a good way of showing your process to an unfamiliar audience. For example, you could display your usability lab setup, as shown in Figure 11, your eyetracker, a card-sorting session, or participants in a design session.

Participant quotations are much more colorful and impactful than simply having a researcher describe a problem or general user opinions. For example, you could either say, Employees are frustrated with the new application, or you could use participant quotations like the following:

“It’s awful. It’s horrible. It’s the worst system I’ve ever used. At one point I thought, this is such a magnificent failure, there’s no way we’ll continue using it, but here we are.”—Employee

“It doesn’t assist me in anything. It’s just a record keeper. It would be nice if it were a more dynamic tool that helped me get my job done. Because it’s really a barrier to getting my job done.”—Employee

Of course, you should always ensure that the quotations you use are representative of what you heard from participants. You wouldn’t want to use these two negative quotations if most participants loved the application and found it useful, unless you balanced them with some positive quotations.

Sometimes you get so many great quotations that you’re tempted to include as many as possible, but if you gather too many quotations together, your audience won’t read all of them, and they’ll lose their impact. Choose the best quotations and don’t overdo it. With limited space on the slides of a presentation, it’s difficult to put quotations into a presentation. If you use too many quotations or they are too long, your audience will spend time reading them rather than paying attention to you.

Audio and Video Clips

Even more effective than reading the text of a quotation is hearing or seeing participants making comments themselves. While audio clips of participant quotations are useful, video clips allow your audience to see for themselves what participants actually did. With video clips, you can show how people perform tasks, what problems they encounter, the environments in which they work, and much more, as shown in Figure 12.

Video and audio clips are a powerful way of backing up controversial findings or recommendations. You can edit clips to show a series of different participants experiencing the same problem or expressing the same opinions. It’s difficult for your audience to argue with a finding after seeing a video clip showing several people encountering the same problem and what a negative impact it had on their experience.

Use video-editing software to create a number of short audio or video clips and provide links to them at various points in your presentation. Ideally, the clips should be just a minute or two long to ensure they hold your audience’s attention. Three minutes is about the maximum, but if you have very good quotations or examples, showing them may be worthwhile. You can always stop playing the clips after showing a few of them, letting those who want to see more of the clips view them later on. If you have a lot of video clips in a presentation, you usually won’t want to show all of them. You can leave in the extra video clips for reference, and those who want to watch them later can get more detail on a particular issue.

Don’t Forget the Obvious

As UX professionals, it’s easy to forget that our audience doesn’t know everything we know about our methods, the purpose of our research, and how to use our findings and recommendations.

Explain Your Methods

Give a brief summary of the goals of your research and the methods you used. Even if you’ve explained that before, it’s good to explain it again in your deliverables. Your audience may include people who have forgotten what you’ve already explained, people who never understood it in the first place, and people who weren’t involved earlier during a project. Your deliverables may live on long after a project ends, so they need to make sense at a later point when people have forgotten a project’s activities.

Note the Positive Aspects

Because our goal is to improve the user experience, user research tends to focus much more on the negative. Since our focus is on finding and fixing problems, we tend to take the positive aspects of a design for granted. For our audience, however, it can be depressing to hear an endless litany of problems and complaints about their application.

So be sure to balance the negative with some positive aspects of an application, if there are any. It’s a good idea to mention the positives at the beginning and end of your deliverable. It also helps to explain why user research often focuses on the negative.

Guide Your Audience on What to Do Next

Some audiences become overwhelmed by seeing a long list of problems and recommendations. They may wonder, Where do we start first? What do we do next? Sometimes the reason usability problems don’t get fixed is because no one knows how to proceed or no one gets assigned to fix them. Give your audience a plan for how to address the issues you’ve found. This usually involves meeting to discuss the problems, prioritizing which issues to fix first, and assigning people to work on the changes.

Size Doesn’t Matter

Length is a terrible way of measuring deliverables. The number of pages in a report or the number of slides in a presentation are irrelevant. Of course, deliverables should not be any longer than necessary, but saying deliverables should be no longer than X number of pages or slides is ridiculous.

Density of information is a better measurement. You can create a very short report or presentation if you include only text, while visualizations, photos, screenshots, and mockups can take up a lot of space. For example, an 80-page report with many illustrative screenshots and explanatory visualizations may be much more informative and much easier and more enjoyable to read than a 20-page report of wall-to-wall text. Similarly, a 150-slide presentation full of examples and screenshots may be more informative and interesting than a dense 30-slide presentation comprising only bullet points. Be clear and succinct, and judge the interest of your audience when determining the appropriate length.

Summarizing these guidelines for creating valuable user research deliverables:

• Choose the right deliverable format based on your audience and how soon they need your findings.
• Ensure that your deliverables are well written and ask an editor to review them.
• Supplement the text of a deliverable with screenshots, illustrations, diagrams, charts, and other visualizations that more clearly show your findings.
• When possible, illustrate your recommendations with mockups and examples of similar designs from other user interfaces.
• Use photos, audio clips, and video clips to show users experiencing problems and allow your audience to hear their comments with their own ears.
• Don’t forget to explain your methods, mention the positive aspects of a user interface, and make sure your audience knows what to do next with your findings and recommendations.
• Don’t make your deliverables any longer than they need to be, but don’t be overly concerned about their length.

Thanks, Jim. That’s a very comprehensive article. Over the last few years, I have probably used all the techniques you describe, but if someone were to ask me which one is the best, I’d have to always say the usual: It depends…. (As you rightly pointed out.) Regarding presentations, sometimes it is really hard to strike the right balance between including enough detail and avoiding slides that are full of text and bullet points. However, one way to tackle this is to keep the slides light and visually interesting, and put all the detailed explanations in the notes. You can then deliver a PowerPoint deck that is both a presentation and a report.

Great work here—very comprehensive, and the “Elements” section is especially helpful in illustrating how many different ways you can—and should—get your points across to make them more compelling. Knowing the audience is difficult in some cases, because you might end up presenting the same findings or presentation to members of the Web site team, designers, and developers; and perhaps salespeople and C-level stakeholders. If you can anticipate the different team members you might encounter, preparing different kinds of content—as you’ve outlined wonderfully here—would enable the presentation to work for everyone.

A very great job to be done here because they translate their research into a product design without producing any documentation of the research description. It remains in the brain of the researcher, but it’s not supposed to be like that. If the researcher knows some things about what he’s researched, he is supposed to teach his own people so they will also learn it and pass it on to others.

How can I get the Findings and Recommendations Matrix document and most of the other documents mentioned here?

Join the Discussion

Principal UX Researcher at AnswerLab

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Other Columns by Jim Ross

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• Updating My Career Advice for User Researchers
• Wrangling Difficult Usability Testing Participants, Part 2
• Learning Complex Subject Matter

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A Guide to User Research Analysis

When designers perform user interviews, field observations, or usability tests, they gather tons of notes and data to help inform design decisions and recommendations. But how do they make sense of so much qualitative data? Talking to customers is great, but most people walk away feeling overwhelmed by the sense of more information than they know what to do with. Learning how to properly analyze UX research helps turn raw data into insights and action.

What Is User Research Analysis?

User research analysis is a vital part of any research process because it is the very act of making sense of what was learned so that informed recommendations can be made on behalf of customers or users.

As researchers conduct analysis, they’re spending time categorizing, classifying, and organizing the data they’ve gathered to directly inform what they’ll share as outcomes of the research and the key findings.

Why Should Researchers Spend Time on Analysis?

Our natural instinct is to believe we can remember everything we heard or saw in an interview. But following impulsive decisions made from raw notes and data can be misleading and dangerous. Recommendations based on a single data point can lead a team down the path of solving the wrong problem.

Further, doing so is simply reacting to data, not making sense of it. This can cause companies to focus on incremental improvements only and miss important opportunities to serve customers in more meaningful, innovative ways.

A great example of this is when we see teams sharing research findings like, “6 out of 10 people had difficulty signing in to our application.” On the surface, a reasonable recommendation could be to redesign the sign-in form. However, proper research analysis and finding the meaning behind what that data represents is when the real magic happens. Perhaps the reason people had trouble signing in was due to forgotten passwords. In this case, redesigning the sign in form wouldn’t necessarily solve this problem.

Performing the necessary analysis of user research data is an act of asking “why” the “6 out of 10 people had difficulty signing into the application.” Analysis transforms the research from raw data into insights and meaning.

Consider what Slack did with their sign-in process. Slack allows a user to sign in by manually typing their password or having a “magic link” sent to their email which the person simply needs to click from their inbox.  They get signed in to their Slack team and get started.

Slack offers a magic link instead of asking users to type their password.

Slack emails a magic link within seconds that saves the user typing their password.

This decision wasn’t an accident; it came from a deep understanding of a customer pain point. That deep understanding came from making sense of user research data and not simply jumping to a conclusion. Slack’s example demonstrates the power of spending time in analyzing user research data to go beyond reacting to a single observation and instead understanding why those observations occurred.

When to Do Research Analysis

Before the research begins.

Great analysis starts before research even begins. This happens by creating well-defined goals for the project, research, and product. Creating clear goals allows researchers to collect data in predefined themes to answer questions about how to meet those goals. This also allows them to create a set of tags (sometimes known as “codes”) to assign to notes and data as they conduct their research, speeding up analysis dramatically.

Before any research session begins, craft clear goals and questions that need to be answered by the research. Then brainstorm a list of tags or descriptors for each goal that will help identify notes and data that align to the goals of the research.

During the Research

Researchers often tag or code data they gather in real time. This can be done multiple ways using spreadsheets, document highlighting or even a specialized research tool like Aurelius.

When taking notes in a spreadsheet, tags can be added to individual notes in an adjacent column and later turned into a “ rainbow spreadsheet .”

For teams physically located in the same space, an affinity diagram with sticky notes on the wall works well. Here, each note can be added to an individual sticky note with top level tags or themes grouped physically together.

A student stands in front of an affinity exercise on a whiteboard. Photo via Wikimedia

There are also software tools like Aurelius that help researchers tag and organize notes as they’re taken which also makes for quick viewing and analysis of those tags later.

View of analyzing notes and tags in Aurelius.

It’s also useful for teams to have a short debrief after each research participant or session to discuss what they learned. This keeps knowledge fresh, allows the team members to summarize what they’ve learned up to that point, and often exposes new themes or tags to use in collecting data from the remaining research sessions.

When the Research Is Done

This is where most of the analysis happens. At this point researchers are reviewing all the notes they’ve taken to really figure out what patterns and insights exist. Most researchers will have a good idea of which tags, groups, and themes to focus on, especially if they’ve done a debrief after each session. It then becomes a matter of determining why those patterns and themes exist in order to create new knowledge and insight about their customers.

How to Analyze User Research

Tag notes and data as you collect it.

Tagging notes and data as they’re collected is a process of connecting those tags to research questions and the research questions back to the project or research goals. This way you can be confident in the tags and themes being created in real time. Here’s how to make the connection between tags, research questions and project goals.

Imagine the research goals for the project are:

• Increase the number of people signing up for our product free trial
• Increase the number of people going from free trial to a paid account
• Educate trial customers about the value of our product prior to signing up for a paid account

From there, research questions can be formed such as:

• “Does the website communicate the right message to share the value of a free trial?”
• “Is it easy for a new customer to sign up?”
• “Are new customers easily able to start a free trial and begin using the product?”

From those questions, we can extract topics and themes. Since we’re researching the free trial, sign up process and general usability of that process, they become clear choices for tags. Also, since the research is meant to answer a question about whether or not potential customers understand the value of our product and free trial, this too provides a clear topic and tag we can use. So, useful tags based on those questions would be:

• #free-trial
• #value-prop
• #signup-reason
• #signup-process
• #onboarding

As the team conducts the research, they can tag notes and observations according to those themes that align to the high level goals and questions for the project. All of this highly increases the ease and effectiveness of research analysis later.

Analysis After Each Session

A common user research practice is for the team to debrief after each interview, usability test, or field study to discuss what was learned or observed. Doing this while also reviewing the notes and observations helps researchers hear the same information from a new perspective.

Let’s imagine the team found the following patterns while conducting their research:

• Potential customers visited the product page, free trial sign-up page, and went back to the product page several times prior to starting a free trial.
• Some people had multiple browsers open with competitor sites pulled up while signing up for the free trial.
• Potential customers mentioned waiting for the “right time” to start their free trial on several occasions.

This may help the researchers create new tags (or codes) for remaining sessions, such as:

• #right-time
• #competitor-review
• #feature-comparison

Using these new tags adds another dimension to analysis and provides deeper meaning to patterns the team is finding. You can see how the combination of these tags and themes already begin to paint a picture of customer needs without any detailed notes!

Here are some good tips for knowing when to tag or code a note:

• It aligns directly to a project/research goal.
• The participant specifically said or implied that something is very important.
• Repetition – a thing is said or heard multiple times.
• Patterns – when certain observations are related or important to other tags and themes already established in the project goals or research.

Steps for Analyzing Research Once It’s Done

Once all the research is done, it’s time to dig in to find patterns and frequency across all the data gathered .

Step 1 – Review the notes, transcripts, and data for any relevant phrases, statements, and concepts that align to the research goals and questions.

Step 2 – Tag and code any remaining data that represents key activities, actions, concepts, statements, ideas and needs or desires from the customers who participated in the research.

Step 3 – Review those tags and codes to find relationships between them. A useful tip for this is to pay close attention to tags that have notes with multiple other tags. This often indicates a relationship between themes. Create new tags and groups where appropriate to review more specific subsets of the data. Continue this process until meaningful themes are exposed. Once that happens, ask questions like:

• Why do these patterns or themes exist?
• Why did participants say this so many times?
• Does the data help answer the research questions?
• Does the data inform ways to meet the research goals?
• Does one tag group or theme relate to another? How? Why?

Sharing Key Insights from User Research

A key insight should answer one or more of your research questions and directly inform how to meet one or more of the established business goals. When sharing key insights, be sure to make a clear connection between one of the business goals, research questions and why the key insight is relevant to both. The most effective way of turning research into action is by helping teams make a connection between key insights and business outcomes.

3 Parts to a Key Insight

There are three parts to creating a key insight from user research :

• Statement of what you learned
• Tags that describe the insight (often used from the analysis, but can also be new tags entirely)
• Supporting notes, data, and evidence that give further context to the key insight and support the statement of what was learned

A key insight from the example project might be:

“Prospective customers are worried they might not have enough time to review our product during the free trial.” #right-time #signup-process #free-trial

This represents the pattern observed of customers mentioning the “right time” to sign up for a free trial and comparing the product to competitors. It also goes beyond sharing the quantitative data that those things occurred and offers a qualitative explanation of why they happened. All of this leads to clearer recommendations and the ability for other teams to take action on the research findings.

Creating key insights from the research in this way allows for the most effective sharing and reuse later. By providing supporting notes to each insight, stakeholders and others consuming the research findings can learn more detail about each key insight if they so choose.

Next Steps for User Research Analysis

Conducting detailed analysis of user research data helps teams clearly share what was learned to provide more actionable recommendations in design and product development.

Here are some tips for making user research analysis faster and easier on upcoming projects:

• Begin the user research by creating well defined questions and goals.
• Create tags based on each goal.
• Tag research notes and data as it’s collected to speed up analysis later.
• Debrief after each research session.
• Review the data once research is finished to find patterns, frequency, and themes.
• Make statements about each pattern or theme that was uncovered, describing what it means and why it’s important (aka: create key insights).
• Share the key insights!
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November 1, 2022

31 Creative UX Find Presentations and Reports – Layout and Examples

Learn as to effectively share your total research findings, and get inspirational with this list on free preview and example.

Katryna Balboni

You’ve put adenine lot about thou, period, or energy into designing a research plan, recruiting registrants , conducting interviews, analyzing the data, and synthesizing your findings. Now it’s time to show off all your hard work.

We’ve compiling 31 templates and great examples of user research reports, summaries, case studies, and slide presentations up doing e easier for you in share research result equipped your stakeholders both teammates.  Aug 23, 2022 - The remarkable Verification Findings Report Template (4) photo below, is part of Audit Findings Report Template feature which the sorted internally Show Template, Audit Survey Report Template, auditing summary report example, compliance audit report template, finance audit report sample pdf, free audit report template word, internal audit general report format, internal audit report format is …

You’re welcome to jump straight to those style ( LINK !), or keep reading for an overview of some of the different ways exploiter investigators like toward summarize their research and present key insights.

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See the roi of user interviews on you, what exactly is an ux resources report.

Tbh, which clue’s in the nominate with this one. ONE UX research report is a summary of this methods used, investigate conducted, data collected, and insights gleaned from user research. 

Conventional research reports (like the ones still produced by scientific and academic researchers) are typically long text documents with detailed explanations of participant take, methodologies, examinations, etc.

A site regarding ink has been spilled on why the traditional format your not the best mode to communicate UX research findings toward stakeholders both which wider team. Some folks have even advocated dropping reports entirely. 

But—as Katya Hott argued on UX Collectives —even if you’ve involved stakeholders early and often also have a clean, by, and organized research repository, there is still an lot of set in sharing a summary on the causes, hows, and outcomes the your UX research. 

We’ve put together a collection of about 30 templates and examples to help thee present your user research discovery in a way that shareholders will actually use.

Option ways to share UX research findings

Slides decks are a popular way to report total researching findings. One nicely thing concerning one output is its flexibility. Sliding cans be shared sync as presentations over Zoom, or asynchronous as visual documents, perhaps supplemented per a Loom or other video recording. And a deck able be as in-depth or the lightweight as requested, depending on the nature of your doing furthermore the needs of your stakeholders. Look since report browse? You’ve probably noticed in your searching that there many different kinds.It can get a few confusing with you don’t know exactly what report example you’re loo

Here’s an UX research findings slides template from the User Browse team that you can download real adapt for your customizable video:

Email and/or Slack 

Email and/or Slack messages are another lightweight option for communicating user research efforts. This date is useful fork sharing informal research outlines with executives or team memberships what don’t take a direct stake in the learn. It’s also a virtuous way to keep stakeholders looped into research as it happens.

Suggested user research reporting workflow

Our own VP of User How, Roberta Dombrowski , suggests the following workflow:

• After each user interview, create a snapshot of and interview in ampere collaborative tool (Roberta uses Miro).
• Share the picture and important take-aways in a project Slack channel to give stakeholders visibility as the choose upgrades.
• Once you’ve closing your interviews, do a “final synthesis” through the snacks you put together along the way. 
• This union bottle be shared with interests (and the wider company) how a slide embellish (see above), a written summarize, or both. 

Looking for a investigate findings contents template ? You can borrow ours: 

Case studies

Of researchers like in (or are asked to) present their findings in a case study format, sometimes as a blog post . Many user researchers furthermore UX designers also contain instance studies in theirs portfolios, and which can be great sources of inspiration. 

One use of this font is this it contains (or should contain) a strong narrative thread, which makes it a favourite toolbox for communicating ethnographic study findings. Tells is a great ways until search people follow along, understand an values of your research, and develop empathy required the participants involved.

Atomic Research nugget

Atomic Research is an approach to user research that breaks down research findings include a single searchable, exchangeable soft data point (a “nugget”). It was developed by Tomer Sharon although male was Head of UX at WeWork. In his words :

“Atomic Research is an go the administer research knowledge which redefines the atomic unit von a research insight. Instead of reports, slide decks, and dashboards, an modern atomistic unit of a research insight is one nugget. ADENINE nugget is a tagged observation supported by evidence. It’s ampere single-experience insight about a customer’s experience.” – Tomer Sharon

Storing research individual insights include a self-serve database for teams to surface as needed makes a lot to sense, and is getting an growing common view for sharing user search findings.

Instead if and bother with doing reports is that nobody reads them , the trouble with exploring nuggets mayor be that (without context) not everybody knows methods to read them. The both boxes, you’re request owners to do a lot of work (read a longish report, proactively dig for data). 

We’d argue that exactly because you’re doing Atomic Research doesn’t mean her can’t also conclude your research question, methodology, and key takeaways in a slide deck press email. To can also build a dynamic collection of insights within your repository to help associated wrap my heads around all those nuts of info.

📚 Read about Atomic Research Nuggets in the UX Research Field Guide.

Sharing research artifacts with stakeholders

Your research may produce deliverables, such as:

• Quotes of interviews
• User get maps
• Affinity diagrams
• Storyboards

Of course, your can include these artifact in a slideshow or email, justly as you wish a study report. It’s a good idea to store these in a repositories as well, like that they can remain simple accessing or supplementary the over time. 

31 user research review showcase templates and examples

There's a little bit of total in here—Google Slides decks, Figma templates, Miro boards, Notion medical, even a match old-school reports (gasp!). Select to Create a Social Media Review: 2023 Edition [Free Template]

Best practices for submit user conduct

Independant of which format you use to communicate UX research findings , there are a couple rules from thumbs that you’ll want to female to mind.

1. Know respective audience

The designers who will be putting your findings into action and the CEO fundraising for a Series BORON are going to got ultra different needs, attention spans, and uses for the research you’ve done.  Get Examples With Sample Templates [To Edit and Download]

Ideal, you wishes will guided associated discussions front on in the process. From these interviews, you should have adenine use of thing own different our are stare to get out of your report. 

If you are able in customized your presentation to different groups of organizations, fantastic! Relevance is always a good thing. But it’s more likely that you’ll want to judge how different stakeholders will consume your write. You may want in provide our with multiple formats real ways till interact with findings. 

2. Write concisely and effectively

Sometimes people ask me how long ampere pieces of page should to. I commonly respond in the infuriatingly enigmatic answers that it should be “as long like it needs to be but as short as possible.”

That meditation applies just like well to user research reporting. Whereas summarizing your research on stakeholders, keep it pithily. Make it easy for people for dive deeper into that minute see of your student for they want to—but don’t make it mandatory. 

3. Explain your methods

Describe the wherewith . Declare the methods you used to recruit participants, conduct meetings, and analyze results. Avoid using too greatly frequently, especially if you’re sharing with non-researchers. 

If you have toys like interviewing plans , screener surveys , prototypes created as part of a co-design workshop, etc—include links or examples of dieser to illustrate.

4. Don’t throw raw data at your stakeholders 

Your stakeholders don’t have choose for this. And even if they did, they probability wouldn’t know what to do are mountains of roh data. For most people, a summarize of key inside will enough. Used the folks that do wants to dig deeper, that’s where a searchable store of clear, tagged data upcoming in. 

But this is also adenine valuables opportunity for you to translate your findings into a format that designers, executives, and other stakeholders will find relevant, punishable , and easy to understand. Don’t squander this your to build sensitivity fork their addicts and demonstrate the evaluate of the operate you do. 

5. Offer actionable recommendations, not opinions

As the person (or team) responsible for designing the doing project, talking to student, leading tests, and analyzing to results, you are well able to make actionable awards about how into act on the discovery of your research. 

Whichever you don’t want the do is faulty open recommendations based on input with thine own opinions about how people shall use your findings.  

More natural

• UX Research User Guide to Type Effective Reports and Lecture
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• 144 Best Customer Voyage Map Templates and Examples
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How to Visualize Your Qualitative User Research Results for Maximum Impact

When thinking about visualization of research results, many people will automatically have an image of a graph in mind. Do you have that image, too? You would be right in thinking that many research results benefit from a graph-like visualization, showing trends and anomalies. But this is mainly true for results from quantitative user research . Graphs are often not the best way to communicate the results from qualitative user research methods such as interviews or observations. Frequently, the number of participants in these types of studies is too low to create meaningful graphs. Moreover, the insights you will want to communicate sometimes don’t translate to a clean number. Let’s show you how to visualize more subjective and fuzzy data from qualitative user research methods, in a way that communicates the essential insights to other stakeholders , so they don’t have to plow through voluminous research reports.

“The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures.” — Ben Shneiderman, Distinguished university professor in computer science

When you’re sharing results from qualitative user research efforts, you’re most likely focusing on creating an understanding for the lives people lead, the tasks that they need to fulfill, and the interactions they must effect so as to achieve what they need or want to do. This holds true whether you’re using the research in the beginning phases of a design process (getting to know what to design), or using it in the final stages (understanding how well a design is meeting its targets). Depending on the people you’re communicating with (such as your design team or a client) and the type of understanding you need them to have (in other words, a deep empathy for the user needs or a global feeling for the context in which a product will be used), you need to determine what type of visualization suits your results best.

Imagine that you’ve conducted several interviews with people from your target group: overworked and worried informal caregivers of seniors with early signs of dementia. They have shared some essential information with you, regarding the fears they have about a new product that’s supposed to help them be more independent in the care they provide to their loved ones. You used a thematic analysis technique with lots of Post-it notes to make sense of the data, and you found four categories of fears that are relevant to consider when designing the new product: changes in the relationship, a constant feeling of worrying, lack of competencies , and lack of personal time. You need to share your insights with your design team—so that everyone is on the same page and continues the design process with the same level of empathy for this fragile target group. Also, you need to communicate these insights to your clients: the management team of a healthcare organization. They are hoping to engage informal caregivers more into the care process, since they need to reorganize their budgets and unburden their employees. How would you go about communicating the results that you found? Would you simply give them that short list of four fears? Would you give them a pie diagram, showing how often a certain category of fears was mentioned in the interviews? We would argue that this does not lead to the deep understanding you’re aiming for. A list is not immersive enough to trigger any type of empathy. Here, we’ll show you three ways of visualizing your results that are much more effective.

Affinity Diagram

By using Post-it notes for the thematic analysis technique to come to your conclusions on the four main fears that your target group struggles with, you’ve already used a visualization method that we would recommend: an affinity diagram. You have taken quotes and notes from the interviews and have written each of them on a separate Post-it. Then, you started to reorganize them according to similarities, creating themes as you went along. There’s a tremendous amount of information present in the diagram you’ve created as an analysis tool. However, you will need to clean up this diagram so that it better reflects the insights you want to communicate.

You can quickly decide that the categories should reflect the four main fears that you discovered. You then need to ask yourself what pieces of information will help your fellow designers and your client understand what these fears entail. What impact do they have on your users’ lives? When is this fear most prominent? What triggers this fear? Do you have some insight into what can reduce this fear? All this information will already be present in the Post-it notes you collected within a theme. Now you simply have to filter out the most important ones, and present them in a clear and visually appealing way to accommodate the people you’re communicating this to. You can use quotes or keywords, and—if you happen to have made some observations as well—illustrate them with pictures or drawings. The image below shows what an affinity diagram for this purpose could look like.

© Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Want to learn more about how to create an affinity diagram? Read our article “Affinity Diagrams – Learn How to Cluster and Bundle Ideas and Facts” , or download our affinity diagram template below:

Empathy Map

An empathy map is a great way to create a clear overview of four major areas that we as designers should focus on so as to gain empathy for our target group: what people said , did , thought , and felt . This is also very relevant for our client in the case of informal caregivers—the management team of a healthcare organization—as they might have some preconceptions based on the usual interactions they have with the target group. The empathy map has the potential to trigger discussion within that management team, and force them to admit that they often have to adjust their perspective. In healthcare (but this holds true for many other contexts as well), professionals feel that they can speak for the patient or their family, as their main job is to take care of them. They tend to forget that they only have a limited view on their lives, and therefore might not understand all their needs as well as they would need for a design process.

To create an empathy map based on the findings from your interviews, you go through the notes and other materials that you have from your qualitative user research. For each quadrant—or each focus area—you select the relevant quotes and images, or you synthesize the appropriate insights based on them. As you can see in the image below, the resulting empathy map draws on the same data as the affinity diagram we created before, but communicates different insights. Both visualizations can be relevant in our design case.

Want to learn more about how to create an empathy map? Read our article “Empathy Map – Why and How to Use It” , or download our empathy map template below:

User Journey Map

Let’s revisit the design case we used to illustrate how to visualize your qualitative user research results. You’re creating a new product to help informal caregivers of seniors with mild dementia symptoms to be more independent in the care that they provide. Your client is the management team of the healthcare organization involved with these seniors. One of the subjects that you are likely to have focused on during your user research is the context in which informal caregivers provide their care. You might have asked yourself questions like: Which tasks do they perform? When do they perform these tasks? What other activities do they have before and after performing these tasks? How do they feel while providing care to their loved ones? What is relevant in your results is not only the straightforward answers to these questions but also the flow that they create throughout the lives of these informal caregivers. For example, it’s important to know whether the care they provide can be planned well in advance, or if people are often disrupted by other activities. A very powerful way to communicate this flow over time involves making a user journey map.

The user journey map you see in the image below shows a period of one day. You can choose this period according to what makes sense in your project; sometimes a week or a month would be more appropriate. You can map out the steps involved in taking care of a senior throughout a typical day, by creating separate paths for the doing, thinking, and feeling elements that you also used in your empathy map. Furthermore, you should indicate any touchpoints with the current service provided by the healthcare organization, or any other entity involved. Focus on showing the motion of a user through the different touchpoints across the day, and how the user feels about each interaction on that journey. Ultimately, you should be able to communicate to your team and the client which interactions should change, disappear, or be introduced.

Want to learn more about how to create a user journey map? Read our article “ Customer Journey Maps – Walking a Mile in Your Customer’s Shoes” here.

The Take Away

Information visualization is a powerful technique to communicate the results from qualitative user research to your fellow designers or the client. There are three types of visualizations you could use. Affinity diagrams resemble your data analysis outcomes most, but you must rework them to provide more clarity to the people who need to understand the insights. Empathy maps give your audience a great overview of four relevant areas of user understanding: what people say, do, think, and feel. Finally, user journey maps introduce user flow over time. You can use these three visualizations side by side to elicit the deep feeling of empathy that will bring your design project to the next level.

References & Where to Learn More

Read this insightful article on how to use affinity diagrams to collaboratively clarify fuzzy data here .

Learn more about empathy maps here .

For more on journey mapping and how it is done in the industry, refer to this research here .

Hero Image: © Pexels, CC0

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UX Research Cheat Sheet

February 12, 2017 2017-02-12

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User-experience research methods are great at producing data and insights, while ongoing activities help get the right things done. Alongside R&D, ongoing UX activities can make everyone’s efforts more effective and valuable. At every stage in the design process, different UX methods can keep product-development efforts on the right track, in agreement with true user needs and not imaginary ones.

In This Article:

When to conduct user research.

One of the questions we get the most is, “When should I do user research on my project?” There are three different answers:

• Do user research at whatever stage you’re in right now . The earlier the research, the more impact the findings will have on your product, and by definition, the earliest you can do something on your current project (absent a time machine) is today.
• Do user research at all the stages . As we show below, there’s something useful to learn in every single stage of any reasonable project plan, and each research step will increase the value of your product by more than the cost of the research.
• Do most user research early in the project (when it’ll have the most impact), but conserve some budget for a smaller amount of supplementary research later in the project. This advice applies in the common case that you can’t get budget for all the research steps that would be useful.

The chart below describes UX methods and activities available in various project stages.

Each project is different, so the stages are not always neatly compartmentalized. The end of one cycle is the beginning of the next.

The important thing is not to execute a giant list of activities in rigid order, but to start somewhere and learn more and more as you go along.

When deciding where to start or what to focus on first, use some of these top UX methods. Some methods may be more appropriate than others, depending on time constraints, system maturity, type of product or service, and the current top concerns. It’s a good idea to use different or alternating methods each product cycle because they are aimed at different goals and types of insight. The chart below shows how often UX practitioners reported engaging in these methods in our survey on UX careers.

If you can do only one activity and aim to improve an existing system, do qualitative (think-aloud) usability testing , which is the most effective method to improve usability . If you are unable to test with users, analyze as much user data as you can. Data (obtained, for instance, from call logs, searches, or analytics) is not a great substitute for people, however, because data usually tells you what , but you often need to know why . So use the questions your data brings up to continue to push for usability testing.

The discovery stage is when you try to illuminate what you don’t know and better understand what people need. It’s especially important to do discovery activities before making a new product or feature, so you can find out whether it makes sense to do the project at all .

An important goal at this stage is to validate and discard assumptions, and then bring the data and insights to the team. Ideally this research should be done before effort is wasted on building the wrong things or on building things for the wrong people, but it can also be used to get back on track when you’re working with an existing product or service.

Good things to do during discovery:

• Conduct field studies and interview users : Go where the users are, watch, ask, and listen. Observe people in context interacting with the system or solving the problems you’re trying to provide solutions for.
• Run diary studies to understand your users’ information needs and behaviors.
• Interview stakeholders to gather and understand business requirements and constraints.
• Interview sales, support, and training staff. What are the most frequent problems and questions they hear from users? What are the worst problems people have? What makes people angry?
• Listen to sales and support calls. What do people ask about? What do they have problems understanding? How do the sales and support staff explain and help? What is the vocabulary mismatch between users and staff?
• Do competitive testing . Find the strengths and weaknesses in your competitors’ products. Discover what users like best.

Exploration methods are for understanding the problem space and design scope and addressing user needs appropriately.

• Compare features against competitors.
• Do design reviews.
• Use research to build user personas and write user stories.
• Analyze user tasks to find ways to save people time and effort.
• Show stakeholders the user journey and where the risky areas are for losing customers along the way. Decide together what an ideal user journey would look like.
• Explore design possibilities by imagining many different approaches, brainstorming, and testing the best ideas in order to identify best-of-breed design components to retain.
• Obtain feedback on early-stage task flows by walking through designs with stakeholders and subject-matter experts. Ask for written reactions and questions (silent brainstorming), to avoid groupthink and to enable people who might not speak up in a group to tell you what concerns them.
• Iterate designs by testing paper prototypes with target users, and then test interactive prototypes by watching people use them. Don’t gather opinions. Instead, note how well designs work to help people complete tasks and avoid errors. Let people show you where the problem areas are, then redesign and test again.
• Use card sorting to find out how people group your information, to help inform your navigation and information organization scheme.

Testing and validation methods are for checking designs during development and beyond, to make sure systems work well for the people who use them.

• Do qualitative usability testing . Test early and often with a diverse range of people, alone and in groups. Conduct an accessibility evaluation to ensure universal access.
• Ask people to self-report their interactions and any interesting incidents while using the system over time, for example with diary studies .
• Audit training classes and note the topics, questions people ask, and answers given. Test instructions and help systems.
• Talk with user groups.
• Staff social-media accounts and talk with users online. Monitor social media for kudos and complaints.
• Analyze user-forum posts. User forums are sources for important questions to address and answers that solve problems. Bring that learning back to the design and development team.
• Do benchmark testing: If you’re planning a major redesign or measuring improvement, test to determine time on task, task completion, and error rates of your current system, so you can gauge progress over time.

Listen throughout the research and design cycle to help understand existing problems and to look for new issues. Analyze gathered data and monitor incoming information for patterns and trends.

• Survey customers and prospective users.
• Monitor analytics and metrics to discover trends and anomalies and to gauge your progress.
• Analyze search queries: What do people look for and what do they call it? Search logs are often overlooked, but they contain important information.
• Make it easy to send in comments, bug reports, and questions. Analyze incoming feedback channels periodically for top usability issues and trouble areas. Look for clues about what people can’t find, their misunderstandings, and any unintended effects.
• Collect frequently asked questions and try to solve the problems they represent.
• Run booths at conferences that your customers and users attend so that they can volunteer information and talk with you directly.
• Give talks and demos: capture questions and concerns.

Ongoing and strategic activities can help you get ahead of problems and make systemic improvements.

• Find allies . It takes a coordinated effort to achieve design improvement. You’ll need collaborators and champions.
• Talk with experts . Learn from others’ successes and mistakes. Get advice from people with more experience.
• Follow ethical guidelines . The UXPA Code of Professional Conduct is a good starting point.
• Involve stakeholders . Don’t just ask for opinions; get people onboard and contributing, even in small ways. Share your findings, invite them to observe and take notes during research sessions.
• Hunt for data sources . Be a UX detective. Who has the information you need, and how can you gather it?
• Determine UX metrics. Find ways to measure how well the system is working for its users.
• Follow Tog's principles of interaction design .
• Use evidence-based design guidelines , especially when you can’t conduct your own research. Usability heuristics are high-level principles to follow.
• Design for universal access . Accessibility can’t be tacked onto the end or tested in during QA. Access is becoming a legal imperative, and expert help is available. Accessibility improvements make systems easier for everyone.
• Give users control . Provide the controls people need. Choice but not infinite choice.
• Prevent errors . Whenever an error occurs, consider how it might be eliminated through design change. What may appear to be user errors are often system-design faults. Prevent errors by understanding how they occur and design to lessen their impact.
• Improve error messages . For remaining errors, don’t just report system state. Say what happened from a user standpoint and explain what to do in terms that are easy for users to understand.
• Provide helpful defaults . Be prescriptive with the default settings, because many people expect you to make the hard choices for them. Allow users to change the ones they might need or want to change.
• Check for inconsistencies . Work-alike is important for learnability. People tend to interpret differences as meaningful, so make use of that in your design intentionally rather than introducing arbitrary differences. Adhere to the principle of least astonishment . Meet expectations instead.
• Map features to needs . User research can be tied to features to show where requirements come from. Such a mapping can help preserve design rationale for the next round or the next team.
• When designing software, ensure that installation and updating is easy . Make installation quick and unobtrusive. Allow people to control updating if they want to.
• When designing devices, plan for repair and recycling . Sustainability and reuse are more important than ever. Design for conservation.
• Avoid waste . Reduce and eliminate nonessential packaging and disposable parts. Avoid wasting people’s time, also. Streamline.
• Consider system usability in different cultural contexts . You are not your user. Plan how to ensure that your systems work for people in other countries . Translation is only part of the challenge.
• Look for perverse incentives . Perverse incentives lead to negative unintended consequences. How can people game the system or exploit it? How might you be able to address that? Consider how a malicious user might use the system in unintended ways or to harm others.
• Consider social implications . How will the system be used in groups of people, by groups of people, or against groups of people? Which problems could emerge from that group activity?
• Protect personal information . Personal information is like money. You can spend it unwisely only once. Many want to rob the bank. Plan how to keep personal information secure over time. Avoid collecting information that isn’t required, and destroy older data routinely.
• Keep data safe . Limit access to both research data and the data entrusted to the company by customers. Advocate for encryption of data at rest and secure transport. A data breach is a terrible user experience.
• Deliver both good and bad news . It’s human nature to be reluctant to tell people what they don’t want to hear, but it’s essential that UX raise the tough issues. The future of the product, or even the company, may depend on decisionmakers knowing what you know or suspect.
• Track usability over time . Use indicators such as number and types of support issues, error rates and task completion in usability testing, and customer satisfaction ratings, to show the effectiveness of design improvements.
• Include diverse users . People can be very different culturally and physically. They also have a range of abilities and language skills. Personas are not enough to prevent serious problems, so be sure your testing includes as wide a variety of people as you can.
• Track usability bugs . If usability bugs don’t have a place in the bug database, start your own database to track important issues.
• Pay attention to user sentiment . Social media is a great place for monitoring user problems, successes, frustrations, and word-of-mouth advertising. When competitors emerge, social media posts may be the first indication.
• Reduce the need for training . Training is often a workaround for difficult user interfaces, and it’s expensive. Use training and help topics to look for areas ripe for design changes.
• Communicate future directions . Customers and users depend on what they are able to do and what they know how to do with the products and services they use. Change can be good, even when disruptive, but surprise changes are often poorly received because they can break things that people are already doing. Whenever possible, ask, tell, test with, and listen to the customers and users you have. Consult with them rather than just announcing changes. Discuss major changes early, so what you hear can help you do a better job, and what they hear can help them prepare for the changes needed.
• Recruit people for future research and testing . Actively encourage people to join your pool of volunteer testers. Offer incentives for participation and make signing up easy to do via your website, your newsletter, and other points of contact.

Use this cheat-sheet to choose appropriate UX methods and activities for your projects and to get the most out of those efforts. It’s not necessary to do everything on every project, but it’s often helpful to use a mix of methods and tend to some ongoing needs during each iteration.

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UX Research Presentation

Learn how to design and structure an effective ux research presentation to showcase your research findings to teams and stakeholders..

Last update 03.07.2023

After you’ve created your research plan , recruited participants, conducted and analyzed the study results, it’s finally time to present your findings to colleagues, stakeholders and other people involved in the project. 

But how to make sure you nail the presentation, make it engaging, structured and most importantly – convincing?  

Read further to find our best tips for presenting the results of your UX research together with the collection of some of the best UX research presentation templates out there!

Key Takeaways: 

➡️ A UX research presentation is used to showcase your research findings to colleagues and stakeholders.

❗ It helps to influence decision-making , inspire action and generate empathy towards users and their problems.

✅ A research presentation is an alternative to a UX research report .

🧠 You don’t have to create a presentation from scratch, there are many free templates available online.

What is a UX research presentation? 

A UX research presentation is the process of presenting research findings to colleagues and relevant stakeholders. The goal of conducting the UX research presentation is to communicate results of the research activities you’ve performed, share relevant insights and critical problems you’ve uncovered and propose ideas for solving them.

It can also be described as an alternative to a user research report . However, while user research reports are often presented in a form of long complicated documents, UX research presentation is a faster and more convenient way to present your findings in an easy to understand and visually appealing way.

The goal of a UX presentation

The primary goal of a UX research presentation is to effectively communicate your research findings to other people involved in the project. However, apart from that, it holds several other benefits:

• Generate empathy : a good and engaging UX research presentation can help you explain user’s problems, needs and expectations to other team members and, therefore, generate empathy. This helps to humanize the user experience and shows its value even to people who may not understand it.
• Influence decision-making : by demonstrating the findings of your research, explaining their value and importance, you get an opportunity to prioritize specific design changes and convince stakeholders to invest in UX . 
• Facilitate collaboration : a UX presentation explains your research activities and their results in a way that is comprehensive for everyone, even the ones not involved in the product design process. This makes collaboration between teams easier, helps to spread awareness about the products, users and necessary changes. This collaborative approach encourages discussion and helps you come up with better solutions to users’ problems.
• Inspire action: The ultimate goal of a UX presentation is to drive action and implementation of the research findings. You should not only explain the problem, but also your ideas and recommendations on how to solve them.

How to create engaging UX research presentations

Let’s take a look at our 5 go-to tips on how to present research data in UX presentation:

1. Keep it short

Resist the urge to share every single detail of your research. Make your presentation relatively short and straight to the point. Focus on explaining the key insights and keep in mind your audience’s short attention spans. If you make the presentation too long, you risk boring them and losing their attention. 

Try to avoid putting any unnecessary information in your presentation and distill your research findings into clear, concise messages.

2. Show, don’t tell

The key in putting together a good UX Research presentation is making it highly visual. Empathize with your managers, stakeholders and other team members who haven’t been a part of your research process. They probably only have a vague understanding of the problem and presenting them with a few slides of plain text won’t make it much better. 

Your goal here is to create a clear and convincing showcase of the research process , the problem you’ve uncovered and your proposed solutions. To do that, focus on showing rather than telling . 

Imagine you’re talking about a specific problem users encounter, for example filling out the registration form. Instead of talking about it for 5 minutes straight, show a quick clip of a user experiencing that problem during a usability test. This will help to understand the problem better, empathize with the user and will save you time on long boring explanations.

3. Use storytelling

Make sure to use compelling visuals in order to support the story you’re telling.

4. Make it actionable

The main goal of your presentation is to highlight critical problems users face and present potential solutions. Therefore, after your presentation your audience should have a clear idea what needs to be done, how it will help and who is going to work on making the changes. 

Avoid being vague and unclear in your recommendation statements and focus on explaining and supporting your solutions with relevant data .

5. Encourage discussion

Encourage discussion among your audience as well as vocalizing any other questions , comments or concerns that arise. This will help to engage them even more and promote a better understanding of your research findings. 

And not only that! The biggest benefit of encouraging communication during your presentation is that by listening to their opinions and concerns you’re able to fine-tune your solutions to the problems, come up with better ones and overall just generate more effective ideas for improvement.

Things to avoid in a user research presentation

When preparing a user research presentation it’s important to keep in mind potential pitfalls that can influence its effectiveness. Here’s a list of mistakes to avoid when presenting the results of your research:

• Using too much jargon and technical language : remember, that not everyone in your audience is familiar with complex UX terms and internal jargon. Use a simple language, maybe even a conversational tone to make sure everyone understands what you’re talking about.
• Lack of structure: going back to the topic of storytelling, try to organize the information you’re going to present in a structured manner and give it a logical flow. 
• Cluttered slides: don’t overload your slides with information. Use concise bullet points, key phrases, and compelling visuals to convey information effectively. Make sure your presentation’s design is not too flashy, so that it doesn’t distract the audience. 
• Getting lost in details : avoid focusing on little details that don’t matter and instead try to explain how your research findings and their implications can benefit the bigger picture and the product overall.
• Lack of preparation : your presentation should be easy to listen to. Practice before you present and make sure that you don’t run through the slides, stutter or forget anything. A confident delivery will assure that the audience hears and understands you, instead of getting distracted by your poor presentation skills.

UX research presentation example

Now that you know the keys to effective research findings presentation, let’s take a look at an actual UX research presentation example. The UX research presentation example you see below is created by Visme and can be also used as a template, which we’ll also leave a link to.

This presentation is a great example of how you can provide an informative delivery of key insights and actionable recommendations.  

The structure of your UX research presentation can vary based on the objectives and the main information you want to convey, however, most of the times all presentations will follow a similar structure, same to the one in this UX research presentation example:

• Research Methodology
• Participant Profiles
• Key Findings 
• Recommendations

See full UX research presentation example .

UX Research Presentation Example. Source .

This example is great because it presents information in a quick and easy to understand manner, together with the clean minimalistic design. Therefore, the audience is able to gauge all the necessary details about the research in just a couple of slides. The only thing that it is lacking is more application of the “show, don’t tell” principle . 

Depending on the research method , we’d recommend adding some powerful quotes from the user tests , as well as video recordings of participants facing their primary problems with the product. This would help to generate empathy and help the audience understand users better. 

UX research presentation templates

1. ux research presentation template by visme.

A customizable colorful template that will help you condense the findings of your UX research into small bits and present them in a digestible way.

📥 Get the template

2. UX Presentation Template by Miro

A template by one of the most popular whiteboarding platforms that is available on their free plan and is perfect for presenting your user research findings to the team.

3. User Research Presentation Template by Furquan Ahmad

A beautifully designed report template available to anyone in the Figma community. The author of the template even provides a video explaining the step-by-step process of creating a good UX research report.

4. UX Research Presentation Template by Decoding Research

This is a paid template with 25+ slides to help you present your research findings. The template is available for download as PowerPoint and Keynote in English and Spanish.

5. Research Findings Presentation Template by Salman Farsi

A template created in Miro by an experienced Product Designer to speed up the report/finding presentation process and focus more on the content.

6. Usability Testing Results Presentation

A customizable template specifically to help you present your usability testing findings in a clear and visually appealing way.

📥 Get the template  

Wrapping up

Now that you know how to put together a UX research findings presentation, it’s time to take action! Conduct your study, empathize with users and do your best to solve their problems with your product.

And for the research part of it, UXtweak is always here and ready to help. Leverage our numerous UX tools, analyze data and generate custom PDF reports for your research presentations! Create a free account and start today!

Give a Try to Our UX Research Tools!

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FAQ: UX Research Presentation

You can structure your research findings presentation in the following way:

• Context: explain the problem and the background
• Research Goals: describe what you were trying to achieve
• Methods: what research methods did you use
• Findings: Present the key insights
• Analysis and recommendations: Interpret the findings and provide actionable next steps

When presenting UX research findings, consider the following tips:

• Keep it short
• Show, don’t tell
• Use storytelling
• Make it actionable
• Encourage discussion

UX Research Framework

Ux research bootcamp, topics: ux research basics.

• 01. UX Research Basics
• 02. Remote User Research
• 03. UX Research Plan
• 04. UX Research Questions
• 05. UX Research Methods
• 06. Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
• 07. UX Research Process
• 08. UX Research Report
• 09. UX Research Framework
• 10. UX Research Presentation
• 11. UX Research Bootcamp

UX Research Basics

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Research: How Ratings Systems Shape User Behavior in the Gig Economy

• Arne De Keyser,
• Christophe Lembregts,
• Jeroen Schepers

A study reveals surprising differences between displaying an average score or individual reviews.

Platform providers typically display ratings information to the user in two ways. Incremental rating systems, employed by platforms like TaskRabbit and Airbnb, offer a detailed view by listing and often providing insights into every individual review score. Averaged rating systems, used by platforms such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, present an overall score that aggregates all individual ratings. Over a series of nine experiments, researchers found that the way low ratings are communicated shapes user experience and behavior in a number of ways. Their findings offer implications for companies choosing between incremental or average ratings systems.

Rating systems, integral to the platform economy, profoundly influence human behavior and choice. Platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Turo, and Upwork rely on these systems not just as reflections of past performance, but as proactive tools for ensuring quality and encouraging proper conduct on both sides of a transaction from service providers (such as drivers and hosts) and users (like riders and guests).

• AK Arne De Keyser is a professor of marketing at EDHEC Business School. His research focuses on customer experience, frontline service technologies, and circular services.
• CL Christophe Lembregts is an associate professor of marketing at RSM Erasmus University. His research focuses on facilitating informed decision-making by investigating responses to quantitative information.
• JS Jeroen Schepers is an associate professor of frontline service and innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology. His research centers on frontline employees, artificial intelligence, and service robots.

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Teens and social media: Key findings from Pew Research Center surveys

For the latest survey data on social media and tech use among teens, see “ Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2023 .” 

Today’s teens are navigating a digital landscape unlike the one experienced by their predecessors, particularly when it comes to the pervasive presence of social media. In 2022, Pew Research Center fielded an in-depth survey asking American teens – and their parents – about their experiences with and views toward social media . Here are key findings from the survey:

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand American teens’ experiences with social media and their parents’ perception of these experiences. For this analysis, we surveyed 1,316 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, along with one parent from each teen’s household. The survey was conducted online by Ipsos from April 14 to May 4, 2022.

This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, which is an independent committee of experts that specializes in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

Ipsos invited panelists who were a parent of at least one teen ages 13 to 17 from its KnowledgePanel , a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses, to take this survey. For some of these questions, parents were asked to think about one teen in their household. (If they had multiple teenage children ages 13 to 17 in the household, one was randomly chosen.) This teen was then asked to answer questions as well. The parent portion of the survey is weighted to be representative of U.S. parents of teens ages 13 to 17 by age, gender, race, ethnicity, household income and other categories. The teen portion of the survey is weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents by age, gender, race, ethnicity, household income and other categories.

Here are the questions used  for this report, along with responses, and its  methodology .

Majorities of teens report ever using YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. YouTube is the platform most commonly used by teens, with 95% of those ages 13 to 17 saying they have ever used it, according to a Center survey conducted April 14-May 4, 2022, that asked about 10 online platforms. Two-thirds of teens report using TikTok, followed by roughly six-in-ten who say they use Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%). Much smaller shares of teens say they have ever used Twitter (23%), Twitch (20%), WhatsApp (17%), Reddit (14%) and Tumblr (5%).

Facebook use among teens dropped from 71% in 2014-15 to 32% in 2022. Twitter and Tumblr also experienced declines in teen users during that span, but Instagram and Snapchat saw notable increases.

TikTok use is more common among Black teens and among teen girls. For example, roughly eight-in-ten Black teens (81%) say they use TikTok, compared with 71% of Hispanic teens and 62% of White teens. And Hispanic teens (29%) are more likely than Black (19%) or White teens (10%) to report using WhatsApp. (There were not enough Asian teens in the sample to analyze separately.)

Teens’ use of certain social media platforms also varies by gender. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to report using TikTok (73% vs. 60%), Instagram (69% vs. 55%) and Snapchat (64% vs. 54%). Boys are more likely than girls to report using YouTube (97% vs. 92%), Twitch (26% vs. 13%) and Reddit (20% vs. 8%).

Majorities of teens use YouTube and TikTok every day, and some report using these sites almost constantly. About three-quarters of teens (77%) say they use YouTube daily, while a smaller majority of teens (58%) say the same about TikTok. About half of teens use Instagram (50%) or Snapchat (51%) at least once a day, while 19% report daily use of Facebook.

Some teens report using these platforms almost constantly. For example, 19% say they use YouTube almost constantly, while 16% and 15% say the same about TikTok and Snapchat, respectively.

More than half of teens say it would be difficult for them to give up social media. About a third of teens (36%) say they spend too much time on social media, while 55% say they spend about the right amount of time there and just 8% say they spend too little time. Girls are more likely than boys to say they spend too much time on social media (41% vs. 31%).

Teens are relatively divided over whether it would be hard or easy for them to give up social media. Some 54% say it would be very or somewhat hard, while 46% say it would be very or somewhat easy.

Girls are more likely than boys to say it would be difficult for them to give up social media (58% vs. 49%). Older teens are also more likely than younger teens to say this: 58% of those ages 15 to 17 say it would be very or somewhat hard to give up social media, compared with 48% of those ages 13 to 14.

Teens are more likely to say social media has had a negative effect on others than on themselves. Some 32% say social media has had a mostly negative effect on people their age, while 9% say this about social media’s effect on themselves.

Conversely, teens are more likely to say these platforms have had a mostly positive impact on their own life than on those of their peers. About a third of teens (32%) say social media has had a mostly positive effect on them personally, while roughly a quarter (24%) say it has been positive for other people their age.

Still, the largest shares of teens say social media has had neither a positive nor negative effect on themselves (59%) or on other teens (45%). These patterns are consistent across demographic groups.

Teens are more likely to report positive than negative experiences in their social media use. Majorities of teens report experiencing each of the four positive experiences asked about: feeling more connected to what is going on in their friends’ lives (80%), like they have a place where they can show their creative side (71%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), and that they are more accepted (58%).

When it comes to negative experiences, 38% of teens say that what they see on social media makes them feel overwhelmed because of all the drama. Roughly three-in-ten say it makes them feel like their friends are leaving them out of things (31%) or feel pressure to post content that will get lots of comments or likes (29%). And 23% say that what they see on social media makes them feel worse about their own life.

There are several gender differences in the experiences teens report having while on social media. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to say that what they see on social media makes them feel a lot like they have a place to express their creativity or like they have people who can support them. However, girls also report encountering some of the pressures at higher rates than boys. Some 45% of girls say they feel overwhelmed because of all the drama on social media, compared with 32% of boys. Girls are also more likely than boys to say social media has made them feel like their friends are leaving them out of things (37% vs. 24%) or feel worse about their own life (28% vs. 18%).

When it comes to abuse on social media platforms, many teens think criminal charges or permanent bans would help a lot. Half of teens think criminal charges or permanent bans for users who bully or harass others on social media would help a lot to reduce harassment and bullying on these platforms. 

About four-in-ten teens say it would help a lot if social media companies proactively deleted abusive posts or required social media users to use their real names and pictures. Three-in-ten teens say it would help a lot if school districts monitored students’ social media activity for bullying or harassment.

Some teens – especially older girls – avoid posting certain things on social media because of fear of embarrassment or other reasons. Roughly four-in-ten teens say they often or sometimes decide not to post something on social media because they worry people might use it to embarrass them (40%) or because it does not align with how they like to represent themselves on these platforms (38%). A third of teens say they avoid posting certain things out of concern for offending others by what they say, while 27% say they avoid posting things because it could hurt their chances when applying for schools or jobs.

These concerns are more prevalent among older teen girls. For example, roughly half of girls ages 15 to 17 say they often or sometimes decide not to post something on social media because they worry people might use it to embarrass them (50%) or because it doesn’t fit with how they’d like to represent themselves on these sites (51%), compared with smaller shares among younger girls and among boys overall.

Many teens do not feel like they are in the driver’s seat when it comes to controlling what information social media companies collect about them. Six-in-ten teens say they think they have little (40%) or no control (20%) over the personal information that social media companies collect about them. Another 26% aren’t sure how much control they have. Just 14% of teens think they have a lot of control.

Despite many feeling a lack of control, teens are largely unconcerned about companies collecting their information. Only 8% are extremely concerned about the amount of personal information that social media companies might have and 13% are very concerned. Still, 44% of teens say they have little or no concern about how much these companies might know about them.

Only around one-in-five teens think their parents are highly worried about their use of social media. Some 22% of teens think their parents are extremely or very worried about them using social media. But a larger share of teens (41%) think their parents are either not at all (16%) or a little worried (25%) about them using social media. About a quarter of teens (27%) fall more in the middle, saying they think their parents are somewhat worried.

Many teens also believe there is a disconnect between parental perceptions of social media and teens’ lived realities. Some 39% of teens say their experiences on social media are better than parents think, and 27% say their experiences are worse. A third of teens say parents’ views are about right.

Nearly half of parents with teens (46%) are highly worried that their child could be exposed to explicit content on social media. Parents of teens are more likely to be extremely or very concerned about this than about social media causing mental health issues like anxiety, depression or lower self-esteem. Some parents also fret about time management problems for their teen stemming from social media use, such as wasting time on these sites (42%) and being distracted from completing homework (38%).

Note: Here are the questions used  for this report, along with responses, and its  methodology .

CORRECTION (May 17, 2023): In a previous version of this post, the percentages of teens using Instagram and Snapchat daily were transposed in the text. The original chart was correct. This change does not substantively affect the analysis.

• Age & Generations
• Age, Generations & Tech
• Internet & Technology
• Platforms & Services
• Social Media
• Teens & Tech
• Teens & Youth

Emily A. Vogels is a former research associate focusing on internet and technology at Pew Research Center

Risa Gelles-Watnick is a research analyst focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center

How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time

Who are you the art and science of measuring identity, u.s. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years, older workers are growing in number and earning higher wages, teens, social media and technology 2023, most popular.

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