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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.

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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.

The State of UX Hiring Report 2024

Learn how to start your UX career with hard facts and practical advice from those who have gone before you. In this report, we look at UX hiring trends in 2024 to help you break into the industry.

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.

[GET CERTIFIED IN USER RESEARCH]

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.

[GET CERTIFIED IN UX]

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

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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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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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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How to conduct user research: A step-by-step guide

This is part one of a guide to User research.

Continue with part two: How to conduct user research: A Step-by-step guide

Continue with part three: What is exploratory research and why is it so exciting?

What user research did you conduct to reveal your ideal user?

Uh-oh. Not this question again. We both know the most common answer and it’s not great.

“Uhm, we talked to some users and had a brainstorming session with our team. It’s not much, but we don’t have time to do anything more right now. It’s better than nothing.”

Let’s be brutally honest about the meaning of that answer and rephrase it:

“ We don’t have time to get to know our actual user and maximize our chances of success. We’ll just assume that we know what they want and then wonder why the product fails at a later stage.”

If that sounds super bad, it’s because IT IS. You don’t want to end up in this situation. And you won’t.

After reading this guide, you’ll know exactly how to carry out the user research that will become your guiding star during product development.

On this page

Why is user research so important?

Step #1: define research objectives.

Go ahead – create that fake persona

Step #2: Pick your methods

Qualitative methods – the why, quantitative methods – the what, behavioral and attitudinal methods, step #3: find your participants, how to recruit participants, how many participants, step #4: conduct user research.

Focus groups

Competitive analysis

Field studies

What’s next?

User research can be a scary word. It may sound like money you don’t have, time you can’t spare, and expertise you need to find. That’s why some people convince themselves that it’s not that important.

Which is a HUGE mistake.

User research is crucial – without it, you’ll spend your energy, time and money on a product that is based around false assumptions that won’t work in the real world.

Let’s take a look at Segway, a technologically brilliant product with incredible introductory publicity. Although it’s still around, it simply didn’t reach initial expectations. Here are some of the reasons why:

• It brought mockery, not admiration. The user was always “that guy”, who often felt fat or lazy.
• Cities were not prepared for it. Neither users nor policemen knew if it should be used on the road or on the sidewalk.
• A large segment of the target market comprised of postal and security workers. However, postal workers need both hands while walking, and security workers prefer bikes that don’t have a limited range.

Segway mainly fell short because of issues that could’ve been foreseen and solved by better user research.

Tim Brown, the CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, sums it up nicely:

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.”

? Bonus material Download User research checklist and a comparison table

Never forget – you are not your user.

You require proper user research to understand your user’s problems, pain points, needs, desires, feelings and behaviours.

Let’s start with the process!

Before you get in touch with your target users, you need to define why you are doing the research in the first place. 

Establish clear objectives and agree with your team on your exact goals – this will make it much easier to gain valuable insights. Otherwise, your findings will be all over the place.

Here are some sample questions that will help you to define your objectives:

• What do you want to uncover?
• What are the knowledge gaps that you need to fill?
• What is already working and what isn’t?
• Is there a problem that needs to be fixed? What is that problem?
• What will the research bring to the business and/or your customers?

Once you start answering questions like these, it’s time to make a list of objectives. These should be specific and concise .

Let’s say you are making a travel recommendation app. Your research goals could be:

• Understand the end-to-end process of how participants are currently making travel decisions.
• Uncover the different tools that participants are using to make travel decisions.
• Identify problems or barriers that they encounter when making travel decisions.

I suggest that you prioritize your objectives and create an Excel table. It will come in handy later.

Go ahead, create that fake persona

A useful exercise for you to do at this stage is to write down some hypotheses about your target users.

Ask yourself:

What do we think we understand about our users that is relevant to our business or product?

Yes, brainstorm the heck out of this persona, but keep it relevant to the topic at hand.

Here’s my empathy map and empathy map canvas to really help you flesh out your imaginary user.

Once you’re finished, research any and every statement , need and desire with real people.

It’s a simple yet effective way to create questions for some of the research methods that you’ll be using.

However, you need to be prepared to throw some of your assumptions out of the window. If you think this persona may affect your bias, don’t bother with hypotheses and dive straight into research with a completely open mind.

Alright, you have your research goals. Now let’s see how you can reach them.

Here’s the main question you should be asking yourself at this step in the process:

Based on our time and manpower, what methods should we select?

It’s essential to pick the right method at the right time . I’ll delve into more details on specific methods in Step #4. For now, let’s take a quick look at what categories you can choose from.

Qualitative research tells you ‘why’ something occurs. It tells you the reasons behind the behavior, the problem or the desire. It answers questions like: “ Why do you prefer using app X instead of other similar apps?” or “What’s the hardest part about being a sales manager? Why?” .

Qualitative data comes in the form of actual insights and it’s fairly easy to understand.

Most of the methods we’ll look at in Step #4 are qualitative methods.

Quantitative research helps you to understand what is happening by providing different metrics.

It answers questions such as “What percentage of users left their shopping cart without completing the purchase?” or “Is it better to have a big or small subscription button?”.

Most quantitative methods come in handy when testing your product, but not so much when you’re researching your users. This is because they don’t tell you why particular trends or patterns occur.

There is a big difference between “what people do” and “what people say”.

As their names imply, attitudinal research is used to understand or measure attitudes and beliefs, whereas behavioral research is used to measure and observe behaviors.

Here’s a practical landscape that will help you choose the best methods for you. If it doesn’t make sense now, return to it once you’ve finished the guide and you’ll have a much better understanding.

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

I’ll give you my own suggestions and tips about the most common and useful methods in Step #4 – Conducting research.

In general, if your objectives are specific enough, it shouldn’t be too hard to see which methods will help you achieve them.

Remember that Excel table? Choose a method or two that will fulfill each objective and type it in the column beside it.

It won’t always be possible to carry out everything you’ve written down. If this is the case, go with the method(s) that will give you most of the answers. With your table, it will be easy to pick and choose the most effective options for you.

Onto the next step!

This stage is all about channeling your inner Sherlock and finding the people with the secret intel for your product’s success.

Consider your niche, your objectives and your methods – this should give you a general idea of the group or groups you want to talk to and research further.

Here’s my advice for most cases.

If you’re building something from the ground up, the best participants might be:

• People you assume face the problem that your product aims to solve
• Your competitors’ customers

If you are developing something or solving a problem for an existing product, you should also take a look at:

• Advocates and super-users
• Customers who have recently churned
• Users who tried to sign up or buy but decided not to commit

There are plenty of ways to bring on participants, and you can get creative so long as you keep your desired target group in mind.

You can recruit them online – via social media, online forums or niche community sites.

You can publish an ad with requirements and offer some kind of incentive.

You can always use a recruitment agency, too. This can be costly, but it’s also efficient.

If you have a user database and are changing or improving your product, you can find your participants in there. Make sure that you contact plenty of your existing users, as most of them won’t respond.

You can even ask your friends to recommend the right kind of people who you wouldn’t otherwise know.

With that said, you should always be wary of including friends in your research . Sure, they’re the easiest people to reach, but your friendship can (and probably will) get in the way of obtaining honest answers. There are plenty of horror stories about people validating their “brilliant” ideas with their friends, only to lose a fortune in the future. Only consider them if you are 100% sure that they will speak their mind no matter what.

That depends on the method. If you’re not holding a massive online survey, you can usually start with 5 people in each segment . That’s enough to get the most important unique insights. You can then assess the situation and decide whether or not you need to expand your research.

Finally! Let’s go through some of the more common methods you’ll be using, including their pros and cons, some pro tips, and when you should use them.

Engaging in one-on-one discussions with users enables you to acquire detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences. Individual concerns and misunderstandings can be directly addressed and cleared up on the spot.

Interviews are time-consuming, especially on a per participant basis. You have to prepare for them, conduct them, analyze them and sometimes even transcribe them. They also limit your sample size, which can be problematic. The quality of your data will depend on the ability of your interviewer, and hiring an expert can be expensive.

• Prepare questions that stick to your main topics. Include follow-up questions for when you want to dig deeper into certain areas.
• Record the interview . Don’t rely on your notes. You don’t want to interrupt the flow of the interview by furiously scribbling down your answers, and you’ll need the recording for any potential in-depth analysis later on.
• Conduct at least one trial run of the interview to see if everything flows and feels right. Create a “playbook” on how the interview should move along and update it with your findings.
• If you are not comfortable with interviewing people, let someone else do it or hire an expert interviewer. You want to make people feel like they are talking to someone they know, rather than actually being interviewed. In my experience, psychologists are a great choice for an interviewer.

Interviews are not really time-sensitive, as long as you do them before the development process.

However, they can be a great supplement to online surveys and vice-versa. Conducting an interview beforehand helps you to create a more focused and relevant survey, while conducting an interview afterwards helps you to explain the survey answers.

Surveys are generally conducted online, which means that it’s possible to gather a lot of data in a very short time for a very low price . Surveys are usually anonymous, so users are often more honest in their responses.

It’s more difficult to get a representative sample because it’s tough to control who takes part in the survey – especially if you post it across social media channels or general forums. Surveys are quite rigid and if you don’t account for all possible answers, you might be missing out on valuable data. You have to be very careful when choosing your questions – poorly worded or leading ones can negatively influence how users respond. Length can also be an issue, as many people hate taking long surveys.

• Keep your surveys brief , particularly if participants won’t be compensated for their time. Only focus on what is truly important.
• Make sure that the questions can be easily understood. Unclear or ambiguous questions result in data on which you can’t depend. Keep the wording as simple as possible.
• Avoid using leading questions. Don’t ask questions that assume something, such as “What do you dislike about X?”. Replace this with “What’s your experience with X?”.
• Find engaged, niche online communities that fit your user profile. You’ll get more relevant data from these.

Similar to interviews. It depends on whether you want to use the survey as a preliminary method, or if you want a lot of answers to a few, very focused questions.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are moderated discussions with around 5 to 10 participants, the intention of which is to gain insight into the individuals’ attitudes, ideas and desires.

As focus groups include multiple people, they can quickly reveal the desires, experiences, and attitudes of your target audience . They are helpful when you require a lot of specific information in a short amount of time. When conducted correctly, they can act like interviews on steroids.

Focus groups can be tough to schedule and manage. If the moderator isn’t experienced, the discussion can quickly go off-topic. There might be an alpha participant that dictates the general opinion, and because it’s not one-on-one, people won’t always speak their mind.

• Find an experienced moderator who will lead the discussion. Having another person observing and taking notes is also highly recommended, as he or she can emphasize actionable insights and catch non-verbal clues that would otherwise be missed.
• Define the scope of your research . What questions will you ask? How in-depth do you want to go with the answers? How long do you want each discussion to last? This will determine how many people and groups should be tested.
• If possible, recruit potential or existing users who are likely to provide good feedback, yet will still allow others to speak their mind. You won’t know the participants most of the time, so having an experienced moderator is crucial.

Focus groups work best when you have a few clear topics that you want to focus on.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of existing products . It explores how successful competitors act on the market. It gives you a solid basis for other user research methods and can also uncover business opportunities. It helps you to define your competitive advantage , as well as identify different user types.

A competitive analysis can tell you what exists, but not why it exists. You may collect a long feature list, but you won’t know which features are valued most by users and which they don’t use at all. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell how well a product is doing, which makes the data less useful. It also has limited use if you’re creating something that’s relatively new to the market.

• Create a list or table of information that you want to gather – market share, prices, features, visual design language, content, etc.
• Don’t let it go stale. Update it as the market changes so that you include new competitors.
• If you find something really interesting but don’t know the reason behind it, conduct research among your competitor’s users .
• After concluding your initial user research, go over the findings of your competitive analysis to see if you’ve discovered anything that’s missing on the market .

It can be a great first method, especially if you’re likely to talk to users of your competitors’ products

Field Studies

Field studies are research activities that take place in the user’s context, rather than at your company or office. Some are purely observational (the researcher is a “fly on the wall”), others are field interviews, and some act as a demonstration of pain points in existing systems.

You really get to see the big picture –  field studies allow you to gain insights that will fundamentally change your product design . You see what people actually do instead of what they say they do. A field study can explain problems and behaviours that you don’t understand better than any other method.

It’s the most time-consuming and expensive method. The results rely on the observer more than any of the other options. It’s not appropriate for products that are used in rare and specific situations.

• Establish clear objectives. Always remember why you are doing the research. Field studies can provide a variety of insights and sometimes it can be hard to stay focused. This is especially true if you are participating in the observed activity.
• Be patient. Observation might take some time. If you rush, you might end up with biased results.
• Keep an open mind and don’t ask leading questions. Be prepared to abandon your preconceptions, assumptions and beliefs. When interviewing people, try to leave any predispositions or biases at the door.
• Be warm but professional. If you conduct interviews or participate in an activity, you won’t want people around you to feel awkward or tense. Instead, you’ll want to observe how they act naturally.

Use a field study when no other method will do or if it becomes clear that you don’t really understand your user. If needed, you should conduct this as soon as possible – it can lead to monumental changes.

We started with a user persona and we’ll finish on this topic, too. But yours will be backed by research 😉

A persona outlines your ideal user in a concise and understandable way. It includes the most important insights that you’ve discovered. It makes it easier to design products around your actual users and speak their language. It’s a great way to familiarize new people on your team with your target market.

A persona is only as good as the user research behind it. Many companies create a “should be” persona instead of an actual one. Not only can such a persona be useless, it can also be misleading.

• Keep personas brief. Avoid adding unnecessary details and omit information that does not aid your decision making. If a persona document is too long, it simply won’t be used.
• Make personas specific and realistic. Avoid exaggerating and include enough detail to help you find real people that represent your ideal user.

Create these after you’ve carried out all of the initial user research. Compile your findings and create a persona that will guide your development process.

Now you know who you are creating your product for – you’ve identified their problems, needs and desires. You’ve laid the groundwork, so now it’s time to design a product that will blow your target user away! But that’s a topic for a whole separate guide, one that will take you through the process of product development and testing 😉

PS. Don’t forget -> Here is your ? User Research Checklist and comparison table

About the author

Oh hey, I’m Romina Kavcic

I am a Design Strategist who holds a Master of Business Administration. I have 14+ years of career experience in design work and consulting across both tech startups and several marquee tech unicorns such as Stellar.org, Outfit7, Databox, Xamarin, Chipolo, Singularity.NET, etc. I currently advise, coach and consult with companies on design strategy & management, visual design and user experience. My work has been published on Forbes, Hackernoon, Blockgeeks, Newsbtc, Bizjournals, and featured on Apple iTunes Store.

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What Is User Research, and What Is Its Purpose?

User research, or UX research, is an absolutely vital part of the  user experience design process.

Typically done at the start of a project, it encompasses different types of research methodologies to gather valuable data and feedback. When conducting user research, you’ll engage with and observe your target users, getting to know their needs, behaviors, and pain points in relation to the product or service you’re designing.

Ultimately, user research means the difference between designing based on guesswork and assumptions, and actually creating something that solves a real user problem. In other words: Do not skip the research phase!

If you’re new to user research, fear not. We’re going to explain exactly what UX research is and why it’s so important. We’ll also show you how to plan your user research and introduce you to some key user research methods .

We’ve divided this rather comprehensive guide into the following sections. Feel free to skip ahead using the menu below:

• What is user research?
• What is the purpose of user research?
• How to plan your user research.
• An introduction to different research methods—and when to use them.

Ready? Let’s jump in.

1. What is user research?

User experience research is the systematic investigation of your users in order to gather insights that will inform the design process. With the help of various user research techniques, you’ll set out to understand your users’ needs, attitudes, pain points, and behaviors (processes like task analyses look at how users actually navigate the product experience —not just how they should or how they say they do). 

Typically done at the start of a project—but also extremely valuable throughout—it encompasses different types of research methodology to gather both qualitative and quantitative data in relation to your product or service.

Before we continue, let’s consider the difference between qualitative and quantitative data .

Qualitative vs. Quantitative data: What’s the difference?

Qualitative UX research results in descriptive data which looks more at how people think and feel. It helps to find your users’ opinions, problems, reasons, and motivations. You can learn all about in-depth in this video by professional UX designer Maureen Herben:

Quantitative UX research , on the other hand, generally produces numerical data that can be measured and analyzed, looking more at the statistics. Quantitative data is used to quantify the opinions and behaviors of your users.

User research rarely relies on just one form of data collection and often uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods together to form a bigger picture. The data can be applied to an existing product to gain insight to help improve the product experiences, or it can be applied to an entirely new product or service, providing a baseline for UX, design, and development.

From the data gathered during your user research phase, you should be able to understand the following areas within the context of your product or service:

• Who your users are
• What their needs are
• What they want
• How they currently do things
• How they’d like to do them

As you consider the  why  of user research, remember that it’s easier than you might realize to overlook entire groups of users. It’s important to ensure that you’re conducting inclusive UX research and that starts in the earliest stages!

2. What is the purpose of user research?

The purpose of user research is to put your design project into context. It helps you understand the problem you’re trying to solve; it tells you who your users are, in what context they’ll be using your product or service, and ultimately, what they need from you, the designer! UX research ensures that you are designing with the user in mind, which is key if you want to create a successful product.

Throughout the design process, your UX research will aid you in many ways. It’ll help you identify problems and challenges, validate or invalidate your assumptions, find patterns and commonalities across your target user groups, and shed plenty of light on your users’ needs, goals, and mental models.

Why is this so important? Let’s find out.

Why is it so important to conduct user research?

Without UX research, you are essentially basing your designs on assumptions. If you don’t take the time to engage with real users, it’s virtually impossible to know what needs and pain-points your design should address.

Here’s why conducting user research is absolutely crucial:

User research helps you to design better products!

There’s a misconception that it’s ok to just do a bit of research and testing at the end of your project. The truth is that you need UX research first, followed by usability testing and iteration throughout.

This is because research makes the design better. The end goal is to create products and services that people want to use. The mantra in UX design is that some user research is always better than none .

It’s likely at some point in your UX career that you will come across the first challenge of any UX designer—convincing a client or your team to include user research in a project.

User research keeps user stories at the center of your design process.

All too often, the user research phase is seen as optional or merely “nice-to-have”—but in reality, it’s crucial from both a design and a business perspective. This brings us to our next point…

User research saves time and money!

If you (or your client) decide to skip the research phase altogether, the chances are you’ll end up spending time and money developing a product that, when launched, has loads of usability issues and design flaws, or simply doesn’t meet a real user need. Through UX research, you’ll uncover such issues early on—saving time, money, and lots of frustration!

The research phase ensures you’re designing with real insights and facts — not guesswork! Imagine you release a product that has the potential to fill a gap in the market but, due to a lack of user research, is full of bugs and usability issues. At best, you’ll have a lot of unnecessary work to do to get the product up to scratch. At worst, the brand’s reputation will suffer.

UX research gives the product a competitive edge. Research shows you how your product will perform in a real-world context, highlighting any issues that need to be ironed out before you go ahead and develop it.

User research can be done on a budget

There are ways that you can conduct faster and less costly user research , utilizing Guerrilla research outlined later on in this article (also handy if budget and time are an issue). Even the smallest amount of user research will save time and money in the long run.

The second challenge is how often businesses think they know their users without having done any research. You’ll be surprised at how often a client will tell you that user research is not necessary because they know their users!

In a 2005 survey completed by Bain, a large global management consulting firm, they found some startling results. 80% of businesses thought they knew best about what they were delivering. Only 8% of those businesses’ customers agreed.

The survey may be getting old, but the principle and misperception still persist.

In some cases, businesses genuinely do know their customers and there may be previous data on hand to utilize. However, more often than not, ‘knowing the users’ comes down to personal assumptions and opinions.

“It’s only natural to assume that everyone uses the Web the same way we do, and—like everyone else—we tend to think that our own behavior is much more orderly and sensible than it really is.” (Don’t Make Me Think ‘Revisited’, Steve Krug, 2014.) A must on every UX Designer’s bookshelf!

What we think a user wants is not the same as what a user thinks they want. Without research, we inadvertently make decisions for ourselves instead of for our target audience. To summarize, the purpose of user research is to help us design to fulfill the user’s actual needs, rather than our own assumptions of their needs.

In a nutshell, UX research informs and opens up the realm of design possibilities. It saves time and money, ensures a competitive edge, and helps you to be a more effective, efficient, user-centric designer.

3. How to plan your user research

When planning your user research , it’s good to have a mix of both qualitative and quantitative data to draw from so you don’t run into issues from the value-action gap, which can at times make qualitative data unreliable.

The value-action gap is a well-known psychology principle outlining that people genuinely don’t do what they say they would do, and is commonly referred to as what people say vs. what people do.

More than 60% of participants said they were “likely” or “very likely” to buy a kitchen appliance in the next 3 months. 8 months later, only 12% had. How Customers Think, Gerald Zaltman, 2003

When planning your user research, you need to do more than just User Focus Groups—observation of your users really is the key. You need to watch what your users do.

Part of being a great user researcher is to be an expert at setting up the right questions and getting unbiased answers from your users.

To do this we need to think like the user.

Put yourself in your user’s shoes without your own preconceptions and assumptions on how it should work and what it should be. For this, we need empathy (and good listening skills) allowing you to observe and challenge assumptions of what you already think you know about your users.

Be open to some surprises!

4. When to use different user research methods

There’s a variety of different qualitative and quantitative research methods out there. If you’ve been doing the CareerFoundry UX Design course , you may have already covered some of the list below in your course.

It isn’t an exhaustive list, but covers some of the more popular methods of research. Our student team lead runs through many of them in the video below.

Qualitative Methods:

• Guerrilla testing: Fast and low-cost testing methods such as on-the-street videos, field observations, reviews of paper sketches, or online tools for remote usability testing.
• Interviews: One-on-one interviews that follow a preset selection of questions prompting the user to describe their interactions, thoughts, and feelings in relation to a product or service, or even the environment of the product/service.
• Focus groups: Participatory groups that are led through a discussion and activities to gather data on a particular product or service. If you’ve ever watched Mad Men you’ll be familiar with the Ponds’ cold cream Focus Group !
• Field Studies: Heading into the user’s environment and observing while taking notes (and photographs or videos if possible).
• In-lab testing: Observations of users completing particular tasks in a controlled environment. Users are often asked to describe out loud their actions, thoughts, and feelings and are videoed for later analysis
• Card sorting : Used to help understand Information Architecture and naming conventions better. Can be really handy to sort large amounts of content into logical groupings for users.

Quantitative Methods:

• User surveys: Questionnaires with a structured format, targeting your specific user personas. These can be a great way to get a large amount of data. Surveymonkey is a popular online tool.
• First click testing: A test set up to analyse what a user would click on first in order to complete their intended task. This can be done with paper prototypes, interactive wireframes or an existing website.
• Eye tracking: Measures the gaze of the eye, allowing the observer to ‘see’ what the user sees. This can be an expensive test and heatmapping is a good cheaper alternative.
• Heatmapping: Visual mapping of data showing how users click and scroll through your prototype or website. The most well-known online tool to integrate would be Crazyegg.
• Web analytics: Data that is gathered from a website or prototype it is integrated with, allowing you to see the demographics of users, page views, and funnels of how users move through your site and where they drop off. The most well-known online tool to integrate would be Google Analytics .
• A/B testing: Comparing two versions of a web page to see which one converts users more. This is a great way to test button placements, colors, banners, and other elements in your UI.

Further reading

Now you know what user research is and why it’s so important. If you’re looking for a way to get trained in this particular discipline, there’s good news—owing to demand and popularity, there’s a growing number of UX research bootcamps out there.

If you’d like to learn more about UX research, you may find the following articles useful:

• What Does A UX Researcher Actually Do? The Ultimate Career Guide
• How to Conduct User Research Like a Professional
• How to Build a UX Research Portfolio (Step-by-Step Guide)

User research is the process of understanding the needs, behaviors, and attitudes of users to inform the design and development of products or services. It involves collecting and analyzing data about users through various methods such as surveys, interviews, and usability testing.

2. How to conduct user research?

User research can be conducted through various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, and usability testing. The method chosen depends on the research goals and the resources available. Typically, user research involves defining research objectives, recruiting participants, creating research protocols, conducting research activities, analyzing data, and reporting findings.

3. Is user research the same as UX?

User research is a part of the broader UX (User Experience) field, but they are not the same. UX encompasses a wide range of activities such as design, testing, and evaluation, while user research specifically focuses on understanding user needs and behaviors to inform UX decisions.

4. What makes good user research?

Good user research is characterized by clear research goals, well-defined research protocols, appropriate sampling methods, unbiased data collection, and rigorous data analysis. It also involves effective communication of research findings to stakeholders, as well as using the findings to inform design and development decisions.

5. Is user research a good career?

User research is a growing field with many opportunities for career growth and development. With the increasing importance of user-centered design, there is a high demand for skilled user researchers in various industries such as tech, healthcare, and finance. A career in user research can be fulfilling for those interested in understanding human behavior and designing products that meet user needs.

• Utility Menu

User Research Center

User research analysis guide, by meg mcmahon.

Analyzing the notes from a user research study is an essential part of answering the research questions that prompted the study. 

During the analysis, you or your team decide what insights are generated from the notes taken about the research studies. The insights should relate to the research questions posed at the beginning of the study or point to future research.

Before Analysis 

Become familiar with the study.

Read over the research questions, script, background information on the project, and any notes moderators took during interviews.

Decide on analysis type

There are two types of analysis that the URC team uses frequently, an affinity diagramming session and thematic coding.

• Affinity diagramming: this is a process in which all of the notes are separated into individual sticky notes (virtual or physical) and grouped by question or participant at first. Then the analyzers take an even number of groups and sort them individually and then together to find themes. We at the URC use Miro or Dovetail to virtually facilitate this process. 
• Thematic coding: this is a process where the notes or a transcript are marked up using codes. Codes are like tags or hashtags. They are bits of metadata that you use to describe other data. After the codes are created the analyzers go through and draw insights from the coded information. We at the URC use Dovetail for this type of analysis.

Decide on who should help with analysis

Often it is a good idea to include stakeholders, as well as yourself, in the analysis process for two primary reasons. One, the stakeholders are able to be a subject matter expert on the system, process, or workflow you are evaluating and two, by participating in the analysis process they are more likely to feel ownership over the final findings and recommendations.

Analysis Basics 

Keep a scratch document.

While analyzing your data, it can be helpful to have a scratch document (a document separate from the main notes document) open to the side. You can use this scratch document to:

• Write down quotes from notes that are especially powerful or meaningful. 
• Write down any initial insights you have. An insight informs the research questions or furthers your research goals in some way. 

Give insights specific names

Insights are created from the themes or codes created during affinity diagramming or thematic coding. Look at the connections between themes or codes, what are larger insights you can draw from them?

Give each insight a name and be as specific as possible. Insights should help your stakeholders understand their research questions.

• DO: use a strong, clear insight: Participants collaboratively search with a collection specialist as a part of the search process. This was noted to build researchers' special collections research skills.
• DON’T: use a hard to understand, non-specific insight: collaborative search

Review the data with other analyzers 

After reviewing the data on your own, discuss what you think of the first themes. Why are they important? What pattern do they surface? How do they relate to the research questions?

Back up insights with quotes

Quote or paraphrase ideas directly from the participants that relate to insights add more impact in the future report.

Look for research gaps

After having insights figured out the next step is to review the insights for any research gaps. Can you answer the research questions in your research plan? If not, what additional research is needed? Or are there other themes that don’t directly relate to the research questions which point to a future follow up study?

Prioritize insights most closely related to research questions

As a user researcher your job is to answer the research questions that started the study. If there is an insight that is only tangentially related to the research questions, it is okay to prioritize insights that are more directly related to the research questions when writing the report. 

Affinity diagramming

Take the time to set up session.

Affinity diagramming takes time to set up, but it is important to have every note grouped either by participant or by question. 

Create top level themes and sub themes

Start to sort the notes into themes. It is okay to create multiple levels of themes if the data lends itself to this kind of grouping. This is helpful for reports to group like insights together for readability. 

Themes are not insights

Themes are not insights, they are building blocks for insights. When you are grouping themes it is okay to keep them more vague than you would an insight.

Collapse themes together if necessary 

Often when affinity diagramming you may find similar themes within different questions. It is okay to collapse those themes together under a unifying heading. Themes (and insights) don’t need to be based on only a single question.

Avoid creating a "group" of unrelated notes

There are times in affinity diagramming where there are notes that don’t relate easily to any other notes for the study. It is okay to have orphan notes, notes that don’t relate to any theme. If the finding is important enough, it is okay for the orphan note to be its own theme.

Thematic coding

Codes (tags) are not insights.

Codes (tags) are not insights, they are building blocks for insights. When you are adding codes to the notes or transcripts it is okay to keep them more vague than you would an insight.

Use nested coding

When coding you may need to use nested codes. For example, say you’ve created a tag labeled “Coffee”. Now, if you are talking about how people like their coffee served you may make it a two word code/tag like “Coffee Served”.

If you want to specify that someone likes the coffee “black”, you can add a third word. However, considering “black” is a word that now describes “Coffee Served”, it would be best to create a nested tag which should look something like this: “Coffee Served: Black”.

This makes the tag structure easy to use again. For example, if you have to tag a comment later where someone mentions they like the coffee  with cream and sugar, it’s easy to add that as “Coffee Served: Cream & Sugar”.

Repeat codes if necessary 

Your codes should inform your research questions and you should repeat codes as necessary. If someone talks about the same thing at various times throughout the interview, code each of those instances with the same code.

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How to write a games user research report

Excellent reporting requires excellent storytelling and clear communication - learn how to write a games user research report

Last updated: February 15, 2022

This month, we explore what goes into writing a games user research report, and how to communicate research results effectively.

When a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? I’m unsure. But I’ve seen plenty of research studies make no sound because of how they were communicated.

The hard work that goes into planning and running the study is undermined by poor communication. Excellent reporting requires a balance of building trust, excellent storytelling and clear communication – today we’ll look at some tips on how to do that (and look at a real report!).

Write a games user research report

What is a user research report

A games user research report summarises the findings from a playtest or research study – they are the conclusion of all of the work defining objectives, writing tasks, moderating sessions and analysing data. 

Writing a formal report is only one way of sharing research findings with teams. Its strength is that it is a stand-alone document. A report should hopefully make sense to someone who didn’t see the research study, or to yourself in six months time when you’ve forgotten what you learned in that test. 

The importance of storytelling

A dull report that just lists findings will be easy to forget and will have low impact. With time researchers learn the value of sharing fewer findings, but making the ones they share more impactful. 

A key skill for early career UX researchers – learning how to discover all of the findings. A key skill later in your career – learning which are the important ones your team need to know today. pic.twitter.com/pkOBt7xSwb — Steve Bromley 🦆 (@Steve_Bromley) January 4, 2022

Having a narrative thread through the report is one way of achieving that. Here’s some tips from EA’s Jess Tompkins.

Begin with your most important insight(s) first. That might actually be a thesis statement, not necessarily a super granular UX issue (although, depending on the study, it could be) — Jess T (@jess_tompkins_) February 5, 2022

I also like to organize UX issues / learnings into digestible insights categories, rather than feature-defined categories, if that makes sense — Jess T (@jess_tompkins_) February 5, 2022

A report is not the only way to share findings. Depending on the relationship with the team, an email or conversation may be more appropriate. 

When deciding how to share findings, remember a report is also not the point of research. We’re running studies to improve games. At all times think about ‘what is the clearest way to communicate my findings with my team’, and use that to inform how you present your research findings – whether you are making a report or not. 

What is in the report

VidyaResearcher covers the benefits of keeping the structure for your report consistent: 

Makes the structure easily glanceable, and habituating across reports so stakeholders know what to read (and you have a consistent documentation of your findings). — Vidya Researcher (@VidyaResearcher) February 4, 2022

Making a template makes it easier to consistently structure your report. Here’s what’s typically included within the report:

A one-page summary

A report will have multiple audiences. Some people will need all the detail explaining exactly what was discovered and what caused the issues. This information is helpful for the people who have to design and implement fixes. This can include designers, artists and programmers working on the features described.

Other team members don’t need to know the specifics of each problem, and just need an overview of the scale of the issues and how much attention they will need – most commonly important execs, or producers who need to manage the schedule.

Many games user research reports start with a high level summary of the test, including the most significant findings – what the most important issues were, what areas of the game need the most attention, and the overall state of the game. A good model for thinking about the exec summary is “if someone asked me in a lift how that test went, what would I say”. 

To increase the impact of the work, it’s helpful to explain why the study is relevant and important to what team’s need to know today. Here’s a tip from Tom Lorusso:

great idea. Here's mine…Set the context up front. Why did you do the study? Why is the question or feature important enough to research? Don't start with "on this date we did this study". That's a missed opportunity for storytelling. — tom lorusso (@tomlorusso) February 5, 2022

Again, effective storytelling is important to allow your findings to have the impact they deserve.

Grouping issues

Putting similar issues together makes it easier for teams to follow your findings. It allows teams to section the report, and share relevant sections with the right people to fix them. All of this makes communication of the points clearer, and increases the potential your report will be impactful. Your research objectives might inspire suitable ways to group your findings – whether that is by game mechanic (such as ‘issues with crafting’), by ‘type’ of issue (e.g. ‘issues with the UI)

Think about the ordering of the groups, and put them into a logical order. For linear games, that might be chronological – the order the player encounters them. Or you may consider ordering them by severity – the mechanics with the biggest issues first. 

Within each section, again consider how you are ordering the findings. Most severe first? Or chronological? Think about the experience of the reader, and pick an order that makes sense when read.

Each issue explained fully

Proper data collection and analysis should allow you to give appropriate detail to your findings. Describing ‘what is the issue’ isn’t enough by itself. We also need to give enough detail about the causes of the issue so that teams understand where their attention needs to be to fix the issue. Describing the impact on the player will also help teams prioritise, by anticipating the impact of fixing the issue on players.

All of this adds up to a cause/impact structure being common when reporting usability issues – where the intended experience is contrasted to what players actually experienced, such as on this slide: 

This structure works for usability issues – but again isn’t the only way of reporting findings. With richer findings (such as describing truths about players), you should consider other ways of describing what you learned so that the key points are understood by the reader. 

Some teams also share recommendations or prompts to inspire solutions on their slides also. We’ll cover more about this in future lessons.

Across the whole report, clarity in writing is important. Some tips for writing clearly:

• Have only one idea or finding per slide.
• Use uncomplicated words that people use in normal everyday speech. Avoid jargon.
• Use short sentences.
• If you have to use a font-size smaller than… 16? you probably have too many words on your slide. If you’re not presenting findings, but trying to make a report that tells a story, aim for nothing under a font size of 30.
• Pictures and diagrams can make your points clearer – but only if they are understandable. Overwhelming diagrams will quickly lose the audience.

We want our research to lead to action – and a next steps section is one way to encourage that. If you intend to run a workshop to help teams apply your findings, you can suggest that as the next step. Or if teams are going to be addressing the issues themselves, you could suggest further research objectives to tackle, or remind teams to re-test to check the issues have been fixed successfully.

See a real research report

In my talk last year on ‘how to get games user research experience without having a job ’, I partnered with Cat Floor Studio who kindly allowed me to share the report from our review together. 

It doesn’t incorporate all of the best practices discussed above (where is the storytelling!) and more work could be done on making the most important points obvious. However to see an example of what a report might look like, take a look at this usability review of The GoD Unit. 

Other reporting tips

Laure Duchamp shared her tips on LinkedIn

• Think about your audiences, all of them. If your communication speaks to a variety of stakeholders, chances are it will have more reach and will be used for various purposes.
• I usually divide it into parts and at the end of each part sum up key insights and recommendations. That way you have more rhythm, and people don’t have to wait until the end to get your point.
• Make it more alive with images, gifs and videos clips! Varying inputs helps keep attention
• Add all your « further data » (any complex graph or raw data) at the end, in a part you might not use when presenting. Having extra slides can be good for picky stakeholders who like to dig into the evidence, or just to add more context to your insights.
• Your report is a material that has to stand and live on its own. It has to be reusable and shareable without you being there to talk it through.

We’ll explore other ways in which research findings can be shared in future issues, so stay tuned! 

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Steve Bromley is an expert user researcher, who works with studios of all sizes to run playtests , and integrate user research into the game development process .

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About 1 in 5 U.S. teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork

Roughly one-in-five teenagers who have heard of ChatGPT say they have used it to help them do their schoolwork, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17. With a majority of teens having heard of ChatGPT, that amounts to 13% of all U.S. teens who have used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in their schoolwork.

Teens in higher grade levels are particularly likely to have used the chatbot to help them with schoolwork. About one-quarter of 11th and 12th graders who have heard of ChatGPT say they have done this. This share drops to 17% among 9th and 10th graders and 12% among 7th and 8th graders.

There is no significant difference between teen boys and girls who have used ChatGPT in this way.

The introduction of ChatGPT last year has led to much discussion about its role in schools , especially whether schools should integrate the new technology into the classroom or ban it .

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand American teens’ use and understanding of ChatGPT in the school setting.

The Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, via Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel . The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories.

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

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

Teens’ awareness of ChatGPT

Overall, two-thirds of U.S. teens say they have heard of ChatGPT, including 23% who have heard a lot about it. But awareness varies by race and ethnicity, as well as by household income:

• 72% of White teens say they’ve heard at least a little about ChatGPT, compared with 63% of Hispanic teens and 56% of Black teens.
• 75% of teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually have heard of ChatGPT. Much smaller shares in households with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 (58%) and less than $30,000 (41%) say the same.

Teens who are more aware of ChatGPT are more likely to use it for schoolwork. Roughly a third of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT (36%) have used it for schoolwork, far higher than the 10% among those who have heard a little about it.

When do teens think it’s OK for students to use ChatGPT?

For teens, whether it is – or is not – acceptable for students to use ChatGPT depends on what it is being used for.

There is a fair amount of support for using the chatbot to explore a topic. Roughly seven-in-ten teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use when they are researching something new, while 13% say it is not acceptable.

However, there is much less support for using ChatGPT to do the work itself. Just one-in-five teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to write essays, while 57% say it is not acceptable. And 39% say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to solve math problems, while a similar share of teens (36%) say it’s not acceptable.

Some teens are uncertain about whether it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT for these tasks. Between 18% and 24% say they aren’t sure whether these are acceptable use cases for ChatGPT.

Those who have heard a lot about ChatGPT are more likely than those who have only heard a little about it to say it’s acceptable to use the chatbot to research topics, solve math problems and write essays. For instance, 54% of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to solve math problems, compared with 32% among those who have heard a little about it.

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

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Olivia Sidoti is a research assistant focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center

Jeffrey Gottfried is an associate director focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center

Many Americans think generative AI programs should credit the sources they rely on

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