From insights to design: Improve your research handover

Ever wondered why your research doesn’t quite land with the impact you want it to? Learn how to improve your handover with design and product teams and get the most value from your insights

As User Experience Researchers (UXR’s), we have all been there. You meticulously plan your research. You recruit just the right number and type of participants. You run your study, learn a ton of useful stuff and spend hours lovingly crafting an insights summary that will be sure to blow your stakeholders away.

And yet.

Despite your shiny presentation, the recommendations and insights you share end up going nowhere, dying a slow, sad digital death inside a Google Drive. Cue a frustrated, disheartened researcher and a big missed opportunity for an organisation to make more user-centric decision.

Now, there are a number of factors that could contribute to an outcome like this. On the macro level, you may be up against some cultural or organisational influences such as:

• Lack of understanding or respect for the value of research “but we already know what the user wants, why do research?”
• Worse still, an organisation that doesn’t centre the user at all “we are innovating, users don’t know what they need” usually followed by a quote about faster horses, etc
• A lack of an organisational learning culture that invites and enables evidence-based decision making, often evident when someone has a pet project or idea they aren’t open to being challenged on
• Difficulty fitting research into an agile delivery model “we don’t have time to incorporate these findings into the design, we have to ship this in the next sprint”

Now assuming these are not the issues at hand (perhaps something to tackle in a future article…or ten!), but your research findings are still not getting the love and consideration they deserve, there may be some more minor, but important blockers at play:

1. Designers or Product Managers being too disconnected from the research in real time, meaning they are less bought-into the outcomes
2. Too big of a lull between research and design phases, meaning momentum is lost
3. Designers or other stakeholders don’t know how to take what you learned and turn it into design decisions

Let’s unpack and address some ways to prevent these blockers, shall we?

Designers or Product Managers being too disconnected from the research in real time, meaning they are less bought-into the outcomes

One of the best ways to mitigate a lacklustre response to your research is to ensure your key stakeholders have been along the research journey with you. My favourite and most effective way to include designers and product stakeholders is to invite them to observe or note take during research sessions. We also include a short but potent debrief at the end of this session to summarise key takeaways, surprises and remaining questions which also enables much faster synthesis at the end of a research phase (win-win).

This not only helps them build empathy for the user, understand the needs and pain points, but it also means they have first hand knowledge of the learnings in real time and generally this limits surprises when it comes to sharing findings at the conclusion of the research phase.

Too big of a lull between research and design phases, meaning momentum is lost

When your research findings are hot off the press, it’s ideal to organise a prioritisation or ideation workshop or similar within a week or so of the research phase ending. Basically, you want to turn your findings into clear next steps and keep things moving whilst it is fresh in all of your minds.

Depending on the scope and method of the research and what needs to happen next, the exact structure of a session may vary, but to give a tangible example, following research findings being concluded, I’ve sometimes done something as simple as sitting down with a designer and documenting or sketching ideas on how the findings can be included in a prototype, that the designer then takes away to refine further.

Designers or other stakeholders don’t know how to take what you learned and turn it into design decisions

Maybe you have done some more generative or exploratory research that is less straightforward in how to move into design, unlike more evaluative research like usability studies, for example. Rightly so, this can result in broader, more nebulous findings that can be difficult to immediately translate into design concepts.

In these instances, building on the point above about timing, it can help to have insights accompanied with ‘How Might We’ statements, that reframe a problem into a design challenge or opportunity. This provides a launching pad for yourself, Design and Product to start ideating potential solutions to these problems.

Additionally, there’s often talk in the UXR realm about whether or not to provide recommendations with research findings. I like to wherever possible, even if they are high level, it can take the guesswork out for Designers or Product Managers on how to move forward. They can always be challenged, but sometimes stating an insight alone is not enough.

A final note

Don’t forget to ask your colleagues for feedback on your research process and deliverables. If you build it, they will not always come, no matter how awesome your slide deck looks.

Understand what helps them to take action, and what hinders them. Always be looking for ways to improve and build on your methods, and I assure you this will increase the likelihood of your research having the impact and return on investment it likely deserves.