Your research report is holding you back from strategic impact
Whenever I see or hear someone struggling with crafting more strategic research communications, I send them to 2 places:
First up is Dr. Ari Zelmanow’s blog post on Navigating the Research Crisis: Tackling Value, Delivery, and Relevance Challenges. This helps reset the mindset needed to deliver strategic impact.
The second is V Sri’s slides on Storytelling for UX Research and Better Presentations in 5 Steps.
Specifically, V calls out that research is memorable and impactful when we remember that humans respond to stories filled with tension and resolution.
Let’s look at V’s Example
V’s framework can be applied to your overarching report to help give it structure and resonance. However, don’t forget that a research report is made of smaller stories. Each one counts if you want to make impact.
The Typical UX Research slide
The typical UX research slide doesn’t work because it speaks researcher, not business. Reporting facts doesn’t change someone’s worldview or help them understand why they should tackle the problem you’re elevating.
Here are the red flags to look for:
It lacks a narrative framework, which leads to a report that’s dry, boring, and/or tedious. You’ve forgotten that humans respond to stories.
It’s too verbose, vague, or over-detailed. Edit each line like a journalist, not a PhD.
It leaves your audience with homework. If folks have to synthesize your report in order to act on it, you haven’t done the job. Make the “so what, why, and how” obvious.
It’s myopic and tactical. Most reports focus on the study at hand. But going beyond your study’s surface level findings and connecting to a broader picture is how we move toward strategic communication. Wherever possible, consider doing additional investigation: look at KPIs, analytics, VOIC, previous studies, internal processes, etc. Connect each finding to clear impact: How many people (both internal users and customers) are potentially affected? For how long has this been happening? Tell the whole story, not just the observation of today.
It’s confusing describing customer needs with providing concrete product recommendations. You should have a clear point-of-view of what should go on the product roadmap.
A better path forward
Here is V’s suggested rewrite of the above slide.
Here’s why I think it works:
The Headline signals tension for the business and immediately makes the “so what” clear: That conversion rates and the sales team are impacted by the pricing page design. The Why Now? section adds color to what exactly is happening.
In the Give it Teeth section, going the extra step to figure out how many folks contacted sales about this problem makes it easier for product teams to estimate the impact of working on this and justify any potential roadmap re-prioritization.
The Promised Land section goes that extra step of connecting changes to felt and measurable outcomes for both internal and external users.
The Potential Strategies section makes it obvious what the team needs to do to overcome the obstacles presented, making it fast and easy to add it to the roadmap.
Narrative frameworks quick reference
Andy Raskin’s 5-part pitch (Name a big change, Show winners & losers, Tease the promised land, List features to overcome obstacles, Supporting evidence we can reach the promised land)
Kishōtenketsu (Introduction, Development, Twist, Conclusion)
AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
What narrative frameworks do you use to create strategic and effective research presentations? I’d love to build out this list further.
<3EQ