Sharing User Research Findings

No researcher ever wants to put a ton of time, thought, and energy into a study, only for the insights to be overlooked. Even the most innovative work loses value if stakeholders don’t understand or apply what has been learned. And communicating user research findings is getting harder as research moves away from its academic roots and closer to the core function of the business. 

As our State of User Research 2024 found, most dedicated Researchers (77%) are embedded in Product, Design, or UX teams, working alongside “non-Researchers.” Research isn’t an island, and therefore one of the most important parts of your role as a researcher today is distilling the insights that have emerged from your work into a clear “so what” that deeply resonates with stakeholders and the broader organization. 

Even so, the findings itself are only one piece of the puzzle. In this Field Guide chapter, we’ll break down not only how to effectively distill your research findings, but how to share them across your organization to maximize their impact and longevity.

Understanding Research Findings

Before we talk about sharing your findings, let’s get on the same page about what we’re referring to: Research findings are what make up the “so what?” of your report. They’re the core insights that make your research valuable, and are often based on the research question posed during your study design or even challenge your initial hypothesis.

Types of research findings

Findings can be referred to by many different names (results, outcomes, evidence, observations, or key takeaways) and come in a number of formats, including:

• Qualitative: These patterns, themes, and emotional responses come from non-numerical data like interviews, observations, open-ended questions. 
• Quantitative: These metrics, measurements, correlations, or statistically significant points come from numerical data and statistical analysis.
• Mixed Methods: The best of both worlds! These insights integrate both qual and quant to balance breadth and depth.

Writing the Research Results Section

Research reports and presentations are often the first opportunity to communicate the significance of your work for the rest of your team before disseminating them in other forms. The results section is usually the focal point and showcases your main findings. Additionally, this section is usually what is translated for other audiences for impactful research dissemination (but more on that later). 

These sections typically include: 

• An overview statement: summary or key takeaways of findings
• Presentation of findings: typically arranged by your research question or core hypothesis
• Supporting evidence: these might include data visualizations, quotes from customers, and statistics

Sample Results Section

Below is a sample results section of a usability study examining prototype engagement through quantitative and qualitative methods. 

It leads with the main finding supported with specific metrics, breaks down the primary findings into meaningful customer segments, then integrates a qualitative finding that explains the quantitative insight.

Users demonstrated higher engagement with Prototype A compared to the control, with average session duration increasing 3.5 minutes. When examining engagement by segments, first time users showed the most dramatic improvement, with a 40% increase in feature discovery. Return users showed more modest gains of 12%. Interview feedback correlated with these results, participants specifically mentioned the intuitive layout and clearer navigation cues as factors that encouraged exploration. One participant noted “I felt like there was a system guiding me naturally toward discovering new capabilities.”

Common Results Section Pitfalls to Avoid

When writing your results section, researchers frequently stumble upon common pitfalls including:

• Only focusing on data that supports your initial hypothesis: Cherry picking results that support your opinion is a common sign of bias in research. For example, you might focus on a handful of responses or a sliver of data that supports your assumptions, but ignore the majority of responses that suggest that you are wrong.
• Conflating correlation with causation: Just because two variables are linked does not mean one causes or even influences the other. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods ensures that the measurement of related and interdependent variables is not only mathematically sound but also considers unmeasurable or contextual factors. 
• Burying key findings under excessive details or insights: Don’t bury the lede! Hook your audience by making sure the juiciest, most impactful findings are easy to find and read. 
• Using jargon that is unclear to stakeholders: Keep your writing simple and straightforward by avoiding any terminology that is not part of a non-researcher’s everyday language. If a research-specific term is important to communicating your findings, make sure you define it for your audience. 

Communicating Research Effectively

According to Morgan Mullen Koufos, Lead User Experience Researcher at User Interviews, once you’ve completed your research report (noun), it’s time to report your research (verb). While a simple “read this!” Slack message with a link to the full report might suffice for disseminating research among your closest team members, it’s likely you’ll need a bit more strategy for impactful sharing with audiences elsewhere in your organization. 

In essence, effectively communicating research boils down to taking your results section, translating it for different audience needs, and ensuring they see it. This practice helps build your reputation in helping create institutional knowledge around customers and driving decision making momentum. When you begin sharing insights, you're establishing research as a strategic partner rather than a service function. 

The 3 P’s of Dissemination

To be a strategic partner, you need a strategy. Thankfully the 3 P’s of Dissemination can help you create an effective one. Prior to sharing your findings, reflect on your research’s Purpose, People, and Process.

• Purpose: Why are you sharing these findings? What actions or decisions will they inform?
• People: Who needs the information? What are their goals and preferred communication style?
• Process: How will you package, deliver, and follow-up on the research to ensure it drives the most impact?

Purpose: Contextualizing Research

Your research has a business purpose. Contextualizing involves framing your findings within this broader context, connecting them to wider business goals, market conditions, and user needs. Why was this work originally done? Is it meant to inform, persuade, or provide options? Starting with this information in mind can help move your research from isolated data points into meaningful data that stakeholders can take action on.

People: Knowing Your Audience

Once you’ve established the “why” of your research, you can frame your findings through one of the four primary types of research communication. These include:

• Informative: sharing facts objectively
• Persuasive: building a case for specific actions based on research
• Consultative: presenting options and facilitating decision making
• Collaborative: co-creating takeaways and action plans with stakeholders

The research communication style you choose will largely depend on who you’ll be communicating with. Below are examples of core audiences and how you might adapt your insights based on their goals.

Process: Disseminating Research

To ensure research actually influences decision making across an organization, research reports need to be disseminated, or packaged, delivered, and followed-up with across forms and places that your chosen stakeholders are most likely to see and interact with it. 

Packaging: Tailor Your Research to the Right Format for Each Audience

Disseminating your research as a one-size-fits all report won’t land as impactfully as it will if you tailor it to different audiences. You can package your research using a number of traditional and modern dissemination methods: 

Traditional methods might include:

• PDF reports: A detailed report covering methods, findings, and recommendations for stakeholders who need full context
• Website: A digital hub containing key findings, visualizations, and content for ongoing reference
• Executive Summary: This is a one-page summary highlighting the key findings and business impact for key decision makers
• Academic Poster: Think science fair, this is usually a visual presentation of the research methodology and findings 

Over the last few years, more creative approaches have been popping up across organizations. These include:

• Highlight Reels: Short clips capturing user perspectives and experiences directly
• Podcasts: Audio narratives exploring research implications with experts
• Journey maps and comics: Visual storytelling that humanizes data with narratives

Brandie Smith, former Senior User Researcher at Metromile, used creative research reporting techniques like having customers write love letters and break up letters addressed to their car insurance company. She describes the process as “helping the team build better empathy maps for each user.”

No matter the format, there are some best practices to follow to ensure you effectively communicate findings across your team: 

• Use plain language: Remember your primary audience are likely not researchers, you’ll want to use plain language that resonates with them

• Lead with impact vs. research: If the goal of research is to drive decision making, lead with the impact of the work rather than methodology. This means quantifying business impact where possible in terms of revenue, cost savings, or efficiency. Depending on the insights you gather, you could frame findings in terms of opportunities or even illustrate the risk in decision making that might currently be taking place

• Chunk information into digestible chunks: This makes it easier for stakeholders to skip to sections that are most relevant to them

• Provide actionable next steps: You’ve been closest to the study itself, use your expertise to inform potential actions that the team can take next

• Start with the unexpected: Uncover an insight that went against your initial hypothesis or what was expected? Lead with that to capture your audiences attention

• Evoke emotion: As humans, we’re wired by emotion. This psychology-backed approach gives you an unfair advantage when presenting. When the audience is invested, they're more likely to remember your message

Delivery: Pick the Proper Research Channels for Dissemination

Once you have an understanding of user needs, you'll want to pick the proper channels to deliver your learnings. You can choose delivery channels based on whether you're focused on factors like quality, collaboration, or speed. Looking to establish the quality of your research? Choose to present via an all-hands presentation or publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. If you’d like to prioritize collaboration, set up a research roadshow, lunch and learn session, or other type of workshop to share insights and get feedback from specific teams and stakeholders. Finally, if fast beats perfect, share bite-sized chunks over messaging tools or share always-on dashboards that people can view on their own timeline. You could also set up a research newsletter and blast subscribers once you’ve published new research.

Follow up: Evaluating Dissemination Impact

Regardless of the channel you select, you’ll want to highlight the impact and relevance of your findings to your stakeholders. You can do this through:

• Feedback surveys: Send recurring feedback surveys to get an idea about how your findings are resonating with stakeholders
• Engagement metrics: Keep an eye on how often your team is engaging with your findings and reports
• Citation tracking: Check how often your findings are being cited or backlinked 
• Decision tracking: Keep a record of what type of decisions have been informed by the findings and insights the research team has gathered

Once you start tracking the impact over time, you'll be able to show progress using benchmarks during recurring time frames. Keep these reports accessible in a research repository or knowledge base, along with the research report itself. 

Democratizing Insights and Data

Democratization moves research from being a specialized activity to increasing the organization’s institutional knowledge. Democratizing invites those outside the full-time research team to access the team’s data and further analyze the results or build upon their insights. 

For example, some big companies have democratized their data and insights in the following practices:

• Spotify: Creates research playlists that package insights into collections accessible through their knowledge base, allowing teams to self serve user insights
• Airbnb: Uses “data-informed decision principles” that empower employees to leverage insights while maintaining method guardrails

Benefits and Challenges

Democratizing insights and data can bring a number of benefits including:

• More informed decision making
• Increased customer understanding across the organization
• Increased cross-functional alignment‍
• Reduction of duplicate research efforts

Despite this, there are some challenges to keep in mind, including:

• Setting appropriate context for findings to prevent misunderstandings
• Ensuring understanding around research methods
• Managing participant confidentiality and ethical concerns
• Balancing depth and accessibility of insights

Frameworks and Tools for Democratizing Data

Overall, getting into the habit of documenting research audit trails is a great way to balance the benefits and challenges of democratization. Since they help all parties understand exactly what was and wasn't covered in previous studies, and explains the context behind why, other organizational members have a clear template on which to base further research.

Beyond research reports themselves, Many ReOps have been tasked with helping organizations democratize by introducing frameworks and tools to help standardize, streamline, and optimize research practices. Some of these initiatives might include:

• Insights repositories: These are searchable databases that organize findings by product area, customer segment, or business goals‍
• Self service analytics: Dashboards allow non-researchers to explore data‍
• Research taxonomies: Create standardized categories and language that make your findings searchable and discoverable‍
• Learning modules: These might include enablement and training modules to help build research knowledge across the team

Sharing of Research Findings Transforms Data Into Impact

As research continues to scale inside of organizations and shift with advances like AI, communication becomes a critical component of driving value.

When sharing your findings, some best practices to incorporate into your approach include: understanding your audience’s needs, tailoring communication channels, providing context on how the study relates to the wider business, building systems that help democratize insights ethically, and measuring the effectiveness of your sharing.

The future of research communication points towards becoming more open, accessible, and integrative approaches. Organizations are relying on evidence (both qual and quant) for decision making. Those who share findings and storytelling approaches can gain a competitive edge within their wider team and lead to faster decision making in the market.