Two Critical Philosophies for Sharing UX Research Results
For UX researchers, success relies on building trust and credibility. When stakeholders act on your findings and recommendations with success, you will be seen as the expert that you are. But stakeholders will only act on your findings if they believe that you understand their goals and can deliver what they need. To build this highly necessary trust and credibility, get comfortable with transparency in your research processes.
My two “controversial” philosophies for building credibility and trust with stakeholders.
Keeping your work locked down until your conclusions are complete can kill your credibility. The last thing you want is for stakeholders to distrust you and/or your work. That’s why I recommend doing the opposite: be completely transparent throughout your research process.
My approach may seem radical — and it does contain some risk — but I still recommend it because it typically leads to benefits that greatly outweigh that risk.
My two critical philosophies are:
- Share early and often
- All research is community property
These sound a bit scary, don’t they? But if you get past the fears, and embrace these two philosophies for implementing transparency, you’ll see exponential benefits for your work, and your career.
The UX Research fear you’ll have to face.
One of our biggest fears around transparency is that stakeholders will activate on incomplete findings. Unsuccessful program outcomes can hurt our reputation as valued partners. That’s why our instinct is to be certain before we release our findings. We also want to get the messaging just right so our conclusions won’t be questioned. Most of all, we want to avoid having to redirect them if our conclusions change.
It’s reasonable to believe that total process transparency is just asking for problems. But consideration of the stakeholder mindset indicates that the opposite is more often true.
Hiding what is not (yet) done is the enemy to influence.
Stakeholders can become disengaged if they’re waiting for answers to a study that’s already happened. Typical stakeholder thoughts while they are waiting for your answers include:
“It’s taking too long.”
“You’re hiding things from me.”
“I can’t wait, I have to do my job.”
“I’m just going to make a move without the data.”
The worst case scenario is that they finally see the report and don’t trust or understand your insights. Sharing only a shiny end product can misdirect their attention by hiding the depth of your work over time. It can look like you were doing very little while they were waiting.
By lacking transparency, you can easily end up with the opposite of your desired outcomes: stakeholders won’t see you as a valuable expert, and they won’t act on your findings. They can also miss the expertise and nuance that goes into your practice as a researcher.
How to be fearlessly transparent as a UX researcher.
Philosophy 1: Share early and often.
Think of it like a teaser to keep their interest while they wait for the release.
A lot of times we know enough of an answer to give at least something fairly early on. Begin sharing as soon as you have data. This shows that you respect that stakeholders’ need to act. It also helps them trust and understand your final conclusions. Share it ugly, in a plain format. Share again and again while you analyze and craft the message.
By sharing early on, you’re more likely to keep stakeholders engaged.
Keeping them in the loop helps ensure they’re waiting for your final conclusion to move forward. They’ll also move forward with confidence because they’ve seen you move through the process and the data.
Philosophy 2: All research is community property.
Put it all in a shared drive, on the cloud.
Show your interim products and draft products. Let stakeholders see the raw data and your messy notes. Stop worrying that a stakeholder will find it and use the wrong thing, or draw an incorrect or incomplete conclusion.
Boldly put it all in a shared space that everybody can get to anytime they want to.
Make that environment accessible to your entire company. Most of the time they’re not going to look at it, anyway.
In my 5 years of working in the cloud, shared with hundreds to thousands of stakeholders, only four people actually went in and investigated the detailed draft files. Far from misusing what they found, these four stakeholders were impressed! They asked questions like “Is this the right file? Is this the report version you would use? Is this the version you would want us to use?” Typically they treated our work with great respect. They ended up being some of our most engaged partners, looking to us for answers.
The risks, I’ve found, are minimal. The benefits, however, lead to greater trust, credibility, and respect for the UX Researcher.
By working in a shared cloud directory, never on individual folders or hard drives, you:
- Open new discoveries between team members and studies
- Build organizational trust through transparency
- Eliminate the risk of individual work product getting lost in solo spaces
Building stakeholder relationships around credibility and trust reduces more friction than it creates.
When you make your work transparent, stakeholders listen better over the long-term. When they understand your work, and trust your process, they want to partner with you for more successful outcomes. This creates higher functioning organizations, happier and more productive teams, and desirable products for end users.
If you want to chat more about UX Research methodology and best practices, you can message me on LinkedIn.
Originally published on LinkedIn.
