Who’s Who?

Before building a readout, consider who you are presenting to. While this may result in building several versions for varying stakeholder groups, it’s best practice to present readouts separately, based on the needs of the audience. 

Adapt Your Language:

In considering your audience, ensure that the language you use in your readout and its presentation is digestible, and allows the audience to properly understand the content.

High-Level Stakeholders: Clear, business-oriented language. No technical jargon. Impact and Outcomes.

Research Teams: Technical language, including metrics, methodology, and analysis techniques.

Product Teams: Mix of technical and user-centric language, within the context of development.

Marketing/Sales/HR etc: Focus on the human aspect and practical applications, avoid technical jargon.

Choose a Format:

Audiences respond differently to various formats, so consider the level of visualization, how much time you have to present and shareability when choosing how to present research to various audiences.  

High-Level Stakeholders want a concise presentation including an executive summary. Maximize visualizations to maximize impact. 

Research Teams require comprehensive reports that break down methodology, analysis and raw data. 

Product Teams need a comprehensive report of user feedback, test results, visual representations of experiences (videos/screenshots) and clear, actionable recommendations. 

Marketing/Sales/HR Teams etc: like a visually engaging and easily digestible presentation. Focus on high level insights and specific metrics of interest to the audience. 

Visualize your Data:

Choosing which data to visualize and how to visualize it will have a significant impact on your audience’s ability to understand what is being presented. While most data visualization is beneficial, be sure to cater them to your specific audience and their needs. For example: 

High-Level Stakeholders Visualize major insights using trends, pie/bar charts and line graphs for easy reading. 

Research Teams: Scatterplots, data tables and analysis outputs transform raw data into complex data visualizations. 

Product Teams: Try journey maps, heatmaps, flowcharts, graphs or charts to present feedback scores and test results. 

Marketing/Sales/HR Teams, etc: Visualize survey data, sales metrics and performance scores. 

Provide Meaningful Implications:

Inferences drawn from research will vary greatly in terms of relevancy, depending on the audience reviewing the readout. Results shown to one group may be entirely useless to another. Make sure to adjust implications, next steps and recommendations to meet the needs of each audience.
 

High-Level Stakeholders: want implications relevant to strategic decision making based on business goals. 

Research Teams: want implications to future research strategies, gaps and data validity. 

Product Teams: want implications leveraging specific, actionable insights that guide development decisions like specific features, functions and design. 

Marketing/Sales/HR Teams, etc: Focus only on implications that guide market, HR, or other relevant team decision making. Avoid digging into any technical, design or future research implications and recommendations. 

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