UX Research – What is the deliverable if there is no report?

UX Research deliverables are changing

I have talked previously about the evolution of the UX Research deliverable and of how clients desire an increasing level of collaboration. When a client tells us they don’t want a report, it is not a straightforward decision about what the deliverables will consist of. They still want the insight, and the delivery of that can take many forms. Here are three of the popular alternatives to a traditional UX Research Report:

Workshop

One of the most effective ways to transfer the insight between UX Research teams is via a workshop. A session can involve a wide audience and deal with both tactical and strategic issues. It is often the research consultant from our team leading the discussion based around the sessions, journeys or prototypes.

For example, it can be really useful to go back through the journeys. Particularly when prototype testing and discuss the observations, issues and agree the changes. A criticism of UX Research reports can be that the consultant makes recommendations that lack the context that the client team possesses. A workshop provides the perfect platform for the UX24/7 consultant to listen to the client and contextualize the recommendations for change.

Airtable (or other similar tools)

We have noticed that clients with large or mature UX Research teams ask us for the insight in raw data format. This is particularly true where the client is using their own team of researchers to run almost identical research in other markets. The client still wants the insight but they also want to compare, contrast, or just store the raw data from our research with their own.

We have found tools such as Airtable lend themselves to this task. If you are not familiar think Excel table in the cloud and you get a sense of what they are about. Easily shared, they can resemble the issues list produced in usability testing. But often contain far more fields of data. Being cloud based, Airtable deliverables facilitate collaboration and action.

Updated prototypes

If the client team is resourced constrained, or simply moving at pace, they can rely on our team to make changes to their prototypes. The revised version becomes the deliverable. It is a simple way to transfer the insight generated from the research whilst maintaining the projects momentum. Lite documentation can be required to explain the changes. But this depends on the nature of the prototypes and the research that is taking place.

Is there a cost saving?

The motivation for asking for an alternative to the UX Research report is rarely driven by money. In my experience clients accept that it takes effort to transfer the insight from our team to theirs. Their goal is to find better ways to make that transfer, that helps their team make the required changes or act on the findings.

And it is true that for any of the examples above the time involved is very similar to that involved in creating a traditional UX Research report. There are ways to cut costs if need be and you should always discuss your budget when scoping a project.