What user research reports are

User research reports are a common deliverable at the end of every user research project. You use them to summarise the methods you used, your findings and your recommendations.

A well-crafted user research report will provide a detailed overview of your research. It can help you to deliver key insights in a concise and effective way.

Choosing the right format

It is important that you choose the right format for your user research report.

Ask yourself who the report is for: will it just be shared within your team or with wider stakeholders as well?

Also, think about how your report will be presented. It might be given as a written document to read, or a presentation that you will deliver to an audience.

There are several formats you could choose to give your report in, including:

Written documents

The full scope of the research data is organised and presented in a document. This is the traditional way to present user research reports.

Slide decks

Slide decks are most commonly used for stand up presentations. They help you present your report in a more visual and digestible way for your audience.

Discovery Report: Waste management
April 2022
Skyline of Birmingham
Be Bold Be Birmingham — Figure 1: Slide deck

What to include in your report

The content and level of detail you should include in your report will depend on how it will be used.

Here are some facts which you may want to include:

TBA

Research goals

Your research goal should outline your research aims and objectives. You should also provide some detail about the background and context of your project.

Discovery goal
To understand the current customer experience by targeting high demand services accessed digitally and offline, in order to identify a model customer experience, based on best practice that will increase/improve satisfaction. — Figure 2: Goals

Research methods

You should explain the research methods that you used to conduct your research. For example, if you used interviews and surveys, detail this in your report.

Outline what you did and how you did it. Clarify what you aimed to uncover through the methods that you used.

Participants

It is important to have a good representation of participants. Outline how you achieved this through the participant sample.

Provide an overview of how your participants were selected for your research.

You should:

state how many participants were involved
include detail about their characteristics
mention what their demographics are

Getting a representative sample
We've tried to speak to people representatives of Birmingham.
We've been able to get a good sample mix in relation to age, gender, household tenure, disabilities and those who use the internet confidently, or with help from others.
Future rounds of research need to focus on people who:
contact the council and do not use the internet at all, are under 25, are Pakistani, Caribbean, African, Bangladeshi, Arab and Chinese. — *Figure 5: Participants*

Findings

Your findings section is where you should provide information about the outcome of your research and analysis.

Present your key insights in a clear and concise way. This should include any patterns, trends and themes that you identified through your analysis.

Use facts, figures, and quotes from your research to support your key points.

Customer satisfaction data - Waste
Common themes and response numbers from SMS, email, web and webchat satisfaction data for waste management and recycling:
Data on website not up to date, that the council are unsure if a bin has been collected or not, lack of follow ups, target of 48 hours for a missed collection is not being met, unable to reach managers, agents unable to provide the answer
Pie Chart: Good 54.25%, Average 13.15%, Poor 32.60% — *Figure 6: Key insights*

You can also portray your findings through the use of various outputs, like:

storyboards
personas
user journey maps

Using these types of outputs will make it easier for your readers or audience to understand.

Recommendations

Offer actionable recommendations based on the data. It may also be useful to illustrate what an ideal user experience would look like based on your findings.

'Gold Standard' customer experience — Figure 10: ‘Gold Standard’