Chapter 17: Reports and Presentations

Overview

Results are the product of research, and like any product, they need to be useful to their audience in order to be successful. A good report of results should consist of more than just a list of a product's problems; it should enable the development team to make changes to the product and educate to avoid similar problems in the future. Structuring the presentation of results—in effect, engineering their delivery—is one of the most important steps to making research useful since the best research is useless if it's misunderstood or ignored.

The audience's needs determine the best way to present a given piece of research. It could be a simple email message or an elaborate 100-page thesis. It could be a phone call or a day-long presentation with highlight videos. It could be a bug database. Fortunately, regardless of the complexity of the final product, the process is the same. Whether it's a song-and-dance number or a short chat, the steps to make it are pretty much identical; what varies is how long each step takes.

Because written reports and in-person presentations are the two most prevalent methods of reporting results, this chapter will primarily focus on them. Most of the ideas here can apply to any delivery medium. Moreover, much of the advice in this chapter is not unique to user experience research; it's true about nearly any business-oriented presentation.