A look at what keeps powerful findings from shaping product decisions
There's no shortage of good research.
There's just a shortage of good use of research.
As a UX researcher, I’ve seen this happen over and over. We spend weeks on a study, pull together thoughtful insights, and share what we think are really valuable findings. But then, nothing. The deck gets saved in a shared folder and mostly forgotten.
Research Is Solid - So Why Doesn’t It Stick?
It’s not that the research isn’t solid. The real issue is that we don’t always present it in a way that fits how product teams work or make decisions day to day.
Every researcher has lived this moment: You've just wrapped up a beautifully run study. You spent days, perhaps weeks, on the synthesis, and have gone through a substantive amount of post-it notes. The deck looks great, with video clips, journey maps, and clear, thoughtful recommendations. You walk the team through it, explaining everything with energy and care.
The response? A polite "Thanks, this is really interesting!" followed by... silence. Or worse, you watch as the product roadmap marches forward unchanged, as if your research never happened.
This isn't a failure of research. It's a failure of research delivery. The real issue is that we don’t always present it in a way that fits how product teams work or make decisions day to day. We often find ourselves stuck in a cycle that Kathleen Demol describes as "UX theatre," where research is conducted to "put a check in a box" but its findings are ultimately ignored when they conflict with existing stakeholder views.
This is an all-too-common scenario where the performance of UX activities takes precedence over actual impact, leaving researchers feeling that their work is "soul-crushing and career-limiting" (Demol).
What Stands Between Insight and Impact
In most product teams, research doesn't exist in a vacuum. It competes for attention with:
- Feature deadlines breathing down everyone's neck
- Stakeholder priorities that shift frequently
- Designers iterating on multiple concepts
- PMs balancing roadmaps, metrics, and constant context-switching
That's a tough crowd for a 40-slide deck, no matter how insightful it might be.
The harsh truth? Most product decisions happen in moments, during stand-ups, in Slack threads, or in quick sync meetings. If your research isn't accessible in those moments, it won't influence those decisions. As Dave Tang points out in "The truth about research insights", an insight is not a tangible object like a sentence or a slide; it's a subjective experience within a person that causes a "perspective shift." Presenting a report without involving stakeholders in the process makes it a "big gamble" that the right people will have their "Eureka!" moment.
What Makes Research Usable?
After years of trial and error, I've learned what makes research stick:
Skip the big, heavy reports. Instead, break your insights into smaller, focused pieces that speak directly to real product decisions. Treat your research like a toolkit, something teams can actually use, not a textbook they are unlikely to read through.
Show don’t tell. A 30-second video clip of a user struggling speaks louder than two paragraphs describing the same issue. Show the "why" behind every metric drop-off or adoption failure.
Decision-first formatting over story-first narratives. Start with the decision at hand, then provide only the evidence needed to inform it. Save the comprehensive journey for the appendix. The Devil might be in the details, but the decisions are usually in the executive summary.
Making research usable doesn't mean making it shallow. It means making it frictionless to absorb and easy to apply to the next product question. As Demol advises - "simplify deliverables" and "provide insights that can be put to use, not merely well-written documents." By focusing on what stakeholders can use immediately, we can move away from the performative aspect of UX and towards genuine, measurable change.
Build Insight Systems, Not Just Slide Decks
Traditional research reports are like novels. They're meant to be read from beginning to end. But product teams need something more like Wikipedia; structured, searchable, and linkable. Instead of crafting the perfect narrative arc for every study, we should build systems of insights that are:
- Tagged and categorized by product area, user segment, and decision type
- Searchable so teams can find relevant insights when they need them
- Linkable so insights can live directly in Jira tickets, and design specs
- Updateable as we learn more, rather than frozen in time
This approach is crucial for demonstrating value over time. Devyani Jain emphasizes that researchers need to be able to "measure the impact of their work" and that research and design leadership should define what impact means for the organization.
By creating a system of tagged and traceable insights, researchers can lay the groundwork for a framework that tracks the "value derived from each research study," which Jain argues is a skill every researcher needs to develop.
Deliver for Use, Not Just Readthrough
Fellow researchers will relate to this, we often hear ourselves talking about "closing the loop" with stakeholders after a study concludes. This misses the thought that usability starts much earlier, with how insights are framed, formatted, and handed off in the first place.
If we want our work to have a second life in a Jira ticket or influence a product roadmap, it has to be designed for use, not just for readthrough. This means:
- Leading with implications, not methodology
- Highlighting what changes, not what confirms existing beliefs
- Providing clear next steps, not just observations
- Creating collaterals/assets that travel well, snippets, clips, and summaries that can be copy-pasted into other tools
Shaping Outcomes, Not Just Delivering Insights
At Pulse Labs, we've experimented with new approaches to research delivery. By tagging what we see in the moment and capturing key user moments as they happen, we make it easier for teams to act quickly, no need to wait for a big final presentation.
The real shift isn’t in tools, it’s in mindset. We’re not just delivering insights. We’re shaping decisions.
Good research that no one uses isn’t really good research, it’s a missed opportunity. As researchers, we owe it to both our users and our teams to make sure our insights lead to real change, not just better understanding. It's in making research so usable, so accessible, and so timely that using it becomes the path of least resistance.
Ultimately, as David Tang also concludes, we are not the decision-makers; we are responsible for "informing, guiding, recommending, and supporting" them. Our goal isn't to create the perfect presentation, but to change hearts and minds and inspire our teams to action.
About the Author
Radhika Venkatarayan is a Staff UX Researcher at Pulse Labs, where she partners with product and design teams to explore user behaviour and inform strategic decisions. Her background spans cultural research, interface design, and emerging tech.
