What makes a useful insight? 4 Principles
No point carrying out great user research and keeping it a secret.
Good user research is about gaining an in-depth understand of what users want and need and what their current challenges are. That understanding is only useful if it’s effectively communicated. Written insights are a great way of sharing the new found information. Here’s a rough guide to expressing insights in a useful way.
A useful insight is:
- New information to the organisation
- Understandable to someone who didn’t carry out the research
- Actionable by the organisation
- Evidence based
New
Tell the person reading them something they don’t already know, that has been uncovered by the research. For example: ‘Women from BAME groups use leisure centres less than other groups’ isn’t a new qualitative data insight. The data and the the leisure centre staff already new that. Part of our job is understanding why. ‘Some women from BAME groups reported preferring leisure centres that have women only sessions available’ is new information.
Understandable
Useful insights are understandable to someone who doesn’t have an in-depth understanding of the research already. User researchers guide people to the useful information. Insights shouldn’t contain acronyms, imagine someone from outside the organisation is reading them. For example; ‘MMRs are unstructured’ is hard to understand whereas ‘Monthly Medical Reports don’t follow a uniform format’ makes more sense.
Actionable
Insights should be actionable, so necessary changes can be easily made to improve the organisation. This is a tricky balance, because the insight shouldn’t include the solution. “Call centre operators can struggle with more complex tasks as they have not had training on organisational policy.”
Evidence Based
This is the most important element in communicating useful insights. They must be backed up by evidence. Quotes and photos which illustrate why you are highlighting the insight are useful. The quote should be anonymised, but in some projects information about their demographic and role can give useful context. It’s also vital to include statistics where possible, show that on a micro scale one person had one challenge, then show how many people are experiencing this challenge on a larger scale. This allows people to understand the urgency of the changes that need to be made. It also minimises bias in your research — evidence shows it’s not just you who believes the insight to be true.
