How to Demonstrate Research Impact to the Business

Executive leaders don’t understand the value of your work — and that’s a big problem.

If they can’t see the connection between what you do and what they want to accomplish, it puts research on the chopping block during cuts. Sending them a 10-page PDF with research findings they may never read won’t change that. What will? Showing them how your work solves the problems that give them chronic heartburn. Now, you’ve got their attention — and their gratitude.  

Follow these tips to show the impact of your research on repeat.

Get stakeholders involved early

From the start of every project, align your work with their goals. To find out what they are, schedule 30-minute sessions with key stakeholders, including PMs, designers, leadership, and engineers. If the research project was by request, ask the team who initiated it how they plan to use the insights. Is there a specific problem they’re trying to solve?

Based on their answer, outline the objectives for the research. Confirm with the team lead that it aligns with their top priorities. Also, ask if they have any other relevant insights that should be considered, such as sales data or customer support tickets.    

Determine the impact you want to make

Not all projects have the same level of potential impact. Human-Computer Interaction researcher and UX Research Lead at Google Tao Dong created a framework to set expectations for his team’s impact with key stakeholders. 

Within it, he outlined three levels of research impact that UX researchers should strive for : 

• Level 1: Answer a research question. This level of impact can be measured almost immediately after you present your research findings. Was the question answered to the stakeholder’s satisfaction? Was the uncertainty that prompted the question eliminated or lessened?  
  
• Level 2: Support a decision. At this stage, stakeholders use your research findings to make a decision that adds value to the product or company. Tao notes that canceling a company initiative that may have been too risky or misguided based on the findings is an impact as well.
   
• Level 3: Generate value for the user. To reach the highest level, research must provide measurable value to users by informing better business decisions. This can take months, even years to demonstrate. Consistently reaching the top tier requires organizations to invest in a system for impact measurement and a culture of landing projects, not just launching them, Tao states.

Your personal goal for impact will depend on your level of experience. Entry-level UX researchers might set a goal to consistently answer research questions effectively (Level 1), whereas a lead should be creating a culture where insights inform decisions (Level 3). No matter where you are now, showing your impact will require tracking it first.   

Track Your Research Impact

To effectively document your impact, create one single source of truth that everyone can reference. Maybe it’s a dashboard, project tracker, or UX research repository.

“Our goal with [our] repository project was to centralize everything,” says Anne-Sophie Guillou, Senior UX and Lead User Researcher at Criteo.

Each time you create a new project, include an impact section so you can immediately track results. This will also make it easier to provide quick updates to your team or answer questions on demand from executive leadership.      

In your impact section, include:

• A synopsis of your research project
• Your anticipated level of impact (e.g., answer a question, support a decision, or generate value for the user)
• How you’ll measure it
• Who will benefit from the impact (e.g., engineers, designers, executives, users)

Measurement might be as simple as tracking task success rates over time to monitor improvements in usability, or as advanced as linking product changes to retention metrics and revenue growth to demonstrate the broader business impact. Just make sure that it can be demonstrated with real numbers that contribute to your stakeholders’ goals.  

Integrate Your Findings Into Their Workflows

Once you’ve completed your research, find ways to embed it into the team’s workflow. For executives, that might mean securing a recurring time slot to share findings in the monthly town hall. Designers may be more apt to use your research in their work if they see specific changes as comments in their design files. PMs might want to see it in Slack. By meeting them in the channels they already use, you’re making it easier for them to integrate your work into theirs.  

Another way to be proactive is to look for red flags in current initiatives. Twilio Research Leader Vanessa Whatley once recommended blocking a product launch based on user research findings. Engineering moved forward anyway, but post-launch metrics reinforced Vanessa’s concerns, and the experiment was deprioritized. This shows the research team’s ability to mitigate risk, making them a valuable player in business decisions.

To spot problems before they become one, leverage Marvin Deep Research to analyze relevant historical data and uncover hidden patterns and nuances.

Share the research impact across your org

No one gets recognized in the dark. You have to continually spotlight your work results. Choose a cadence you can consistently maintain to assess the impact of your work and share it out. That way, stakeholders know when to expect the next update.  

Use hard data to show how the research moved a team or the company toward its goals. “When you’re working with executive stakeholders, numbers are really important,” said Jenna Harmon, Senior UX Researcher at Pantheon. “This is the piece that connects the experience with the product to business-level outcomes and customer outcomes.”

You can also interview stakeholders and ask how the research impacted them, their team, and their goals. Use pull quotes and video clips from the interviews to illustrate how it made a difference. 

Make research findings fun to read

To make results engaging, share them in a creative way that aligns with your company culture.

For instance, Twilio Research Leader Kate Pazoles noticed that leaders often used the term “customer obsession.” This trend inspired her to create a customer obsession newsletter, which educates teams across the org about leadership goals and user research. It’s also another place you could highlight wins.

“You really just have to be the squeaky wheel and keep sharing stuff over and over,” Kate said.

Ready to demonstrate your research impact?

You already know your team’s worth. Now, it’s time to put it in tangible terms everyone can see and understand.

Get started with our free action plan: 7 Real-World Strategies for Demonstrating Research Impact.

Or book a free demo to see how Marvin can take your impact from “hard to see” to “impossible to ignore.”