Has someone ever handed you a FigJam or Miro board and casually said, “can you review this research when you have a minute”? They kind of hand it off to you as an aside, then they walk away and carry on with their merry day.
No big deal, right? You can make sense of this. But then you open the board and realize that it’s about 90,000 square feet and looks like the floor plan of JFK international. After about 30 seconds of eye darting you spy a semblance of salient information that you glom onto desperately, but just as you think you’ve gotten a grasp on what’s happening you realize you’ve been zoomed into a tiny little postage stamp on the side of an aircraft carrier. As you zoom out to see the true size of this monster you question the life choices that led you to this moment.
Why do we do this to each other? If I wasn’t there for the exercises that this document represents, this information is going to be meaningless to me. Like thanks, Brad, I’m sure your sticky that says, “meet users where they are” was god damned groundbreaking at the time but without the proper context, I’m just looking at a colorful research salad.
Here’s the thing: I personally tend to read left to right, starting at the top of the page and moving gradually to the bottom. Hey, I get it, it’s old fashioned, it’s boring, but it’s how my mommy taught me. Some might say words on a page in the correct order is the original UX best practice, and by subverting it you are mocking the UX gods.
When you are showing research insights to someone, either take the time to synthesize your insights into a readable format, or take the time to walk the person through the crudités of stickies you’ve artfully prepared.
When you synthesize your insights, follow through on your formatting so when you hand it off to the new teammate, or the client, or yourself 6 months down the line, they can actually make use of all of your hard work.
Try writing a few sentences, or my personal favorite: a bulleted list.
Your future self might just like it.