Engaging Stakeholders In User Experience Innovation

Your research findings are useless if they don't drive decisions. After watching countless brilliant insights disappear into the void, I developed 5 practical templates I use to transform research into action: 1. Decision-Driven Journey Map Standard journey maps look nice but often collect dust. My Decision-Driven Journey Map directly connects user pain points to specific product decisions with clear ownership. Key components: - User journey stages with actions - Pain points with severity ratings (1-5) - Required product decisions for each pain - Decision owner assignment - Implementation timeline This structure creates immediate accountability and turns abstract user problems into concrete action items. 2. Stakeholder Belief Audit Workshop Many product decisions happen based on untested assumptions. This workshop template helps you document and systematically test stakeholder beliefs about users. The four-step process: - Document stakeholder beliefs + confidence level - Prioritize which beliefs to test (impact vs. confidence) - Select appropriate testing methods - Create an action plan with owners and timelines When stakeholders participate in this process, they're far more likely to act on the results. 3. Insight-Action Workshop Guide Research without decisions is just expensive trivia. This workshop template provides a structured 90-minute framework to turn insights into product decisions. Workshop flow: - Research recap (15min) - Insight mapping (15min) - Decision matrix (15min) - Action planning (30min) - Wrap-up and commitments (15min) The decision matrix helps prioritize actions based on user value and implementation effort, ensuring resources are allocated effectively. 4. Five-Minute Video Insights Stakeholders rarely read full research reports. These bite-sized video templates drive decisions better than documents by making insights impossible to ignore. Video structure: - 30 sec: Key finding - 3 min: Supporting user clips - 1 min: Implications - 30 sec: Recommended next steps Pro tip: Create a library of these videos organized by product area for easy reference during planning sessions. 5. Progressive Disclosure Testing Protocol Standard usability testing tries to cover too much. This protocol focuses on how users process information over time to reveal deeper UX issues. Testing phases: - First 5-second impression - Initial scanning behavior - First meaningful action - Information discovery pattern - Task completion approach This approach reveals how users actually build mental models of your product, leading to more impactful interface decisions. Stop letting your hard-earned research insights collect dust. I’m dropping the first 3 templates below, & I’d love to hear which decision-making hurdle is currently blocking your research from making an impact! (The data in the templates is just an example, let me know in the comments or message me if you’d like the blank versions).

𝗢𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 Early in my career, I thought being a great researcher meant delivering perfect insights. I spent hours polishing slides, crafting the clearest recommendations, thinking that’s how I would gain influence and drive impact. But over the years, I’ve learned: 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽. Looking back, some of the most trust-building moments weren’t in research readouts, but in smaller and ongoing interactions like chats, 1:1s, tech reviews and roadmap meetings. At first, these deeply technical discussions about model architectures, system tradeoffs, and backend constraints felt daunting. But I leaned in with deep curiosity to learn their world – their language, their constraints, how they define success. I began asking questions that brought a different lens – questions about user experience implications, hidden assumptions in metrics, and whether definitions of success truly aligned with user value. Over time, I noticed a shift. Partners began pulling me into more of these conversations. They valued not only the different perspective I brought but also that I was designing research grounded in their reality. The closer I got to their world, the more they trusted me to help them navigate complexity with users in mind. Here are a few lessons that have guided me: 💡 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲. It’s easy to point out flaws. It’s harder – and far more powerful – to ask questions that unlock better thinking. 💡 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱. Sit in their reviews and participate in their discussions. Learn the tradeoffs they’re wrestling with. Empathy is the foundation of trust. 💡 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. When partners see how you approach a problem, they begin to trust your intuition and judgment, not just your final results. 💡 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘂𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. Research isn’t just about answering questions; it’s about reframing them to drive better decisions. When partners see that your involvement helps them achieve goals faster, better, and with greater user impact, trust accelerates. 💡 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀. Research insights are powerful, but it’s the engineers, PMs, and designers who build and ship. Recognizing their contributions creates shared ownership and success. At the end of the day partnership is built in 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 – asking a clarifying question that reframes priorities, acknowledging a tough tradeoff, or staying a bit longer to align on next steps. Trust grows when partners see you’re not just doing your job, but actively working to strengthen their efforts and amplify their impact.

The biggest challenge in user experience isn’t research or execution — it’s proving impact on the business. Design doesn’t speak for itself. You have to connect the dots between user insight and business outcomes. Executive support doesn’t hinge on polished prototypes. It hinges on showing how your work moves the business forward. Here are 5 ways to bring UX and business into alignment — and turn design into a growth lever: 𝟭. 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗸𝗶𝗰𝗸-𝗼𝗳𝗳 Want support? Know what they care about. Whether it’s speed, revenue, risk, or reputation, tailor your framing to their drivers and their biases. 🎯 Someone obsessed with sunk cost? Show long-term savings. 📊 Data-driven skeptic? Come with a prototype and a revenue forecast. 𝟮. 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆, 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝘆 Your best critics become co-owners when they’re part of the journey. Invite cross-functional stakeholders into problem-framing workshops. Co-create problem definitions. Align on what matters before the pixels move. 💬 Early involvement = fewer late-stage “surprises.” 𝟯. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀 Executives speak numbers. If your research can’t be tied to retention, revenue, or risk mitigation, it gets sidelined. 🧠 “Users were confused by the form” → “This friction costs us $XM/month in lost conversions.” 𝟰. 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Skip the 40-slide deck. Try an “impact brief.” Focus on the most powerful video clip. Use AI summaries. Give busy execs a frictionless way to get it. ⏱ Clarity wins trust. Brevity wins time. 𝟱. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 Want executive buy-in? Don’t ask for a leap of faith. Pilot something small. Deliver a win. Share results. Then propose the next step. 📈 Stakeholders fund demonstrated momentum, not hypothetical potential. Bottom line: Great experience doesn’t just serve users. It drives strategy. But only when we meet the business where it is, and bring it with us. How are you aligning UX with business value in your work? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

After nearly 30 years in the customer experience space, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is the critical importance of partnership. You can have the most innovative CX strategy, cutting-edge technology, and even the most comprehensive data insights, but if you don’t have buy-in from the right stakeholders, and have business leaders willing to work with you, your efforts will always fall flat. Sounds obvious, but so many miss this. Managing stakeholder expectations and ensuring alignment across departments isn’t just about communication, it’s about trust and influence. Whether it’s C-suite executives, frontline employees, or even external partners, each stakeholder plays a vital role in shaping and delivering the customer experience. The best CX initiatives are those that have everyone on board, with a shared vision and a clear understanding of the impact on both the business and the customer. Being an effective partner means listening to stakeholder concerns, aligning your objectives with theirs, and continuously showing the value that customer experience brings. It’s about understanding their priorities and communicating how CX initiatives help meet those goals. When stakeholders see CX as an enabler of business outcomes rather than just a customer-focused initiative, execution becomes far more effective. The bottom line? CX success isn’t just about customers. It’s about aligning the internal team, building trust, and ensuring that everyone is invested in the same outcome. #customerexperience #stakeholdermanagement #leadership #strategy #digitaltransformation #collaboration #technology

Telling a compelling story with UX research has nothing to do with flair and everything to do with function, empathy, and influence. One of the most critical yet underappreciated lessons in UX and product work - beautifully articulated in It’s Our Research by Tomer Sharon - is that research doesn’t succeed just because it’s rigorous or well-designed. It succeeds when its insights are heard, understood, remembered, and acted upon. We need to stop treating communication as an afterthought. The way we present research is just as important as the research itself. Storytelling in UX is not decoration - it’s a core deliverable. If your goal is to shape decisions rather than just share findings, the first step is to design your communication with the same care you give your methods. That means understanding the mindset of your stakeholders: what they care about, how they process information, and what pressures they’re facing. Storytelling in this context isn’t about performance - it’s about empathy. The insight must also be portable. It needs to survive the room and be retold accurately across meetings, conversations, and documents. If your findings require lengthy explanations or rely too heavily on charts without clear conclusions, the message will fade. Use strong framing, clear takeaways, and repeatable phrases. Make it memorable. Avoid leading with your process. Stakeholders care far less about your methods than they do about the problems they’re trying to solve. Lead with the tension - what’s broken, what’s at risk, what’s creating friction. Only then show what you learned and what opportunities emerged. Research becomes powerful when it forecasts outcomes, not just reports behaviors. What will it cost the business to ignore this behavior? What might change if we take action? When we can answer these questions, research earns its place at the strategy table. Treat your report like a prototype. Will it be used? Will it help others make decisions? Does it resonate emotionally and strategically? If not, iterate. Use narrative elements, embed user moments, bring in supporting visuals, and structure it in a way that guides action. Finally, stop thinking of the share-out as a one-way street. Facilitate instead of presenting. Invite stakeholders to interpret, ask questions, and explore implications with you. When they co-create meaning, they take ownership-and that leads to real action. Research only creates value when it moves people. Insights are not enough on their own. What matters is the clarity and conviction with which they are communicated.

Listen. Consider. Act. These steps help create a culture of innovation. (From BOOM! by E John Teichert, Brigadier General (ret) #USAF) Gen. T suggests leaders at any level may use these steps to engage + start conversations across your key stakeholders / team members. He suggests weaving in three key questions: What am I doing wrong? What are we doing wrong? What can I do to help? 💡 Gen. Teichert suggests creating various forums to solicit ideas and feedback from your team, followed by aggressively and publicly following up on ideas you receive from them. ⏩ AFWERX AFVentures does this well because Daniel Carroll and Jen Warren empower people to ask questions in a common mission thread via Google's group chat. Typically within minutes I am connected with a decisive answer, even including direct leadership input. As a new fellow, this rapid feedback loop allows for rapid action to help achieve success in a timely manner - or make improvements to processes that would otherwise be stuck. 💡 In Chapter 4 of BOOM!, Gen. Teichert suggests establishing a reliable and sustainable way to capture ideas, input, mature, prioritize, fund and act on as part of the listen, consider, act cycle. ⏩ I am in awe of how fast AFWERX pivots from an idea we have on a call to setting up a task force to deal with it. One idea shared with Luke W. turned into immediate brainstorming with experts in AI and machine learning from our team. 💡 In Chapter 5 of BOOM! Gen. Teichert recommends prioritizing your calendar and checkbook to transmit your priorities while engaging in activities that you can uniquely accomplish. ⏩ #AFWERX is already authorizing fellow and other team members the funding to go TDY and show up at industry events across the country because they care about building relationships. ✈️ Because AFWERX wants to lead innovation in the DoD, they empower their team to show up in person to places where they can LISTEN, CONSIDER input from industry and other #DoD partners, and return energized to a virtual workplace where they can ACT to shift momentum and empower mission owners to be successful. 💡 In Chapter 6 of BOOM! Gen. Teichert drives home the point of seeking opportunities to connect with others you can learn from on your innovation journey while taking the time to see their operation in person. ⏩ Rebecca Lively and Charles Heaton have been helpful to seize the "show up in person" part to expand operational knowledge. 💡 Gen. Teichert suggests using innovation resources to educate members of your workforce who become your peer innovation leaders. I'm excited to share insights I'm learning from AFWERX with my own home team and believe our fellowship is a great opportunity to create a BOOM! ⏩ I see how rapidly a small team can move when it is empowered to take action while being allowed resources to make a difference. 💡 "Innovation is not primarily about creating new things. It is more about creating new ways to use old things." - Gen. Teichert

UX research often gets a bad rap from the business side. There are a couple of main reasons why business teams don't always trust UX research. • UX research is often seen as overly academic and rigid. • UX research is often seen as time-consuming. • UX research is often not able to deliver insights on demand. And when the team comes back to present the work, it's often presented in an academic way that often doesn't really drive action from the leaders. But what if you treated your UX research team more like a newsroom and UX report outs more like a newsroom? This week I talk with Dr. Ari Zelmanow about how he's done just that with his team. Unfortunately, most business teams don't want to hear about your rigor and process. They care about a few things: 📈 They care about growth. 💰 They care about value. 💃 They care about being adaptable. 📉 They want to mitigate risk. 🏁 They want to move fast. If your research insights aren't being delivered in a compelling way, and if they don't fall into one or all of these buckets, your research team won't get much respect and likely won't be seen as consultants. 🎯 Here are some key takeaways from our conversation: ▶️ Embrace an investigative mindset: Like a detective, delve deep into the nuances of user behavior. It's not just about collecting data, but about interpreting it to reveal underlying patterns and motivations. This approach helps in crafting more effective and user-centric designs. ▶️ Transform your team into a newsroom: Emulate a news reporter by turning research findings into compelling stories. This involves focusing on key insights and presenting them in a way that engages stakeholders, ensuring that crucial information is effectively communicated and acted upon. ▶️ Be clear on certainty and evaluate sources: Spee is critical, but so is understanding the certainty level of your findings and critically assessing your sources. This approach ensures the reliability and impact of your research conclusions. ▶️ Work to get feedback over permission: Focus on obtaining feedback rather than seeking approval for research insights. This fosters a collaborative environment and leads to more refined and practical outcomes. ▶️ Resurface past insights when necessary: Regularly revisit and share past research findings to maintain their relevance and applicability. This practice ensures that valuable insights remain at the forefront of decision-making processes. Dr. Ari dropped a ton of knowledge in this episode. You should definitely check it out! Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gRVUvGum #UXdesign #UXresearch

Design research involves embracing the challenges of working with stakeholders. Almost always. Research isn’t naturally seen as the go-to method for making design decisions. New agreements must be created regularly: setting clear expectations, supporting the team, and encouraging stakeholders to get involved. Integrating research into ongoing workflows means understanding stakeholder involvement and the challenges it creates. Over the past five years of continuous research and iterative design, we've encountered several challenges–here are some steps to overcome them. I created a quadrant graph to illustrate these challenges, with the X-axis showing how important research is to stakeholders and the Y-axis showing their motivation. Pressure Cooker ↳ Stakeholders value research and desire perfection. This creates a high-pressure environment with an intense focus on getting the correct answer with the proper methods, leading to stress and potential strain on the research process. Suggestion: Set clear goals and break the research into manageable steps. Keep stakeholders updated and realistic about what’s achievable. Confirmation Bias ↳ Stakeholders here may not prioritize research but still want to confirm their beliefs or ideas. The risk is that they may selectively use research to validate their preconceptions, disregarding findings that challenge their views. Suggestion: Present a balanced view with data that supports and challenges their views. Encourage open discussions about different perspectives. Resistant to Change ↳ Stakeholders value research as necessary but primarily focus on avoiding mistakes. This leads to a reluctance to embrace new ideas or changes, as they prefer to stick with what is known and safe. Skepticism Suggestion: Introduce small, low-risk changes with solid evidence. Show how these changes can lead to positive outcomes. Skepticism ↳ Stakeholders are not invested in research and are more concerned with avoiding errors. Their skepticism towards research can result in disengagement, making it difficult to convince them of the value of research findings. Suggestion: Deliver quick wins that directly address their concerns. Use previous examples to show how research solves their problems and builds trust over time. What challenges have you experienced? #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch