Lessons on Reporting: Simplicity at Core

With research objectives and nuanced user pain points competing for attention, here’s how three recent projects, across sports, enterprise software, and communication apps,taught me the value of communicating insights with stark and simple clarity.

When I was in eighth standard, I used to think big, fancy words showed how well I understood the English language. “How do I sound a couple of decades older and wiser?” “How can I make the teacher compliment me for my vocabulary in the next test?”

And so I buried my nose in huge novels that spoke of fantasy lands, focused on world-building with elaborate descriptions. In each class assignment, I tried to mimic the style of the author I had just read and pretended I was building a small world through my English notebook.

Fast forward a little over a decade, and I now spend most of my time thinking about words and sentences that offer quick clarity and context to a reader. I used to think writers and editors were the only ones who crunched words for a living, but it turns out clear communication and writing aren’t limited to niche roles.

As a UX researcher, talking to users and understanding their pain points is an important job—but it’s not the entire job. It’s just one part of it. Communicating those pain points in a clear, context-loaded yet simple way, is where the real magic lies. As a senior colleague once told me, it begins well before the user interviews end, before my pen touches my notebook, or I open the first Google Doc to dump my thoughts. It begins the moment I receive the research objectives. From there, it becomes a series of building blocks for what needs to be conveyed clearly with the right nuance.

Synthesis as a word always confused me. I never understood it in college, or even during the first few months of the job, always asking other researchers how they approached synthesis and what methods they used. A comforting piece of advice I received was to just try it myself and figure out what works for me.

At each stage of the research process, synthesis happens in layers. Each one is a building block that helps you arrive at your final insights. Together, they help you shape the final product: a well-polished report.

But what does a well-polished report actually mean? Is it fancy animations and styles? Are there illustrations that shine bright?

Turns out, all of those are still supporting characters in this story. Important, yes, but supporting nonetheless. The star of the story is the actual content that informs the business decisions steering the project, or the many hidden quirks of the product.

Remember the fancy novels I talked about at the start? They eventually became dense non-fiction books about the universe, or the roof of the world, the Himalayas. Compact, layered with centuries of history, their sentences tried to tell at least three different stories at once.

“What you consume is what you become,” I realized, when a report I had written was reviewed and described as academic. I had adopted a style unsuited for insight reporting, forgetting simplicity, clarity, and decision-making impact.

The words stretched too long. The sentences tangled together. The core context behind the user pain point was hard to locate. Uh oh.

That’s when I realized the time needed between the initial draft and the refinement stage to sharpen and simplify the message.

If a report is a usability test, then the verbs become vital. As one of my senior colleagues pointed out, navigation captures the entire journey: where the user may have clicked on multiple buttons. But where did the flow break? At which click did the user grow frustrated?

That’s what I needed to focus on, instead of trying to tell three different narratives inside one pain point.

Here, ‘users’ doesn’t just mean the research participants. It also includes the readers of the report, who will use it to make trade-offs for important business decisions. As a researcher, I’ve been part of the journey from the start: onboarding users, speaking with them, and remembering them beyond their verbatim quotes.

Each stood out as a person with a distinct identity, way of talking, and session flow. Did they talk enthusiastically about a feature? Did they share a rich context story about how a feature didn’t meet their expectations?

And yet, when I translate their stories into findings and insights, I can easily grow accustomed to nuances that may feel obvious to me but are missing context for someone new to the study.

Put simply: will someone with no background understand your report the first time they read it?

That is the goal and guiding light of report writing. Be simple. Be clear. Be crisp. And most importantly, be actionable in your words.

1. Start with an analysis plan before you sit with the data

Sometimes, timelines are tight and there won’t always be the liberty of planning each step with the same attention and care. Here’s when planning ahead in terms of priority has helped. I lay down what is most important to cover during the sessions, and keep a checklist handy to ensure all data points are being captured. This could be included in the debrief, or an internal document to consolidate raw data.

2. Align on report format and expectations early on

Some clients prefer a certain format of report, and it is important to deliver insights in the way they consume it best, after all, it is their product research. It is always better to check in on report expectations before the fieldwork starts, so you can ask any clarifying questions or keep any more points in mind for the fieldwork that may help. This will also help in phasing out the reporting timeline, and adjust if there is a tight crunch on it.

3. Discuss with colleagues on what approach works for the team, and check in often

If you’re working on a report in a team, setting internal expectations helps to divide internal timeline, and make revisions once the initial findings are in place. It could be in the form of discussing after each team member is done with one section, or keep deadlines for each reporting day.

4. For insight writing, refine and refine 

Yes, it is all about the why, but it doesn’t end there. What comes next? How does this ‘why’ affect the experience? What will it lead to? In a nutshell, so what (happens)? That’s the context of the big picture- and not just user behaviour. What will this pattern of behaviour lead to for the product, or business? The ‘so what’ guides the brainstorming for ‘what do we do next?’ about the insight.

That’s what I’ve learned from my past three projects across sports, enterprise software, and communication apps, working alongside senior colleagues who have honed their craft over years. Each month brings something new to reflect on—a fresh way to see how far I’ve come.

Time to dive deep into report writing—this time, with simplicity at the core.