Crafting a winning research doc at Amazon

My Template for Qualitative Design Research Studies

Hey there! I’m Raika, a Senior UX and Conversation Designer at Amazon. If you’re new here, welcome! You can subscribe to my Secrets to Great UX Design newsletter for monthly insights. I share actionable ways to create great experiences, grow your career and more… for designers and non-designers.

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I think we all agree, the best way to find out what your customers want is to talk to them.

But how do you write a great, impactful research doc to share the findings?

Throughout my years at Amazon, I’ve experimented with different doc formats. In my experience, the best docs strike a balance between objective and personal. As well as:

1. Precise with their language, surfacing the supporting data

2. Clearly articulating the study objective and if the hypothesis(es) was confirmed or busted

3. Treated as a one-pager, distilling down the core takeaways to one page (resisting the urge to over-elaborate or include everything) ◡̈

My Template for Qualitative Studies:

Now, let me break it down a bit…

[Research Study Name - keep it simple]

Lead with the quote that best encapsulates the research findings

Background

A short section answering the following questions:

• When was the research conducted?

• Who and how many people did you talk to?

• What was the objective of the study?

• What was tested?

• What methodology was used?

What We Showed Participants

Include the stim (images or video) here with labels and a concept description

TLDR

Bullet points act as the executive summary. Prioritized from most important to least important. The bold sentence captures the key insight. The following sentence provides the data to support it.

Example: Participants would recommend this fitness experience to friends. (95.5% of participants were likely to extremely likely to recommend the fitness feature to a friend.)

Summary

Different quote that nicely encapsulates the research findings

Written summary sharing common themes and findings in a couple of paragraphs - what participants were positively and negatively responding to, their preferences, concerns, potential risks, etc.

From Our Biggest Fans | From Our Biggest Critics

Incorporate videos of a single participant or compilation. Make sure to have a balanced number of quotes from each side.

While not pictured above, here are additional sections I include:

Feature/Concept breakdown

• Detailed insights

• Visuals

• Metrics

What Was Lovable

Customer quote(s) that best represents sentiment

• Share what customers loved

• What stood out to customers

New Ideas to Explore

A bullet list of ideas spurred by the insights and how conceptual work will evolve

Next Steps & Design Actions – Improvements to Make

Appendix/FAQ

• Questions you anticipate from leadership and/or colleagues. Some favorites of mine:

  • How convicted are we of our designs based on this research?

  • How close is the design to being lovable?

  • What/who is the vendor (if applicable)

  • How should I think about insights derived from small sample-size research?

  • What were the participant criteria and breakdown?

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A great template can help ensure the study is asking the right questions. Before you launch a study, ask yourself: Where will each question be used? How will I share the findings of this question or section?

3 Common mistakes to avoid:

1. Unclear language (“most people” vs “82% of participants”)

2. Overly positive, trying to soften the critical feedback

   1. While nice, it’s important to not just talk to the customers who love you ;) Check for product sentiment and include a range during participant selection.

3. Lacks clear, memorable takeaways (you gotta be ruthless to have an impact)

Templates are guides! Use this as a starting point and adjust as needed. Use videos, images and quotes to highlight the insights. The more people can hear directly from customers the better.

And that’s how I craft winning research docs at Amazon. Always striving to be precise, honest and objective.

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Favorite Quote and Photo of the Week

“Color is magic.” ― Carole Jackson, Color Me Beautiful

Currently reading

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That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!

Until next time,
raika