22 Aug Writing UX Research for Humans

Why are UX research reports so often unreadable?

UX research reports are meant to clarify. Yet many of the ones we write, or read, feel unreadable. A participant had cried during a session. But by the time the quote appeared in the final slide deck, it had been reframed as: “Emotional user response highlights latent frustration with service inefficiencies.”

Technically, the meaning was intact. But what was lost wasn’t just the emotion — it was the cadence, the context, the small moment that made the tear matter.

Many UX researchers write as if they’re still proving the value of their discipline. The result is often a defensive posture: hedged language, passive constructions, over-polished charts. We end up with something that looks professional, but says very little.

 

1. A phrasing that emptied the finding

One project still stays with me. We were testing a prototype for a scheduling tool built for shift workers. Participants were clear — almost blunt — in how they spoke. “It’s confusing,” one said. “I’d rather just call in.” Another asked, “What happens if I swap two shifts and forget to confirm?”

In the report, those became: “Users request more intuitive flows,” and “There is a need for clarity around confirmation logic.” At the time, I thought I was being careful — clear, neutral, professional.

The stakeholders nodded. Then we moved on.

Weeks later, preparing a different deliverable, I returned to the transcripts. I reread what one participant had said — this time with the recording open. “If I mess up, I won’t know until my manager calls me. I just… don’t trust it.” That version made it into a new draft, almost unchanged. It wasn’t just more vivid — it gave the reader a reason to pause.

Not because it was better written. Because it made the user present.

 

2. Writing as interpretation, not transcription

The move from raw research to report is often treated as a delivery task. But in practice, it’s interpretive. We decide what tone to strike, what order to reveal things, where to hold back. We choose whether to tell a story or flatten it into a theme.

Writing, in this sense, isn’t post-processing — it’s synthesis. A nested clause can hide agency. A passive phrase can sound objective while displacing responsibility. The choice to list findings versus narrate them isn’t neutral either.

I’ve seen two reports from the same study produce completely different reactions. One was shelved, the other sparked roadmap changes. The difference wasn’t the data — it was the stance. One report left room for uncertainty, the other rushed to make sense.

This isn’t about style. It’s about what kind of knowledge we’re producing, and for whom.

 

3. The ethics of phrasing, and its hidden actors

Interpretation carries responsibility. Passive voice can seem gentle but often hides cause: “Users were confused by the interface” avoids the question of why it was that way.

The same is true of phrases like “Users need more education.” It subtly locates the problem in the user, not the system. These aren’t just linguistic choices — they’re ethical ones.

In one report review, I noticed how a single stakeholder’s comment — “Let’s avoid blaming the design” — quietly shaped the whole tone. We changed “Users struggled with unclear icons” to “Some users had differing expectations of icon meanings.” The revision softened the feedback. But it also shifted responsibility away from the product team.

Bias enters this way. Through emphasis. Through sequencing. Through whose voice we make audible, and whose we paraphrase.

To write is to decide what matters. And in research, those decisions shape what gets funded, fixed, or ignored.

 

Personal reflections:

As my personal reflection, I’ve come to see writing not as a way to end a research project, but as a way to stay inside it longer. Writing — when I let it interrupt me — helped me listen again. It showed me what I’d misunderstood or rephrased too quickly.

This piece began as a question about how to make UX research reports more readable. But I’ve realised I was also asking something else: What kind of attention does a quote deserve? And what kind of writing might allow us, just briefly, to hear it properly?