01 See also #TiSDD 5.1, The process of service design research, for more information on the importance of triangulation in research and the concept of theoretical saturation.
Research reports can have many forms, from written reports to more visual collections of photos and videos. Depending on the project and the client or management, a research report can serve various purposes, such as providing actionable guidelines to improve a physical/digital product or service, a “shock” report to get internal buy-in for a service design project, proof of work that justifies the budget spent on research, a compendium of research data that can be reused in other projects, and more.
No matter how your report might look, here are a few points that a research report should include:
- Research process: Present your research process in an accessible way. Highlight what you’ve done to ensure decent data quality, such as triple triangulation (method, data, researcher), theoretical saturation, or peer review.
- Key insights/main findings: Start with your key insights as a kind of executive report. What are the most crucial points you want to bring across? Build your key insights on all types of data and support your insights by cross-referencing the different types of datasets you have. Does your qualitative data match the quantitative data? If so, what does it mean? What type of information, from the prep research and secondary research, can you incorporate here? Was it confirmed by the fieldwork or not?
- Raw data: Including raw data (first-level constructs) increases the credibility of your research. Add quotes, photos, audio and video recordings, artifacts, as well as statistics and metrics to your report to support your insights. If possible, include information on method, data, and researcher triangulation, and cross-reference between different datasets and highlight theoretical saturation or how representative your findings are. [01]
- Visualizations: If possible, include visualizations like personas, journey maps, or system maps to visually summarize your research findings in a way that is appealing and easy to understand.
