Design & Product
Learn how to turn raw data into trust-building stories, tackle pushback with confidence, and make your stakeholders fall in love with your research
Sr. Marketing Manager
Trust. In UX research, it’s everything.
If your stakeholders don’t trust your findings, you can forget about seeing any changes based on your insights.
But how do you earn that trust? How do you ensure your research is valued and acted upon? It’s not just about presenting raw data; it’s about building relationships, showing the real story behind the data, and most importantly—getting them excited about your research!
We had an amazing conversation with Chris Gray, founder of Nomat(check out the podcast) —it’s a goldmine!), and he dropped some brilliant insights on how to get stakeholders to love you and your research.
Spoiler: It involves more than just pretty charts!
We all know that trust is foundational in any relationship, and it’s no different when it comes to stakeholders and UX researchers. Without trust, even the most well-documented and thorough research can be dismissed or questioned.
The first step? Building relationships.
Chris Gray said it best: The key to trust is consistent, transparent conversations. You’ve got to build that rapport, so when things go wrong, they’ll trust you to fix it.
The reality is, research data doesn’t always fit perfectly into neat conclusions that stakeholders expect. Sometimes, the results are unexpected or conflicting, leaving stakeholders with questions.
Chris gave a great example in our podcast about how even unexpected results can be valuable. It’s all about digging deeper, finding patterns, and turning those insights into actionable recommendations.
Research data alone can often be dry and difficult to interpret. But when you present it as part of a story? That’s when the magic happens.
Data storytelling allows you to translate numbers into real, human experiences that your stakeholders can relate to.
Storytelling works wonders when presenting unexpected data. If a feature that was expected to perform well is underperforming, present it in the context of why it matters.
Chris touched on this during our podcast, saying that users’ voices are the most powerful part of any research. Quotes and reactions paint a much clearer picture than numbers ever could.
Let’s be honest—sometimes stakeholders will push back. Maybe they disagree with your findings or the conclusions you’ve drawn. When this happens, you can either get defensive, or you can respond with confidence and data-backed reasoning.
Chris emphasized the importance of data-backed decisions and clarifying the research process. The more stakeholders understand your methodology, the more they’ll trust your results.
Building trust with stakeholders goes beyond delivering research results—it’s about convincing them that your findings are meaningful, actionable, and grounded in solid data. UXArmy helps you achieve just that by providing tools that make your research more engaging, accessible, and compelling.
One of the most powerful ways to build trust with stakeholders is by showing them what real users think. UXArmy makes this simple by offering video recordings of both moderated and unmoderated usability testing sessions.
Seeing real users in action helps stakeholders understand exactly where users are struggling and where they’re succeeding. It’s not just about the data; it’s about putting faces to the numbers, making everything far more impactful.
It’s not just about what users do—it’s about how they feel when they use your product. UXArmy takes this a step further with AI-powered sentiment analysis for unmoderated tests done in English
With sentiment analysis, stakeholders can trust that the data reflects real emotions—not just clicks and interactions. This helps explain the why behind the numbers and gives users’ voices more weight.
Heatmaps and mouse flow give stakeholders a visual representation of how users interact with the product. They aren’t just abstract data points—they’re actual user behaviors in action.
These visual insights make it easy for stakeholders to see where things are working and where they need improvement, all in a way that’s simple to digest.
With full path tracking for Figma prototypes, UXArmy allows stakeholders to see every step of a user’s journey.
By giving stakeholders a complete picture of user behavior, you’re making sure they understand how users interact with your product at every touchpoint, allowing them to act on real data.
Sometimes, stakeholders want to be in the room but don’t want to influence the session. Enter the world of hidden observers. UXArmy allows stakeholders to observe moderated sessions in real-time without disturbing the flow of the research.
It’s a great way for stakeholders to feel involved and informed without disturbing the natural flow of the testing session.
For those tackling new markets, it’s crucial to understand how users in different regions perceive your product. UXArmy can help you test with localized user panels, ensuring your product is optimized for real users from those regions.
Getting real user feedback from specific regions helps ensure that decisions are made based on authentic, local insights—critical when expanding to new markets.
let’s make trust the foundation of every project you work on.
At the end of the day, building trust with your stakeholders is all about communication and actionable insights. You’ve got to make the data relatable, transparent, and reliable.
Here’s your quick takeaway:
And remember, UXArmy is here to help you on that journey. From AI-powered tools to real-time feedback features, we’re all about building trust and delivering insights that actually matter.
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