Strategic Communication for UX Researchers
How to Craft Insights that Drive Decisions
Write insights, recommendations, and reports that stakeholders can act on. Three weeks of self-paced lectures and activities, plus a live session with Ruby each week, for UX researchers, designers, and product managers. Each week covers one stage of the deliverable: insights and recommendations, then frameworks, then report structure and executive summaries. You practice each stage with an activity and get feedback on it live.
- Investment
- $599
- Format
- Self-paced + weekly live sessions · 3 weeks
- Time
- 3 to 5 hours a week
Sign up to hear when enrollment opens.
Lifetime access to lectures, recordings, and templates.
Twenty lectures, every live session recording, and the report, presentation, and executive summary templates.
Full refund up to the first day of class.
Cancel any time before week one.
Certificate of completion.
Shareable on LinkedIn or with your employer.
Write research that stakeholders understand and use.
Most research courses focus on how to do research. They cover scoping, methods selection and analysis. While these skills are foundational for UX researchers, they are not what elevates a researcher to become more senior and more influential. I designed Strategic Communication for UX Researchers to bridge this gap.
I built this course on the best of my knowledge, accrued over half a decade working in management consulting firms, in an in-house role as a UX researcher, and in founding my own strategic design consulting firm. My varied experience across industries and geographies showed me that one thing is consistent: we have to be able to write a great insight, pair it with a strong recommendation, and present all that in a report format that cuts through. This is what I teach in this course.
This course focuses on everything that happens after the research is complete. It will teach you the skills you need to make your work clearer, easier for stakeholders to understand, and ultimately more compelling for them to act on.
The course runs for three weeks. Each week you watch recorded lectures on your own schedule, complete an activity in your own time and submit it, and take a multiple choice quiz to test your learning. Ruby gives you feedback on every activity submitted before the deadline. You then join a live workshop to consolidate the lectures, learn a few new concepts, and get peer feedback on submissions.
- 01
Understand the difference between an observation (the what), an insight (the why), and an implication (the so what).
- 02
Write a recommendation that a team can act on.
- 03
Understand where your work fits in the four levels of UX research impact.
- 04
Build frameworks from customer data and apply existing frameworks.
- 05
Structure a report with the pyramid principle so the answer comes first and each section supports it.
- 06
Summarize a complex project in 150 words or fewer for an executive who will read nothing else.
How will this course help your career?
Become a more strategic thinker.
You learn to use frameworks as a thinking tool, not just a reporting one. That includes consulting methods like MECE problem solving frameworks (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) and the pyramid principle (start with the answer, then support it with grouped evidence).
Improve how you write insights, the foundation of every UXR job.
You learn how to push every observation to the why and the so what. You learn how to shape recommendations that distinguish tactical fixes from strategic moves.
Excel where AI doesn't.
AI can be verbose, lack logic and miss important context. This course teaches you a skill that is increasingly necessary as people produce more "slop" than ever. Being able to write a compelling deliverable will make you stand out more than ever.
Communicate better with executives.
Learn strategies for dealing with time-poor and context-poor stakeholders, including answer-first communication, strong report structure and easy-to-read slide design.
Cut down your writing time.
Starting from a proven structure gets you to a clear outline faster. You spend less time rearranging and rewriting.
Make your insights cut through.
Stakeholders remember insights that explain why something is happening and what to do about it. You learn how to make yours specific, relevant to their goals, and easy to act on.
Understand why your writing sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.
You get structures that explain why one report reads as logical and another feels jumbled, and why one insight lands while another stays a loose observation. Once you're clear on these writing mechanics, it's much easier to improve your writing (and build AI skills to improve its outputs too).
→ Built for you if
- You run solid studies and want the readout to carry more weight with stakeholders.
- You are a designer or product manager who has to combine research, data, and opinion into one document that sets direction.
- You have had senior leaders or product managers ask you "so what?" when reading your research deliverables.
- You want live feedback from Ruby on your own insights, frameworks, and report structure.
× Not the right fit if
- You want a research methods course. This one starts after the research is complete.
- You want to improve data visualization. The focus here is the written argument (with a little on slide design).
- You plan to watch without submitting work. Students who complete the activities for feedback experience the most growth and ROI.
Assumed going in
- You have some prior experience writing research reports or insights documents that someone else had to act on.
- You can commit 3 to 5 hours a week for three weeks: 1 to 2 hours for the lectures, 1 hour for the live session and 2 hours for the activity and quiz.
Helpful, not required
- You are confident with research methods and scoping and want to focus on what happens at the end of a research project.
- You present (or aim to present) your research to a range of stakeholders (designers, PMs, senior leaders).
1.1
Week 1, Module 1: Improving insights
Turn an observation from qualitative or quantitative data into an insight that states the why and the so what.
- Separate observations (the what) from insights (the why) and spot the language that signals each.
- Learn how to write implications to bring the "so what" to your work.
1.2
Week 1, Module 2: Writing better recommendations
Write strong recommendations that build alignment and stakeholder buy-in.
- Recognize what a recommendation is, and what it is not (a how might we question or a general direction).
- Build a recommendation from three parts: the insight, the principle, the specifics.
1.3
Week 1, Module 3: Unpacking impact
Understand the four levels of UX research impact to reframe the contribution of research beyond insights.
- Apply Ruby's four-level framework that describes impact beyond insights.
- Understand four ways to make insights more impactful.
Week 1 activity: A self-paced activity where you apply what you learned about writing insights and recommendations.
Week 1 live session: Consolidate knowledge from the lectures, learn a few new concepts, and get an opportunity for peer feedback on submissions.
Week 1 quiz: A multiple choice quiz to test your learning.
2.1
Week 2, Module 1: Why frameworks are important
Explain what a framework gives a reader that a list of findings cannot.
- Define a framework as a way of categorising, organising or ordering data points.
- Make the case for better thinking, better communication and better durability.
2.2
Week 2, Module 2: Using existing frameworks
Learn how to use existing frameworks to improve your UXR thinking.
- Leverage frameworks that already have senior buy-in so you can get to specifics fast.
- Work through Porter's Five Forces applied to a strategic UX research problem.
2.3
Week 2, Module 3: Creating your own frameworks
Build a 2x2, hierarchy, or categorization framework from your own observations and check that it is MECE.
- Learn how to create a range of frameworks, including 2x2s.
- Apply Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) thinking to break a problem into a hierarchy.
- Learn how to do "top down" and "bottom up" thinking.
Week 2 activity: Complete the activity in your own time to apply what you learned about creating a framework.
Week 2 live session: Consolidate knowledge from the lectures, learn a few new concepts, and get an opportunity for peer feedback on submissions.
Week 2 quiz: A multiple choice quiz to test your learning.
3.1
Week 3, Module 1: Report structure and storylines
Build a report storyline that opens with the answer and holds together as an argument.
- Learn how to build the core argument of your report and a structure that supports it.
- Choose whether the key takeaway is an insight, implication or recommendation.
- Structure report slides for clarity and write compelling headline titles.
3.2
Week 3, Module 2: Executive summaries
Write a clear summary of your UXR work that is memorable and easy to consume.
- Write an executive summary for documentation that a reader can rely on six months later.
- Write an executive summary for action that tells a decision-maker what to do and by when.
3.3
Week 3, Module 3: Impact statements
Write an impact statement that summarizes a complex project in 150 words or fewer.
- Use SCQA (situation, complication, question, answer) to structure the statement.
- Learn how this format can adapt to different moments in a project.
Week 3 activity: Complete the activity in your own time to apply what you learned about structuring a report argument with the pyramid principle.
Week 3 live session: Consolidate knowledge from the lectures, learn a few new concepts, and get an opportunity for peer feedback on submissions.
Week 3 quiz: A multiple choice quiz to test your learning.
Ruby Pryor
Ruby Pryor is the founder of Rex, a UX research and strategic design consultancy. Before founding Rex, she worked at Boston Consulting Group and Nous Group, both management consulting firms, and as an in-house UX researcher at Grab Singapore. She has taught 500+ professionals across 6 continents and 20+ countries through live masterclasses and cohort programs. She has spoken at 10+ conferences across 7 countries and 2 continents, and has appeared on Channel News Asia. This course distils the writing practice she built across consulting, tech and her own agency: how to turn research into insights, frameworks and reports that move people to act.
All lectures are prerecorded for you to consume at your own pace. Complete the activity by the deadline to get feedback from Ruby and peers. Plan on 3 to 5 hours a week.
Three live sessions, one at the end of each week. The live sessions combine a quick review of the week's content but focus mainly on peer and group feedback on the submitted work.
It is recorded and posted the same day. As long as you submit the activity by the deadline, you will get feedback from Ruby whether or not you attend the workshop session.
What happens in the live sessions? +
Each live session covers four things:
- A short icebreaker so we all get to know each other.
- A recap of the key content from the lectures.
- A few new concepts to move thinking forward.
- A FigJam session where we have the opportunity to give peer feedback on the submitted work. This is the focus of the session. Ruby will also give some overarching feedback on all of the submissions.
I have written research reports for years. Is this too basic? +
This course has been praised by both newer and more experienced researchers. Many who have been writing reports for years said it helped them level up the way they structure their arguments and talk to stakeholders.
I'm a designer or a product manager, not a researcher. Does this apply to me? +
Yes. This course will work for anyone who works with customer insights, no matter your job title.
What will I be able to do by the end? +
This course is all about improving the way you write insights and reports, and therefore how you communicate to stakeholders. You will have had a chance to apply all the skills you're learning in theory and get extensive feedback too.
Does this course cover research methods? +
No. This course is not about how to do research. It is about everything that happens after the research and analysis is complete. We focus on how to take research impact to the next level, not on how to do research itself.
What is the real time commitment? +
Three to five hours a week for three weeks. Approximately 2 hours for the lectures, 1 hour for the live session and 2 hours for the activity homework and quiz.
Will I get recordings if I miss a live session? +
Yes. Every live session is recorded and posted the same day, and all lectures are prerecorded. The activity submission deadline is before the workshop, and Ruby will give feedback on every submission she receives before the workshop, whether or not you attend the session live.
Can I expense this? +
Most participants do. You get an itemized receipt and, on request, a short justification paragraph for a manager or L&D budget. The deliverables you produce in the activities are work you can show.
Enroll with confidence. Full refund up to the first day of class. Once it starts, every lecture, recording, and template is yours to keep.
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