UX Research Impact Tracker

Get the impact tracker used by 235 teams!

It is not enough to do research and hope it has impact.

It’s easy as a user researcher, designer, or PM to fall into the trap of always wanting to learn more about users without knowing if we've delivered real value with our work.

Being able to say, “I really impressed that team with those insights!” sometimes feels like enough.

It's not.

In the past two years, the UX Research practice has been sent through the washer. More than ever, we need to prove our worth.

The true value of user research is the influence it has on the work of others, the user’s experience, and the company's bottom line.

If it hasn't already happened, eventually your Chief Product Officer, your Head of UX Research or you yourself will ask you and your team what you've actually achieved with research.

With this tracker, you will be able to show them.

The Benefits of Impact Tracking

If we don’t track the ways in which user research has impact, we risk not knowing whether we had impact at all.

By tracking, we quickly see:

• Whether a project had an impact
• Whether a project had the intended impact
• Which types of projects have most impact, and least
• Whether one team is receiving more benefit from UX Research than others
• Where in the organization we need to give more support
• How long it typically takes to see results
• If impact is scarce, we see it and can fix it

So...what's included?

This Impact Tracker template is a starting point so you can get tracking ASAP.

You'll receive:

• The UXR Impact Tracker template in Notion
• The UXR Impact Tracker template in Google Sheets
• My tips and recommendations for how to think about impact tracking
• A step-by-step guide to set up and tweak and iterate the tracker to fit your team's unique context and needs, so you never get stuck tracking the wrong things
• A guide to noting Observations that can help you see important trends in what you've tracked - and increase your impact faster

235 Teams already use this template. Here's what they say -

"Because I couldn't see the direct impact of my work, I told myself a tale I shouldn't have - that UXRs are just facilitators, not change-makers...Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong...For me, MEANINGFUL WORK was synonymous with IMPACTFUL work...so how do I measure it? Drumroll, please...I read this article and created my own impact tracker using the information Caitlin shared. Thank you Caitlin for your deep expertise and frequent sharing of knowledge through various channels! I am a fan."

- Sabah, Principal UXR

"I've struggled for so long to be able to show just how much research can affect and improve decisions in the product team. This is exactly what I was looking for. It has everything I wanted to track, but I was unable to pull it all out of my brain and structure the pieces in the way this has done for me. Thanks for making it easy to get started with proving what research does."

- Anna, Senior Product Manager

"I have certainly read my share of 'frameworks' for tracking impact. But most of them feel so complex, I never know where to start. I'm so grateful that there's finally a tracking template with tags and options I can run with instead of trying to imagine what all the tips and recommendations really MEAN and how they would be put together in a table. This is the thing I need. I'm very excited to use it."

- James, first-time UXR Lead

"I was starting to worry recently about whether my work had an impact, or if it was all for nothing. I started tracking it over the past few months, and my confidence went through the roof, really. In my annual review, I showed it to my manager and we both got to use it to get more funding for our team - plus I got a slight raise. Doesn't hurt :). Thanks a lot."

- Lisa, Junior UXR

A Note on Impact Types

One big objective of this UX Research impact tracker is to help teams get clear on the various forms of impact a UX Research team can have.

The impact of UX Research work doesn't usually show up clearly in the C-suite's dashboards. We need other ways of understanding and proving and improving our value over time.

Impact is not just business metrics. This Tracker template has 3 major impact types which aim to address the broader team's eagerness to share research results, efforts to involve the UX Research team in more projects, and the influence of research on decision-making.