--- title: Why Research Findings Sit in Decks Instead of Shaping Roadmaps description: Most research findings never shape a product. This article explores why insights get ignored, from founder bias to box-ticking briefs, and what to do. image: https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/learning-centre-images/why-research-findings-sit-in-decks-instead-of-shaping-roadmaps.webp --- [Skip to content](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/why-research-findings-sit-in-decks-instead-of-shaping-roadmaps#main-content) [![we\_are\_affective\_logo\_200](https://weareaffective.com/hs-fs/hubfs/we_are_affective_logo_200.png?width=175&height=48&name=we_are_affective_logo_200.png "we_are_affective_logo_200")](https://weareaffective.com) - [Home](https://weareaffective.com) - About Us - [Our Story](https://weareaffective.com/about) - [How We Work](https://weareaffective.com/how-we-work) - Our Services - [App Planning & Strategy](https://weareaffective.com/app-planning-strategy) - [App Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-design-agency) - [App UX Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ux-design) - [App UI Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ui-design) - [App Technical Architecture](https://weareaffective.com/app-architecture) - [Existing App Audits](https://weareaffective.com/app-audit) - [Case Studies](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies) - [Pricing](https://weareaffective.com/pricing) - [Learning Centre](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre) - [Get Started](https://weareaffective.com/get-started) Expert Guide Series # Why Research Findings Sit in Decks Instead of Shaping Roadmaps Table of Contents Somewhere between the research session and the roadmap meeting, the findings get lost. A team spends weeks running interviews, synthesising patterns, writing it all up into a careful deck. The deck gets presented. People nod. And then, almost nothing changes. The product ships more or less as originally planned, shaped by the same assumptions that were in place before anyone spoke to a single user. > Research fails not because the process breaks down, but because the decision was already made. This is not a documentation problem or a process problem. The research was done properly. The report was clear. The presentation was well-structured. And yet the findings sat in a folder, occasionally referenced, never really acted upon. Understanding why this happens requires looking past the research itself and at the conditions surrounding it, who commissioned it, what they were hoping to hear, and what they were prepared to do if the answer was different from what they expected. The data on this is sobering. Dovetail's State of User Research report found that around sixty percent of researchers said their work was sometimes or rarely acted upon, with roughly forty percent of those pointing to lack of stakeholder engagement as the primary cause of [app user research](https://weareaffective.com/app-user-research) going unused. UserZoom and Ipsos found that around seventy-two percent of product decisions were made without user research informing them at all. Nielsen Norman Group's work suggests that in startups and smaller companies, fewer than twenty percent of research findings result in a documented product change. These are numbers about what happens to good research when the conditions around it are wrong. ## The Scale of the Problem: How Often Research Actually Changes Anything The figures above describe a consistent pattern across company sizes and sectors. Research is commissioned, conducted, and then set aside. Product decisions proceed on gut instinct, founder conviction, or internal politics rather than on what users actually said and felt. The research deck exists. The product that launches does not reflect it. What makes this particularly frustrating is that the research cost was real. The time was real. The participants gave up an hour of their day, shared genuine experiences, and offered honest feedback about what worked and what did not. That information exists, somewhere in a slides file, and it shaped nothing. Nielsen Norman Group's research on organisational maturity is worth sitting with here. Even as companies grow and research functions become more established, the proportion of findings that result in documented product changes remains well below half. The gap between "we did research" and "we changed something because of it" persists at every level, though it is widest in younger, smaller organisations, exactly the ones where the cost of building the wrong thing is highest. The problem is not that research is being done badly. The problem is structural, political, and attitudinal. It lives in the relationship between the people who commission research and the findings that come back. ## Commissioned but Not Wanted: When Research Is a Box-Ticking Exercise Some research is commissioned because a stakeholder genuinely wants to know what users think. Some is commissioned because commissioning research is what you are supposed to do before building something, and having done it allows the project to proceed. These two motivations produce very different outcomes. In the second case, the research is a formality. The decision about what to build has already been made. The stakeholder has a strong view about the product, the features, and the direction, and they are not genuinely open to evidence that contradicts it. The research process runs, the findings are presented, and then the product continues along its original trajectory as though the findings had not arrived. We have seen this pattern clearly enough to recognise it early. A founder once came to us with deep industry experience and very fixed views about exactly how their product should work. The research process began, and the findings started pointing in directions the founder had not anticipated. Rather than engaging with those findings, the founder dismissed them. We showed evidence that a significant portion of the target user base did not want certain features and actively preferred alternatives. None of it moved the needle. We walked away from that engagement. The product launched roughly a year later, largely unchanged from the original vision, and by all accounts did not gain traction, for the same reasons the research had flagged. ## Design that understands *your* users We build app experiences around real user behaviour, not assumptions. Research, psychology-driven design and technical specs that turn users into loyal advocates. [See how we work](https://weareaffective.com/how-we-work) [Get started](https://weareaffective.com/get-started) No commitment ## The Founder Conviction Problem There is a particular version of this pattern that appears in early-stage products, and it is worth naming directly. A founder identifies a problem, usually one they have experienced personally, and builds a clear mental model of the solution. That conviction is genuinely valuable, it is what gets a product off the ground. But it can also become a filter that makes contrary evidence invisible. When a founder is certain they know what the product should be, research findings that confirm the vision are welcomed. Findings that challenge it are reframed as a sampling issue, or attributed to participants who did not understand the concept, or simply noted and set aside. The founder's belief in the product is not irrational, but it is selective in a way that undermines the whole point of doing research. > A founder who arrives with deep conviction and no genuine openness will not be moved by any amount of user evidence. A pre-launch founder in the football industry came to us with a colour-coded spreadsheet mapping every competitor product in the space, with the goal of merging them all into one. They were visibly excited. We started asking questions about why a prospective user would choose an all-in-one product over specialist apps, and whether consolidation might compromise the depth of individual features. The founder deflated noticeably. But those questions matter, and answering them honestly is the only way to [build something people will actually use](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/5-things-that-make-the-difference-between-so-so-apps-and-stellar-apps-what-your-). Flattering a founder's vision and then watching the product fail serves nobody. Before a research project begins, ask the commissioning stakeholder directly: "If the findings contradict your current direction, what would you do?" The answer to that question tells you more about whether the research will be acted on than anything in the project brief. ## Vanity Products and the Budget That Never Reaches Launch When founder conviction goes unchallenged long enough, a recognisable pattern emerges. The product stops being shaped by user evidence and starts being shaped by the founder's preferences. Features get added because the founder wants them. Design decisions get made because the founder likes them. The product becomes, in a practical sense, a vanity product, built to satisfy the person funding it rather than the people who might eventually use it. We identified this pattern across two separate projects, one a [fitness and wellness app](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/what-a-fitness-social-app-changed-when-it-realised-precise-location-was-the-wron) and one a grassroots football product. In both cases, the founders had strong personal conviction in their vision. Research findings, focus groups, and survey data pointed in directions that contradicted parts of that vision. In both cases, the founders did not substantially alter course. The warning signs were consistent across both: an excessive drive to perfect the product before launch, decisions that had already been signed off being rolled back so further changes could be requested, and a decision-making process that stretched on far longer than the budget could support. We flagged the trajectory in both cases. Both projects exhausted their budgets in the design and build phases without ever reaching a fully live product. The research had done its job. The conditions around it had not. - Repeatedly revisiting decisions that were already agreed upon - Prioritising aesthetic perfection over functional completeness - Dismissing user feedback as unrepresentative without investigating why - Extending timelines to accommodate founder preferences rather than user needs If a client is rolling back sign-offs and requesting changes to things already agreed, address it directly in the next project meeting. A pattern of re-opened decisions is one of the clearest early signals that a product is drifting toward being built for the founder rather than the user. ## When Stakeholder Engagement Is Missing Before the Research Begins The Dovetail data points to lack of stakeholder engagement as the most common reason research goes unused. But that engagement problem usually begins before the research starts, not after the findings are presented. By the time the deck is in front of the stakeholders, the conditions for whether it will be acted upon have often already been set. Research that stakeholders have had no part in shaping is research they feel no ownership of. The questions were chosen without them. The participants were recruited without their input. The findings arrive as something done to them rather than something done with them. And findings that feel external are much easier to dismiss than findings that the stakeholder helped to generate. #### What Engagement Actually Looks Like Genuine stakeholder engagement before research begins means involving decision-makers in defining the questions. It means agreeing in advance what kinds of findings would warrant what kinds of changes. It means the stakeholder understanding [what the research is designed to reveal](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/how-to-tell-whether-your-digital-problem-is-a-format-problem-or-a-brief-problem), rather than being presented with conclusions they were not expecting and had no context for. #### The Difference It Makes When a stakeholder has helped shape the [research questions, they have a degree of investment](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/how-to-run-a-concept-test-that-doesnt-just-confirm-what-the-team-already-believe) in what those questions reveal. Dismissing the findings means dismissing questions they helped write. That is a harder position to hold than simply disagreeing with a consultant's conclusions. The research does not change, but its relationship to the stakeholder does. ## The Difference Between Research That Sits in a Deck and Research That Shapes a Product Research that shapes products is not necessarily more rigorous or more detailed than research that sits in decks. The difference is rarely about sample size or methodology. It is about [what happens around the research](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/what-a-development-team-actually-needs-to-know-about-the-user-before-sprint-one), before it starts and after it finishes. | Condition | Research that sits in a deck | Research that shapes a product | | --- | --- | --- | | Stakeholder intent | Box-ticking, validation-seeking | Genuine openness to findings | | Pre-research engagement | None or minimal | Stakeholders helped shape the questions | | Response to contradiction | Findings dismissed or reframed | Findings tabled and business impact assessed | | Decision-making after | Proceeds as originally planned | Adjusted based on what emerged | When a stakeholder challenges findings on the grounds of sample size, the right response is to accept that any research is better than none, then focus on the specific points that carry the most significant implications. If the concern persists, the appropriate move is to shift from exploratory qualitative work into larger-scale quantitative validation, predefined surveys that can reach far more respondents than interview sessions or focus groups. But this only works if the stakeholder is genuinely trying to understand the evidence, not trying to dismiss it. ## What Good Looks Like: The Concierge App and the Community Insight On a concierge app project for a property developer, the client came to us with two goals that were working against each other. They wanted a full-service building management utility and a community-building social tool, housed in the same product. We could see those two purposes were pulling in opposite directions, and the project needed research to resolve the tension rather than paper over it. We ran focus groups that included residents from social housing, not the eventual target market, but a group with strong existing community dynamics. What we found in those sessions was that the relationships in those communities were not superficial. People knew each other's names, families, interests, and pets. That familiarity was what built genuine community, and it was built through face-to-face conversation, not through a platform. This shaped the entire strategic recommendation. The app should handle the mundane and transactional, maintenance requests, fire drill procedures, recycling locations, building announcements. By taking those tasks off the concierge's plate, the app would [free up time and space for the human conversations](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/why-do-some-apps-feel-like-they-were-made-just-for-you) that actually build community. The product was not designed to replace those conversations. It was designed to make room for them. The client acted on this. The research did not sit in a deck because the client had been part of the process from the start, understood the reasoning behind the focus groups, and was genuinely open to what came back. That is what made the difference. ## How to Tell Early Whether Findings Will Be Acted Upon There are signals, early in any research engagement, that indicate whether the findings will shape the product or be set aside. None of them are definitive on their own, but together they paint a fairly clear picture of the conditions you are working in. 1. The stakeholder has already described the product in precise detail before any research has taken place, and is not framing that description as a hypothesis to be tested. 2. When early findings emerge that contradict the brief, the stakeholder's first response is to question the participants rather than engage with the finding. 3. The commissioning stakeholder was not involved in shaping the research questions and has limited context for what the research is designed to reveal. 4. There is [no agreed process for what happens after the findings](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre/why-product-owners-should-write-the-users-second-session-before-the-first-one) are presented, no decision-making meeting, no framework for how findings translate into roadmap changes. 5. The research is being conducted to satisfy an external requirement, a board, an investor, a process checkpoint, rather than to answer a genuine question. Reading these signals early allows for a different kind of conversation. Not a confrontational one, but an honest one about what the research is actually for and what the team is genuinely prepared to do with it. At the project kickoff, ask the stakeholder to describe what a finding would look like that would cause them to change direction. If they struggle to answer, or if their answer describes only minor adjustments, that tells you something important about the conditions you are working in. ## What Researchers and Agencies Can Do Differently The responsibility for research landing does not sit entirely with the client. Researchers and agencies shape the conditions around research, and those conditions determine whether findings move anything. The first thing to change is when stakeholder engagement happens. Involving decision-makers in writing the research questions, or at least in reviewing and reacting to them, gives them a degree of ownership over what gets asked. Findings that come back from questions they helped shape are much harder to dismiss as irrelevant. #### Framing Findings as Business Decisions Research that lands tends to be research that connects clearly to business consequences. A finding that says "users found this feature confusing" is easier to set aside than one that says "users who encountered this feature left the flow at a rate that suggests the conversion impact is material." The second framing requires a business decision, not just an acknowledgement. When we present findings from the football founder engagement or the wellness app projects, the question we try to ask is: "What does acting on this protect, and what does ignoring it risk?" That framing changes the conversation. #### Being Willing to Walk Away There are engagements where the conditions make it clear that research will not be acted upon regardless of what it finds. In those situations, continuing serves nobody well. It gives the stakeholder a research process to point to without any of the value that process should create. Walking away from the founder engagement we described earlier was the right call. The alternative was lending our name to a process that was, in practice, decorative. ## Conclusion Research findings sit in decks because the conditions around the research, not the research itself, were wrong. The methodology was fine. The participants were genuine. The synthesis was careful. But somewhere upstream, a decision had already been made, or a stakeholder had no real openness to being surprised, or nobody had agreed what would happen after the deck was presented. The fitness and wellness app, the grassroots football product, the founder with the colour-coded competitor spreadsheet, in each of those cases, the research was not the problem. The problem was the relationship between the people commissioning it and the findings that came back. In the concierge app project, the research shaped the product because the client was genuinely asking a question and genuinely prepared to act on the answer. That preparedness is not something a research process can create on its own. It has to be there before the first session runs. For anyone responsible for commissioning research, the most useful question to ask before the project begins is a simple one: what would we need to find, and in what form, to actually change our direction? If that question has a clear answer, the conditions are probably right. If it does not, the research process is worth pausing before it starts. Research done well, in conditions where findings are genuinely welcome, is one of the most reliable ways to build something people want. Research done as a formality is an expensive way to produce a deck nobody reads. The difference lies in the room before the research begins, not in the methodology itself. [Let's talk about how your next research project gets acted on](https://weareaffective.com/get-started) ## Frequently Asked Questions Why do research findings so often fail to influence product decisions? The problem is rarely about the quality of the research itself. It is more often structural and political, rooted in the conditions surrounding the research, including who commissioned it and whether they were genuinely open to changing course based on what they found. How common is it for user research to be ignored? The data suggests it is very common. Studies from Dovetail, UserZoom, and Nielsen Norman Group indicate that the majority of product decisions are made without research informing them, and fewer than half of findings tend to result in any documented product change. What does it mean when research is commissioned as a box-ticking exercise? It means the decision about what to build has effectively already been made before the research begins. The research is conducted to satisfy a process requirement rather than to genuinely learn something, so the findings are unlikely to change anything regardless of what they reveal. Does the problem get better as companies grow and mature? It does improve to some degree as research functions become more established, but the gap between conducting research and acting on it persists at every level of organisational maturity. Smaller and younger companies tend to have the widest gap, which is particularly costly given how much is at stake when building in early stages. What role do stakeholders play in whether research gets used? Stakeholders play a significant role, with around forty percent of researchers citing lack of stakeholder engagement as the primary reason their work goes unused. If the people who commissioned the research are not genuinely prepared to hear a challenging answer, the findings are unlikely to shape anything. Is poor documentation or reporting to blame for research being ignored? Not usually. The article is clear that research decks are often well-structured and clearly written, and the findings are still set aside. The issue lies beyond the report itself, in attitudes and power dynamics rather than in how the research is presented. What is the real cost of research that goes unused? The cost is concrete on multiple levels. Time and budget were spent on the research, and participants gave up their time to share honest feedback. When none of that informs the product, both the investment and the participants' contributions are effectively wasted. What should teams look at if they want research to have more impact? Teams need to look beyond the research process itself and examine the conditions surrounding it. This means considering who is commissioning the research, what they are hoping to hear, and whether there is a genuine willingness to act if the findings point in an unexpected direction. ## Related Articles [![We Are Affective](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/we_are_affective_logo_mark.svg)](https://weareaffective.com) 20-22 Wenlock Road London, N1 7GU United Kingdom +44 20 4572 8062 [hello@weareaffective.com](mailto:hello@weareaffective.com) Services [App planning & strategy](https://weareaffective.com/app-planning-strategy) [App design](https://weareaffective.com/app-design-agency) [App UX design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ux-design) [App UI design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ui-design) [App technical architecture](https://weareaffective.com/app-architecture) [Existing app audits](https://weareaffective.com/app-audit) Legal [Privacy policy](https://app.termly.io/policy-viewer/policy.html?policyUUID=b8fa9921-7518-4fb5-8ddd-9dc7f5977ed2) [Terms](https://app.termly.io/policy-viewer/policy.html?policyUUID=8b6a6ad5-91bd-4176-a5f7-6d36b0398f70) Case studies [TravAI](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/travai) [Meditech](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/harley) [WorkingWeight](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/workingweight) [SkinSync](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/skinsync) [Three Lochs](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/three-lochs) [Drift](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/drift) About us [Our Story](https://weareaffective.com/about) [How We Work](https://weareaffective.com/how-we-work) Guides [Creating an app](https://weareaffective.com/how-to-create-an-app) [Building an MVP](https://weareaffective.com/building-an-mvp) [Cost and budgeting](https://weareaffective.com/app-development-cost) [App technology](https://weareaffective.com/app-development) [Planning and strategy](https://weareaffective.com/app-planning-strategy) [User research](https://weareaffective.com/app-user-research) [Onboarding design](https://weareaffective.com/app-onboarding-design) [User psychology](https://weareaffective.com/user-psychology-app-design) [Launch and growth](https://weareaffective.com/app-launch-growth) Copyright © 2026, weareaffective.com. 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