3.2 Write insight statements

Turn your themes and sub-themes into rich insights that articulate the most valuable learning from your research.

This is a short but important activity. Do it as part of your synthesis session.

🧙‍♂️ Tip: Take your time. Think hard. Well crafted insight statements will lead to better personas and user need statements.

🛠️ Tools

The online whiteboard you used in step 5.

🧍🏿 Solo or collaborate 👫?

Do this with the same colleagues. Work as a group or individually.

👣2 Steps

1. Understand insight statements

Look at the insight statement examples on your whiteboard. Read each one slowly. Try and see how they communicate a mixture of context, motivations, tension and impact.

🔗🔗 Create insight statements by Design Kit

2. Write insight statements

Choose a theme. Notice its sub-themes. Read all its post-its.

Turn what you’ve read into a short statement that captures the strongest insight from a sub-theme. Write this statement from the user’s perspective.

Each statement should explain:

• the context

• the problem or dilemma

• why it is happening.

The best ones also include users’ feelings or motivations and express a tension in the situation.

Repeat this for every sub-theme. You can combine sub-themes if they fit well together.

Ignore a sub-theme if it lacks a strong insight or relevance to your research questions. It's better to leave it out than try and create an insight that isn’t there.

4. Refine statements

Work through this checklist for each of your insights to see where you can strengthen and refine.

1. Well-informed. Is it informed by multiple users’ perspectives or experience?

2. More than an observation. Does it offer insight into how or why a phenomenon is occurring? Does it offer a compelling reframe of something we already know?

3. So what? Does it help people understand why it matters? Does it capture a tension or a shift that needs to happen? Does it connect to research questions and project impact objectives?

4. Sticky. Is it memorable, interesting, and repeatable? Can you link to a metaphor?

🧙‍♂️ Tips

Always write insight statements from the user’s perspective to help you connect with them on a deeper emotional level. Be real, be human, and avoid jargon. Keep it objective and honest.

You’re done here

Nice work. You’ve completed Guide 3.

What to do next

You have two choices:

1. Move forward to Guide 4: How to create personas and user need statements, or

2. Stop here and use your themes and insights to create ‘How might we... ‘ statements. Do this while the insights are still fresh.