Nailing Your Next Literature Review
So you’ve got a new brief from your stakeholders asking for research support - they’ve been thorough, and they’ve got a whole boatload of questions they’d like answering. Oh, and they need something back in a couple of weeks.
More and more, my first port of call when a brief comes through is turning to secondary research and conducting a thorough literature review (also called ‘lit review’, ‘desk research’ or if you’re trying to get fancy with it ‘insight synthesis’.
Yes it can seem counterintuitive to take the time to do this before jumping into primary research, but chances are, you probably have more data than you realise that can help both you and your stakeholders. Conducting a lit review will help you answer questions quicker, give your brief laser focus, and provides a great foundation for any primary research that follows (both now or in the future).
I find them to be game changers, so think about employing one on your next project. Okay, enough evangelising - here are my top tips on nailing your next lit review
Be clear from the top what you’re trying to answer/what topic you’re looking to explore
Lit reviews can quickly become overwhelming and unwieldy if you don’t have a North Star to keep referring to. Be flexible (maybe an adjacent topic is useful that isn’t part of the original brief) but try and keep yourself focused. I tend to keep a post-it note or notes visible in my eye line of what my objective is.
If you haven’t got one already, logging all of your team's research projects in a log or repository is going to help you now and in the future.
This should include UX studies AND Market Research studies. All insights are helpful and including them in a log with a description or some keywords is going to help you identify what’s worth taking a look at and what’s not.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help on where to look - colleagues can point you in the direction of surprising and hidden nuggets of information
As amazing as a research log or repository is, it can’t account for every single data point that lives in every report, analysis or data set. Your colleagues can point you in the right direction of their work, or external sources that may be useful, and it’ll only take a minute or two of their time.
Go in with an open mind about what could be useful and map out all the data sources you think might be useful as a living document, so you can methodically go through and either use or lose them.
I log every single potential useful report or data source in one place - I personally use a spreadsheet but you can use docs/miro/figma - whatever works best for you and the way that you work.
You should include
A link to the source
Summary so you can quickly glance through and know what you’re looking at/for
Markets the data source covers
Is it qual or quant?
Date (some info might be out of date but still useful!)
Sample
A space for any additional notes
You will have a million tabs open at some point so keeping your plan of attack organised from the moment go is key.
If you discount a data source - don’t remove it! Just add a note as to why you discounted it. It’s good to know where you’ve been and as you develop your review, it may actually provide more useful information than first anticipated.
Think bigger than just your immediate data sources
Internal data sources to consider
Research (both Market and UX research)
Past quantitative research studies where data can be re-cut
BI and Analytics Data
Customer feedback
Category data
Social listening data
External data sources to consider
Googling the issue - you’d be surprised what turns up!
Jstor and Google Scholar
Searching LinkedIn
Searching Medium
Start to group insights and themes visually
Depending on how straightforward or how many data sources you’re working with, don’t be afraid of bringing some affinity mapping to the table. I like to pull out key insights from each report and put it on one sticky in Miro (with the source). You can then rapidly start to visualise some of the themes and areas the insights group into, while seeing where certain insights are validated by various sources.
Have a critical eye but don’t shy away from using data you’re less confident in - lookout for any debates, conflicts or disagreements in the sources, and be open if an insight needs further validation (i.e out of date, unrepresentative sample, small base size etc). Include it and flag the limitations.
Where there are insights that you have lower levels of confidence than others but it’s still somewhat relevant/interesting, don’t shy away from presenting them. Just highlight your reservations (i.e. caution insight more than 2 years old, caution research only conducted with men in Brazil, caution conflicting insights from different studies due x y z) and outline the potential for further research if it’s relevant.
Flag upfront what the lit review is (and isn’t).
Make clear what the objective is of the piece, who it’s intended for and the drawbacks.
It’s important to communicate to the reader upfront that they should not treat the findings as conclusive and that each of the studies had its own set of research objectives, and therefore the sample and methodology will vary throughout. The deck is an interpretation of any relevant information.
Also make clear the findings are out of context and when to take care when interpreting the data.
Summarise, summarise, summarise
Always include an exec summary and at the beginning of each topic/section create a short summary of all the insights. Stakeholders are probably not going to read through every page (upsetting I know) so making it as easy to read as possible is key.
Highlight clear gaps, weaknesses and areas for primary research
I like to include these with the exec summary and for each section summary. Make a clear link between the insights established and where we need to go next.
Include your sources throughout!
Links should be included throughout in case the reader wants to take a further look at a relevant study or data source.
Give your stakeholders some time to digest, and follow up with a session or workshop for the next phase of their research.
More often than not, your lit review can massively change the ask from stakeholders depending on how much data you have at your disposal. Take the time to check back in, follow up on any questions or thoughts, and help them work through what the ask is. A good researcher is a collaborative partner, not a service. Helping them ask the right questions upfront is as important as conducting the research.
Don’t forget to keep calm
Lit reviews can turn into a sticky web of insights, tabs, and data points, where you’re thinking ‘oh my god why did I say I’d do this, I should’ve just run the bloody study’. But keeping organised, focused and open-minded will make the whole process easier. Approach the task methodically and calmly, and reap the rewards that come from conducting a thorough lit review.
If you want to chat about lit reviews or secondary research, my inbox is always open hello@lucyquinn.me