How do you align a UX expert review report with the project goals and user needs?

It is crucial to clarify the intended audience for this document, as the language and level of detail may vary depending on the readership. Additionally, it's essential to clearly state the problem you're trying to solve, along with the date when the issue was first reported or discussed. When implementing a solution, it's possible for stakeholders and team members to lose sight of the original context and timeframe of the problem. To prevent this from happening, this document should outline the root causes of the problem, its impacts, and the date of its initial report or discussion. This way, the team can refer back to the document for context and remain focused on solving the problem at hand.

It is important to also consider the timeline for a project so that the UX recommendations can be accommodated in a given time frame depending on the urgency of the product launch.

I agree that structuring the report will help guide the reader through findings and recommendations. I also think that this will go a long way in helping ensure that the report is well-received and that the recommendations are implemented.

I would add that the overall tone should be constructive. The information presented should focus on identifying and fixing usability problems, and it should not be used to criticize or attack the product, service, or users.

One point that I would like to add is that, in a UX report there can be some references to technical jargons, in order to make it understandable a UX reviewer can add hyperlinks to the terms that can act as a source of reference for the reader to understand the jargons better.

There are lots of ways your insights and recommendations can make a difference to a product, and some of the most beneficial changes might take more effort than others. Help your product team to plan their roadmap by assigning effort/ impact indicators for each recommendation (perhaps using a simple matrix to plot them out). This will help to identify both the ‘low hanging fruit’ that can easily implemented quickly, Alongside the bigger projects that take more effort and investment, but which could reap game-changing benefits further down the line.

A reviewer should use a tool for preparing a report that allows adding activity log so that a track of all the feedback, comments and changes are present and be revisited in future for any reference.

Involve end users. Most UX review reports are full of ideas and insights from the brain of the person that writes it. While that’s a good place to start, you’ll find further insights if you involve end users. Consider doing some guerrilla usability testing on the interface you’re writing your report on. This will give you customer testaments that will add weight to your report. This way, it’s not just full of ideas, it has real world examples of how the thing performs for customer today. You can then base your recommendations on this. This will prove that you understand customer centric design principles and that your goals are aligned with the customer’s.

Keep it actionable 🎯. One surefire way to make the recommendations in a UX expert review report more useful is to make them very specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound. A common mistake is to give a lot of recommendations that aren't specific enough. These will only add confusion. The recommendations should also be realistic and achievable within the constraints of the overall project.