Ready to be inspired?

What is ethical isn’t always obvious. This workshop with Stephanie, UX Research Operations Lead at Springer Nature, enables a discussion on what being ethical means in practice when doing research, design or when using research to shape your products, services, and experiences. 

For example:

-> A senior stakeholder says there isn’t time to do accessibility research before the deadline to launch the service.
-> Your agency has been commissioned to do usability research on the designs for a streaming service. The client has asked you to sound more enthusiastic about the service during the introduction to the research sessions. 
-> You are doing some ethnographic observation for a client who is developing a new inventory system in their warehouse. You notice someone on the warehouse floor isn’t following safety procedures during your observation. 
-> You are conducting a research session for a health insurance provider, the participant starts crying as they tell their difficult and highly sensitive story. 

… As a UX [Researcher / Designer], what do you do now?

You will look at how to identify potential consequences of your work and how to manage them. And you’ll work through 3 frameworks to frame and understand the ethical implications of the research and design being planned.

In this workshop, you will learn:

+ How to bring together your team to identify potential consequences of your work
+ How to frame conversations about ethics in the design and research you do
+ How to engage others who aren’t necessarily thinking about ethics

When you are a UX researcher working in an organisation without a dedicated Research Ops role, it can be challenging to deliver and scale the impact of research. There is often a lack of time, budget, resources and support to set things in motion.

Starting to build a ReOps foundation is a strategic investment for maturing our practice. In this workshop, you’ll get acquainted and work with a framework called the ReOps Wheel developed by Krutika, UX Research Lead at Uber Carshare. With the help of a playbook, you will envision and build an MVP Research Ops structure personalized to your own organisation.

Along the way, you learn about challenges, important considerations, checklists to aid the process, and first-hand examples from implementing a ReOps structure from scratch (applying the ReOps Wheel). Finally, you’ll consider ways to implement ReOps in your organisation effectively.

Traditionally in UX research, we tend to be more comfortable with qualitative methods like interviews or usability testing. We might shy away from larger sample sizes and statistics associated with quantitative methodologies. Yet you might want (or need) to add them to your toolkit to effectively support your stakeholders. 

Even if you are familiar with methods like surveys, you might lack confidence and a solid quant foundation to get useful and meaningful results. This workshop by Gerben, Senior Quantitative UX researcher at Adyen, is for any UX research professional getting started, feeling apprehensive about and/or wanting to expand their skillset with surveys and quantitative insights in general. In the end, you’ll leave with more confidence about running and analysing surveys for your team(s). 

In this workshop, you will:  

+ Gain an understanding of applying quantitative research in the field of UX
+ Learn how to design surveys effectively and what pitfalls to avoid
+ Gain confidence with drawing conclusions and creating a survey analysis plan (that goes beyond the ‘basics’)

As UX professionals, presenting and public speaking is an integral part of our roles, whether it is updating our teams, sharing our work with stakeholders, pitching to decision-makers or speaking at events (like this one) 😉. However, presenting in an engaging way to convince the audience takes mastery. 

Your story touches and sticks if you tell it with your heart, body and mind. In this workshop, you will work on your authenticity, storytelling and powerful presence through non-verbal communication.  

You’ll learn and practice how to connect, convince and activate your audience when presenting. After this workshop, you will:    

+ Be aware of your personal strength as a presenter
+ Have applicable tools to create an impactful story
+ Feel more confident delivering a message

Often professional development planning comes as an afterthought – after your work priorities and a never ending to do list. However, it is something you need to do intentionally. Many hope their manager can help, but at times you are not reporting to someone with the same career path; your manager might not be so involved or keep changing.

This talk is an invitation to build your growth into your day to day. Senior UX Research Manager at Zendesk will share a personal journey and experiences moving from an individual contributor to a manager. You’ll learn how to plan your career growth, ensure you maintain it, advocate for yourself and know when to pivot into a new role.

This talk covers a methodological challenge: How to obtain reliable research results as psychological effects and biases influence participants’ behaviour? Lydia, UX Research Lead (currently at Trivago), will share a case study from their earlier academic work on researching user behaviour towards virtual avatars providing customer service for travellers in a metro station.

By choosing and combining several non-intrusive research methods, they were able to identify gender-stereotyped interaction in the user behaviour. This talk will give a tangible case study of mixed methods research and stress the importance of considering social biases, such as social desirability, when choosing a research method.

In launching a new product or experience, Growth and Analytics metrics are traditionally looked towards as guardrails for determining the successful adoption and behaviour change of users. As a discipline, UX Research is well equipped to support with qualitatively and quantitatively measuring success during this post-launch phase, but the methods are often underutilized or overlooked completely.

In this talk, Jessica, Mixed-Methods Research Lead, will share a strategic framework for applying UX research methods & measures, to support understanding the adoption & behaviour change of new digital experiences. You will walk away with a how-to guide, along with case study examples and tips for how to leverage this framework with cross-functional partners in the organisation.

Zarla joins the online audience for a discussion on her poster presentation about the language we use to describe our work. Words are a researcher’s medium to communicate, influence, and build confidence. It’s important to be mindful and varied in how we talk about our work, as using the same words can limit our impact.

Hazel, Jack & Miguel join the in-person audience for a discussion on their poster presentations about research guild, influencing strategy and UX research hiring practices.

Designing, implementing, and scaling the processes to support continuous research initiatives represents a set of operational challenges. Over the past 4 years, Josh, UX Research Manager at Miro, has been caught at the intersection with Research Ops, trying to find the balance between doing research vs guiding others in running theirs.

He invites us to think about it as a musical performance: how can we turn sporadic research (“a jam session”) into a scalable and reliable program (“an orchestra”)? You will leave this talk with a framework to communicate ResearchOps org maturity and prioritise most impactful initiatives. Expect examples and practical learnings for effectively implementing continuous research. Sounds like music to your ears? 🙂

300+ products. Highly technical workflows. Specialized users who design, build and operate some of the world’s largest infrastructure. And a lot of valuable research hidden away in the Dark, Deep Abyss of shared folders… time is overdue for a repository!

Join this talk as Kate discusses the (ongoing) journey her team took to implement a research repository. While the original goal was to make the researchers more efficient in their job, the team saw a series of positive side effects. Product Managers were starved for a place to document and share product feedback, and soon Engineers developed an appetite for videos of users interacting with the products. Attend this talk to learn how one brave team is serving empathy and changing the culture at a large tech-driven organization.

The Social Design field is growing rapidly. UX research can be of great value when it comes to tackling complex societal challenges, like fighting poverty, suicide and crime, to name a few. This talk is an invitation to join the field but also a preparation for the other side of the coin.

You will learn about the gains, tensions and pitfalls of UX research and design in the social domain. How do you prepare and guard yourself against the user’s pain and frustration without losing the power of empathizing? You will be equipped with recommendations on taking care of your users, yourself, your team and your research process to get the most valuable insights to really create something relevant.

A well-illustrated user journey map can really help to bring user needs to life. But most researchers lack the confidence and expertise to sketch out scenarios themselves. Trying to find stock photos to fit can be time-consuming and expensive. But the AI image generators that are now available can produce remarkable results from a simple text prompt.

In this talk, Kathryn, Lead UX Researcher at Cisco, will share some of the outcomes they’ve been working on with the Webex Events team to sketch scenarios and illustrate the user journeys for hybrid events. You’ll also learn about some of the pitfalls and biases with the AI, and how to circumvent these.

The web3-enabled metaverse is a nascent technological development in the virtual world space, with a unique profile of early adopters. Georgia, a seasoned UX Researcher with expertise in the web3 and crypto space, will share their research case study focused on understanding the experiences of users in the metaverse. 

This research supports both product builders and researchers with understanding these users and provides knowledge on how to employ netnographic research methods in the metaverse. You will leave with a grounding in user insights related to the new technology and be prompted to explore the use of netnography in your research practice.

Seize the opportunity to spend some more time with your like-minded peers and UXR experts in addition to the conference. Get to know each other informally during a casual get-together, including dinner 😋

– Extra ticket required –

Last year, Penninah spoke at the UXinsight Festival about the need to change UX research methods and standards to make the field more accessible to neurodivergent professionals. She received immense response and realised how great the need for neurodiverse accessibility truly is.

This talk is aimed at continuing the conversation on neurodiversity and supporting neurodiverse UX professionals and their managers in making their work more accessible to them. Penninah will talk about finding accommodations, productivity strategies and report on her own research about neurodiversity in UX professionals.

The goal is to empower neurodiverse UX professionals and sensitise the audience about how they can best support neurodiverse members of their teams.

This talk aims to address the existing gaps within user involvement in design research. With research experience across the African continent, Sarah, a Strategic Design Consultant, has observed how last mile communities are often not being engaged, understood and accommodated in the design process.

Through examples of conducting research and design with women in rural communities (Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Uganda) on sexual reproductive health and maternal care, you will learn about several ways to engage users outside of traditional research methods. And you’ll get tips for doing so with care (for example, using film as a medium to hold dialogues about social issues).

A gentle sound immersion session, with Tibetan bowls vibrations that gently stimulates the body’s circulation and sensory nerves to deepen our ability to pause and reset.

In many companies, the success of an idea, feature or design change is often measured in business metrics (such as conversion). But other matters at hand could contribute to potential success or failure of a (re)design or new functionality, like the customer’s experience using the product, perception of the brand, and long-lasting memories of the experience that could determine their willingness to return.

In this talk, Eleonora, Product Design Lead at de Bijenkorf, will share learnings from their journey of exploring and defining customer experience metrics. Based on a case study, you’ll learn about the steps you could take to set up and evangelise UX metrics, the advantages and shortcomings of applying industry frameworks and how to navigate metrics discussions with cross-functional stakeholders.

Service quality plays an important role in user experience but also in business performance – it’s the emotional connection that users feel with a brand, product, or service that allows the business to stay competitive. While there’s a plethora of UX metrics covering the quality of services, UX researchers often miss the opportunity to quantify the experience to identify areas for improvement and highlight opportunities for growth that stakeholders, product managers, and executives can understand and advocate for.

In this talk, Joana, Experience Design Lead, will help you choose the right UX metrics for business or product decisions, but also advocate for a more user-centered culture. You’ll walk away with a framework that includes a UX metrics decision tree and recommendations for choosing the most appropriate measurement tools with practical tips on how the results can be presented to best increase focus on competitive experiences.

Zarla joins the online audience for a discussion on her poster presentation about the language we use to describe our work. Words are a researcher’s medium to communicate, influence, and build confidence. It’s important to be mindful and varied in how we talk about our work, as using the same words can limit our impact.

Hazel, Jack & Miguel join the in-person audience for a discussion on their poster presentations about research guild, influencing strategy and UX research hiring practices.

As UX researchers, how can we apply learnings from the academic space to become more ethical and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) focused? Amrit, UX researcher, adjunct professor, and member of the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board will break down core elements of academic based Research Ethics Board guidelines into actionable steps UX research professionals can take to better represent, protect and learn from participants.

This talk will examine how we might reimagine our research tools, processes and deliverables through the lens of ethics and DEI, to help interrogate fundamental questions, who is considered a ‘good and articulate’ participant? You will be better suited to think about the future of your work and the industry by interrogating historical UX practices and incorporating best practices from academia and the DEI field.

Conducting research comes with lots of challenges, some of which can inevitably introduce a layer of bias while planning and executing research. These biases get even more amplified when the users are internal. 

Selection bias, power dynamics, language barriers, and social desirability are just a few of the things that our team encounters on a daily basis. In this talk, we will discuss these biases and how we deal with them as a research team focused on employee experience.

Ever considered trying your hand at research leadership but hesitating, worrying you just weren’t cut out for it? Maybe you’ve felt like you weren’t enough of an “expert” yet. Or that you’re simply “too introverted” to lead well.

Well, while those concerns are perfectly natural, it turns out that a lot of the skills that make someone a skilled researcher can also make them an effective leader.

In this talk by Vidhika, Research & Content Design Leader, we’ll discuss the undeniable overlap between the two roles — and how you can harness your strengths as a researcher to lead with more confidence. Come learn how researchers can shine as leaders in our community just by doing what we do best!