User Research Conference 2025

09.15 Registration, tea & coffee

09.50 Opening comments from the Chair

Chris Rourke, CEO, User Vision

10.00 The trust factor: researching and designing media experiences in the age of fake news 

This is an award-winning story of how UX research and design are being used at the BBC and beyond to build and sustain audience trust in digital news experiences.

Discover how behavioural insight, user testing, and design thinking are combined to understand what trust looks like in practice - from interface cues and content provenance to tone of voice. Hear how mixed-methods research uncovers what audiences need to feel to be confident in the information they consume, and how these insights are translated into tangible design decisions.

Aleksandra Gojkovic, Senior UX Researcher, BBC

Lara Monday, UX Researcher, BBC

10.30 Human insight meets AI: the future of service design

Discover how Defra and Equal Experts are integrating AI tools into user research within Defra’s agile service delivery teams, exploring new approaches to user-centred design.

Hear the journey of how AI tools became a trusted assistant, supporting user researchers in the process of research planning, analysis and reporting. Examine how concerns regarding quality of output, ethics and data protection were reduced whilst ensuring Defra practice and assurance standards as well as GDPR and MRS guidance were followed. Come away with practical advice on how to effectively integrate AI into user research processes, along with insights into key lessons learned.

Erica Kucharczyk, Principal User Research Consultant, Equal Experts

Bex Tindle, Lead User Researcher, DEFRA

11.00 Morning refreshments

11.30 Panel: Building and scaling a high impact user research practice that drives business performance

A candid discussion on how to build trust and gain stakeholder buy-in, scale research impact from tactical to strategic, and create a people-centric approach that drives business outcomes across different business contexts.

From planning integration and impact measurement to breaking down organisational data silos and managing and democratising insight, this session will provide real-life examples and actionable insights to help you navigate and elevate UX Research within any organisation.

Chair: Natasha Den Dekker, Lead User Researcher, Santander UK

Panellists:

Emma Boulton, Head of UX Research, Waitrose

Eva Petrova, Creative Director – Design Research, UX&D, BBC

Sophie Aldebert, UX Researcher, Centrica

12.00 Designing for all brains: neuro-inclusive research

This practical session, will explore how to conduct research that embraces neurodiversity and leads to more inclusive, effective digital products.

Grow your understanding of neurodiverse conditions like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and others and discover why cognitive variation is essential in user research. Gain actionable insights to better support neurodivergent users, and by doing so, improve experiences for everyone.

Christa Keizer, Senior User Researcher, Microsoft

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Shaping the future of preventative care: designing large-scale and inclusive digital health interventions

This case study illustrates how user research together with academic insight and government ambition, delivered the NHS Health Check online, a pioneering service improving cardiovascular disease prevention through a digital approach. It is also the first public-facing service to integrate with NHS England’s GP records.

Hear how over 200 user research sessions informed the design, focusing on underrepresented groups including people in deprived areas and those with mental health conditions. With a mixed-methods and behavioural science-led approach, the project offers practical lessons on designing at scale, balancing rigour with speed, and building inclusive, evidence-based digital health services for the future.

Karl Olsen, Lead User Researcher, Kainos

Dr Jackie Van Dael, Health Services Researcher - The Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences - University of Oxford

Jon Fisher, Lead User Researcher, NHS England

14.00 Understanding tax non-compliance through user-centred research

Explore how HMRC, in partnership with external researcher partners, used qualitative methods and behavioural science to understand the psychological drivers behind tax non-compliance in the construction industry, a group typically hard to reach.

With direct contact restricted by ethical and legal frameworks, the team navigated privacy and anonymisation challenges to gather insight. The session will cover methodological innovation as well as offering practical lessons on conducting sensitive research ethically and scaling insights to inform impactful, user-centred government interventions.

Kathy Neuss, Head of Research, Mercator Digital

Grant Wilkinson, Lead User Researcher, HMRC

14.30 break

15.00 Interactive networking sessions

Delegates are invited to choose two, half hour, networking session to join, where they can delve into a specific methodological or operational issue, gain practical advice, share experiences and benefit from a frank exchange of ideas with industry peers.

1. A deluge of data but no insight, in sight

Explore why more data doesn’t always mean better insight, and how breaking down silos can help to close the gap between information overload and meaningful action. In this session, delegates will consider strategies for curating, managing, and connecting knowledge within UX research teams and across wider functions.

Emma Boulton, Head of UX Research, Waitrose

1. AI-moderated interviews: defining evidence, use cases, and standards for a new research methodology

As AI-moderated interviews (AIMI) gain traction as an emerging method in research, this roundtable invites delegates to collaboratively identify the benchmarks, KPIs, and methodological comparisons needed to evaluate AIMI with rigor. 

Matteo Cera, CEO, Glaut

1. Make personas great again

Personas are everywhere, but are they actually working? This practical session will explore how to bring personas to life, socialize them and make them commercially relevant.

Michael Thompson, Head of UX Research, MTN

Eva Muhr, Senior UXR, MTN

1. Ethics & data protection: what’s your role?

A practitioner led discussion on data privacy requirements as well as ethical considerations that go beyond the law. Delegates will be encouraged to share real world dilemmas and discuss how to successfully navigate grey areas.

Natasha Den Dekker, Lead User Researcher, Santander UK

1. From curiosity to clarity: applying Kano research to build better products and services

How do you decide which new feature ideas are worth your time and resources??Discover how Kano analysis - a framework for prioritising features based on their potential impact on customer satisfaction, can help answer this very question.

Kirsty Simpson, UX Consultant, User Vision

1. A democratic and user-led playbook for ethical use of AI in user research

Gain actionable insights and share experiences on how AI can enhance user research and how to co-design organisational policies that empower teams, build trust, and deliver better outcomes.

Eleonora Costamagna, Lead User Researcher, Made Tech

Ned Dukes, Senior User Researcher, Made Tech

1. Inclusive research in practice: co-creation and participatory research practices with disabled people

How do your digital or in person research practices meet the needs of people with a wide range of disabilities? Are your questions sufficient to capture the breadth of experiences? Do your research environments meet everyone’s needs? Learn how engaging with the disability community as collaborators, not just as participants, improves insight quality, reduces risks (e.g. new EU Accessibility Act) and increases reach. What’s not to love?

Christine Hempill, Founder and Managing Director, Open Inclusion

1. Are we doing this right? A researcher’s round table on agile 

Agile ways of working are here to stay but for many of us researchers, figuring out how to make our work meaningful within those frameworks is still a work in progress. This networking session is a chance to share how we’re navigating the realities of agile, from Jira boards to sprint planning, experimenting with dual track and everything in between.

Amy Wolsey, Design Research Manager, BBC

16.15 End of conference

Delegates are invited to continue networking at the post event drinks reception