Conference Program

User research is more than answering questions—it’s about driving real business impact. But how do we ensure that our work doesn’t just inform but truly influences decision-making? Too often, research teams focus on the “research ask” without fully aligning with the deeper business need.

In this session, Dr Nikki Smith, Experience Research Manager at Enterprise Mobility, will explore how experience researchers can act as the connective tissue between insights and action, ensuring that research isn’t just a function—but a strategic driver of business decisions. She’ll discuss how to build business thinking into research practice, collaborate across teams, and communicate impact in ways that resonate with stakeholders. Drawing on real-world experiences from Enterprise, she’ll cover how research teams can shift their role from reactive support to proactive leadership, ensuring their insights don’t just land but lead.

Environmental shifts, both in the world around us and in the attitudes within our field, have reshaped how we view truth, expertise, and the power dynamics between researchers and communities. Researchers must recognize that generating and curating knowledge today requires an expanded set of methodologies—embracing integrative thinking and non-extractive approaches. This session will explore the catalysts for change, and introduce a broadened user research toolkit that enables ethical knowledge creation and challenges traditional power imbalances, helping us thrive in this new landscape.

Many multinationals default to researching within US and European settings, missing out on the rich opportunities yielded by other cultures. We’ll inspire you to embrace the power of international and intercultural research, providing practical techniques to approach this work with sensitivity and impact. We’ll explore when and why to broaden your research, the benefits and trade-offs, and how to operationalize these methods to unlock deeper insights and fuel innovation across cultures.

Meta-analyses and literature reviews tap into the vast potential of existing research, uncovering powerful insights that can transform your work. These often-underused methods go beyond desk research, saving you time and money while adding depth and rigor to your findings. We’ll inspire you to embrace these tools and guide you on how to leverage them to elevate your research to new heights.

Ever heard that accessibility research is too expensive? Too time-consuming? Or that you need a massive sample size to see real insights? These misconceptions stop too many UX researchers from taking the first step toward inclusive design. But here’s the truth: accessibility research is often simpler, faster, and more impactful than you think.
In this interactive session, Samuel Proulx, Accessibility Evangelist at Fable, will demonstrate the actual reality behind the biggest myths that hold teams back, through a hands-on look at what accessibility research actually looks like. You’ll experience a real research interview with an assistive technology user and gain practical insights into how Fable’s UX researchers prepare for and conduct accessibility studies.

By the end of this session, you’ll see that getting started doesn’t require a huge budget, complex logistics, or a massive sample size, just the willingness to take the first step. Join us to demystify accessibility research and leave empowered to integrate it into your own work.

Participant psychology is rich and multifaceted, with multiple truths and biases shaping their stories and coexisting simultaneously. By integrating behavioral science techniques into surveys, interviews, and other research methods, we can help participants share their truths more openly, and uncover deeper, more nuanced insights. We’ll inspire you to embrace these methods, offering guidance on when, how, and why they can transform your research.

In this session, we’ll unlock the transformative power of experimental research methods, inspired by best practices in the social sciences. We’ll explore what these techniques are and how they can be used to reveal powerful insights, drive innovation. You’ll also learn how to get started, how to apply them in ethical and rigorous ways, and why these methods are essential for deep, psychology-driven insights.

The most iconic products and designs aren’t created in a sprint—they’re deeply influenced by and evolve with culture. Cultural insight techniques—when applied inclusively and non extractively—unlock powerful opportunities and fresh perspectives, transforming our work from useful to truly impactful. We’ll inspire you to integrate these methods into your product and UX work, helping you understand when to use them and how to communicate their transformative value to your teams.

Participatory research and co-design have long been seen as tools for the third sector, yet they hold untapped potential for both the commercial and public sectors. These transformative techniques can unlock richer, more inclusive insights, empowering you to move beyond surface-level knowledge. In a time when the demand for equity and deeper insight is growing, it’s vital to embrace and operationalize participatory methods. We’ll show you how to weave these methods into your everyday commercial work, driving innovation, engagement, and meaningful impact across organizations.

Back to basics, or start from scratch?

We’ve been bombarded with calls to reinvent, rethink, reframe, reconnect, redefine, reclaim, and even reckon with research over the past few years, and honestly, we thrive on it. But urgency, frustrations, and a rapidly changing world demand focus and action.

Join Julie Norvaisas, Mina Jonsson, and Pert Eilers for an open, lively conversation about redefining purpose and value in 2025. They’re ditching abstractions in favor of action in this moment: quality, accountability, and community. Let’s get down to what truly matters.

In this session, as we tie back to our conference themes of purpose and value, we’ll discuss:

• Getting back to basics: How global shifts are driving a return to research fundamentals: quality, direct methods, and genuine connection. AI’s rise only amplifies this need.
• Starting from scratch: We’ll challenge outdated narratives, redefine “impact” with practical techniques, and even provoke a fresh look at collaboration. Prepare to have your assumptions shaken.
• Moving from “yes, and” to “yeah, but!” This isn’t a passive fireside chat. We want your “yeah, but” moments. Bring your perspectives, challenges, and even disagreements. Our goal is to create a dynamic dialogue about the future of research.

Group interviews (e.g., focus groups) are often criticized and seen as exclusive to market research, yet they can be a powerful tool for user researchers, particularly in promoting equity and amplifying diverse voices. We’ll help attendees understand when and why group interviews complement other qualitative methods, explore key use cases, and provide guidance on mastering moderation, setup, and analysis to unlock deeper insights.

Learning advanced quantitative research methods opens new possibilities, complementing the depth of qualitative techniques and enabling you to answer questions that qual alone can’t. Knowing when to apply both approaches empowers you to uncover richer insights, solve complex problems, and effectively communicate the value of each discipline to your organization. We’ll inspire you to explore the full range of advanced quant methods, guide you on how and when to use them, and provide practical steps to begin your journey, with resources to fuel your growth and expertise.

Whether you’re looking to expand your network, meet your next client or connect with collaborators, this is your opportunity to make it happen.

You’ll experience Cozy Juicy Real, a simple, effective board game that’s been played in 71 countries. It’s proven to create stronger team bonds at the world’s most successful organizations – including Google, Adobe and the UN.

“You will connect. Cozy Juicy Real is the best way to foster connection online.”

– Marcia Goddard, Chief Culture Officer, The Contentment Foundation

👍 Cozy Juicy Real Team Building

🏆 Top-Rated Experience

Your Host: Isaac Garcia

Isaac is a passionate coach who helps organizations and teams navigate change without losing sight of their values, principles, or people. He’s currently an enterprise coach for Simpli.fi and a facilitator for Cozy Juicy Real – helping high performing teams practice mental and physical well-being.

Research is at an inflection point: day 3 of our conference will explore what the shifts in dynamics between researchers, participants, and organizations means at an operational level. We’ll discuss how to define and communicate insights, drive change within evolving relational systems, and rethink team structures, career paths, and researcher learning. Additionally, we’ll explore how to balance healing and social good while minimizing harm in commercial systems to help researchers chart a course between profit and purpose.

Organizations are organic, evolving systems with complex relational dynamics and power structures, both within the system and among its people. These systems are being reshaped by shifts in culture and technology, just as the research function and methodologies are. As researchers take on a more powerful, holistic role as knowledge curators, we must rethink how we communicate and navigate these complexities to drive meaningful change. By considering these changed relational dynamics, we will explore how researchers can center themselves to transform insights into received wisdom that has the power to shape and influence organizational systems at scale.

Research holds great potential to both heal and harm—both ourselves and the communities we engage with. This session will help you to understand these impacts, and learn best practices to reduce harm and foster healing ethically and responsibly.

Making insight heard and acted upon is a persistent challenge for researchers, but adjacent fields, particularly journalism, have long mastered the balance between impactful communication and compassionate storytelling. We will explore how these practices can elevate researchers’ ability to amplify the voices of the communities they represent, helping their insights cut through the noise.

Making yourself heard and influencing others is not just about how you deliver a message or its content; it’s about claiming your personal power and taking up space in the world. We will explore practical tools and techniques to help attendees embrace their unique voice and narrative, while sharing strategies to build the confidence and self-worth needed to elevate their presence and impact.

As the relational dynamics between researchers, participants, and organizations evolve, it’s essential to rethink team structures, roles, learning, and career paths for those working in insights. With expanding methodologies and a shift towards both knowledge curation as well as generation, our discussion explores how to position insight teams for success and empower individuals to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape.

Insights are at the core of what researchers work to uncover, formulate, and deliver. By encouraging researchers to view their deliverables beyond just the insights they contain but also the qualities required to communicate them, they can begin to transform their roles into stewards of organizational wisdom. In doing so, we must understand what insights are, how insights can be harmful, and how to better deliver and socialize insights. In this fireside chat, we will examine the characteristics of research wisdom and offer techniques for researchers to exercise their capacity to act critically and adaptively.

Many research professionals are feeling disillusioned due to layoffs, market shifts, and the prioritization of profit over people. Coupled with rapid changes in the field, shifting skill demands, and instances of mistreatment, the current context feels challenging. Despite the ethical imperatives that initially drew them to research, many feel their work lacks agency and purpose. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Our industry is at an inflection point, and the organizational and cultural systems we operate within can be influenced. This session with changemaker Maria Giudice explores how to regain agency, drive change, and balance profit with purpose to reignite a sense of impact, dignity, and value in our work.