Our first in-person industry event after the pandemic, we can hardly believe it! Following a two year break, User Research London (URL) is happening on 8th and 9th September, with a day of workshops and a full day of talks by well-known industry heavy-weights.

People for Research have been an integral part of the event since its inception and this year is no different. Back in 2019, the last time URL happened in London, we shared these five takeaways from the event.

This year, our team will be at the ETC Venues London County Hall, so come find us for a chat, discuss a project or ask any burning user recruitment questions. The event kicks-off on Thursday 8th with three unmissable workshops:

▪️ A strategic framework for research
In this workshop, Meena Kothandaraman from twig+fish research practice and Zarla Ludin from Craft (both based in Boston, USA) will share a framework that establishes the positioning, the power and practice of research transparency.

▪️ Research that’s scalable: How to make research ops a resilient reality
Kate Towsey, research operations manager at Atlassian, will share the eight elements of Research Ops and how they fit together. You’ll explore and map where to start in building out a Research Ops function that’s appropriate to your organisation’s maturity and scale.

▪️ Storybuilding: Using story to connect brands with humans
Stefan Mumaw, the director of narrative strategy at San Francisco-based First Person, plans to break down storybuilding in a unique workshop that will help you apply your research skills in new ways.

If you miss the workshops, the great news is that some of the facilitators will have a speaking slot on Friday 9th, so you can still experience their wealth of knowledge in real time. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you can expect on the day.

🎤 Behzod Sirjani
The founder of Yet Another Studio will be delivering a talk around the topic ‘Building a research team may cost you your research practice’ and the outdated idea that only research teams should conduct user research. 🐦 @beh_zod

🎤 Kate Towsey
Kate is back for the second day of User Research London, following her workshop, to share some ‘Research Ops, war stories and triumphs’ inspired by her extensive career in Research Ops and the work she has done over the past two years as Atlassian’s Research Operations Manager. 🐦 @katetowsey

🎤 Christina Li
Christina is MelonX’s director and an experienced user researcher, currently collaborating with Monzo. At URL, she’ll be showing us creative ways to find deeper insights, instead of relying solely on traditional user research methods and techniques. 🐦 @chrissy0118

🎤 Emma Craig
Currently working at Miro as a senior UX research manager, Emma will be ‘Predicting the future’ at User Research London and exploring how researchers can contribute to robust foresight studies that drive company innovation. 🐦 @emmaccraig

🎤 Daniel Pidcock
The concept of ‘Atomic research’ and how it helps us scale a research repository will be the focus of Daniel’s talk in London. As the co-founder of Glean.ly, Daniel has worked with major brands and platforms like Clarks, Neighbourly and Attest and is the brain behind the research methodology we now call atomic UX research.
🐦 @danpiddy

🎤 Janelle Ward
The founder of Janelle Ward Insights will share her top tips and tricks on ‘How to thrive as a UX research manager’. According to Janelle, “expertise can only take you so far” in a role like this, as people management and concerns about other people’s development creep into your research responsibilities – her talk will help you take a critical look at your career and leave you with some key reflections. 🐦 @janelle_ward

🎤 Veronica Naguib
‘How effective is your customer research?’ – is the question Veronica will be asking and answering at User Research London. For this talk, ImpactSense’s managing director shares the results of a recent large study with researchers, marketeers, designers, CXers, UXers and other creators or receivers of research to understand its effectiveness. 🐦 @veronicanaguib

🎤 Qin Han
STBY’s senior design researcher joins URL for a talk about types of user research after COVID-19 titled ‘Remote, in person, how about hybrid?’. Over the past two years, the team at STBY has found new ways to balance online and in-person research – they call this hybrid research, and Qin will be sharing more about it in London. 🐦 @Qin_Han

Maria Santos, Head of Digital Ops & Data Protection

If you would like to find out more about our in-house participant recruitment service for user testing or market research get in touch on 0117 921 0008 or info@peopleforresearch.co.uk.

At People for Research, we recruit participants for UX and usability testing and market research. We work with award winning UX agencies across the UK and partner up with a number of end clients who are leading the way with in-house user experience and insight.