Design / User Research | Strategic Research | Working at the Intersection Between Research & Design | Research & Insight @ EY Seren
Last night EY Seren hosted its first Research Leaders Forum, a place where we brought together a community of research leaders from across different sectors. This was an opportunity to discuss the state of the research profession, talk about some of the most pressing issues and opportunities facing us as researchers, and learn from each other. It was a privilege to be part of the conversation, and bring the perspective of researchers on the ground engaging with users, customers, patients, HCPs and business leaders to bring human insight and human-centric thinking to the design process. I am already excited for the next one! 🔥✨
Partner, Head of Customer, Innovation & Experience Design, Financial Services, EMEIA at EY & EY Seren | Global Customer & Growth Lead | Financial Services | FRSA
Last night (July 2nd) we hosted our first Research Leaders Forum, where we brought together leaders in the field of research and insight working within incumbent brands in highly regulated sectors like financial services, government, energy and healthcare, to discuss the opportunities and challenges in ensuring human insight powers the next decade of digital transformation. I would like to thank these 'founding members' for attending and the Research & Insights team at EY Seren for organising the evening. We all work in incumbent organisations with considerable legacy constraints across culture, technology, and regulation, with a robust transformation imperative powering change. The organisations we support have a strong belief in the value research can deliver, but often a limited understanding of the breadth of that value and how to best fit research into their end-to-end organisational model to support transformation effectively. The focus of the dinner was to discuss how technology changes will impact research functions in the future, and how research can realise the opportunities these technologies bring. As new #LLM and #GenAI interfaces become more accessible, perceptions of the researcher’s value are changing. When the case in favour of ‘artificial researcher’ and ‘synthetic users’ is playing out across all our organisations, how can we build a platform for researchers to have a strategic voice in that discussion, keeping humans at the centre of this debate as imperative to good design and user experience. AI advances may present significant challenges to the craft of research but also bring potentially huge benefits that research practitioners need to realise. The democratisation of research brought on by evolving AI technologies and interfaces is an opportunity for research functions to become custodians of the technology, upskill other practitioners in best practice, and to lead the way in shaping the future of research. How can we position ourselves to best take on this opportunity? Finally, we wanted to discuss whether researchers could lose ownership of parts of the design lifecycle or whether a return to human ‘creativity’, ‘insight’ and ‘empathy’ might pave the way. Are these questions founded in evidence and clear signals or in uncertainty about the unknown? Like any good dinner with passionate leaders, we didn't cover half the topics we had hoped to, but a spirited discussion and an opportunity to share stories and perspectives seemed welcomed by all. I am passionate about the role human-centred design must play in digital transformation, using empathy and insight to design a better future. The services these research leaders deliver are critical to a healthy and fair future society. Thank you. And I can't wait for our next dinner, coming soon. #customerresearch #research #genai #transformation #digital #ai Oliver Kastner Kathryn Butterfield Theresa Clifford Mark Coombes Nicholas Johnson, PhD Victoria Rogers
User Researcher at Westminster City Council | MRes RCA
1wlet me know about the next one - would be good to include a digital local government perspective 😄