MAY 9th 9:00AM PDT; 12:00AM EDT; 5:00 PM BST (UK); 18:00 CET; 22:30 PM IST
60 minutes
Open Circle: FREE (
Join to Access)
Inner Circle: FREE
Defending User Research Masterclass
User research doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Sometimes it’s ignored. Sometimes it's questioned. Often, it's rushed, underfunded, or treated like a checkbox. And researchers—especially solo ones—spend as much time justifying the work as doing it.
Sound familiar?
This isn’t a call to complain. It’s a chance to reframe.
Because defending user research isn’t about fighting people—it’s about designing smarter ways to bring others along. To show how insight connects to value. To stop speaking research-to-research and start speaking human-to-human.
Why it matters:
Good research often dies in silence. It’s misunderstood, sidelined, or rushed. But when done well—and explained clearly—it reduces risk, accelerates decisions, and builds better products. This session helps you make that case, again and again, without reinventing the wheel.
In this Masterclass, Frank Spillers will cut to the tried and tested techniques he’s used over 25 years to sell the value (and the work if you’re an agency or consultant) to organisations.
Developing your User Research defence strategy
Getting buy-in from your stakeholders is vitally important (See Stakeholder Management masterclass series). This is why UX maturity follows User Research maturity. Product managers and others that don’t ‘get it’, end up relying on Inside-Out design.
In this Masterclass, Frank Spillers will share practical approaches to get buy-in, explain your work, and scale insight across your org. Whether you're a researcher, designer, or ResearchOps lead—this session helps you turn resistance into alignment.
You’ll learn how to pitch research in business terms, handle skeptics without burning out, and set up lightweight systems to make research stick. We cover real-world tactics with conversational scripts, stakeholder maps, quick-explain visuals and more.
Who it's for:
UX teams, solo researchers, designers who do research, and anyone struggling to make research visible, valued, and scalable in their organisation.
Topics we will cover in this masterclass:
- Selling research to leadership
- Explaining methods to non-researchers
- Converting skeptics with evidence
- Scaling with ResearchOps
- Building credibility through storytelling
- Pre-empting resistance with clarity and planning
About Monthly MasterClasses:
These monthly meet-ups are topic-driven live events with an informal presentation by Frank Spillers and group activities and discussions. Monthly MasterClasses are included as part of your membership. They allow a deep dive into important UX topics, with insights drawn from process best practices and case studies from Frank’s two decades in the field.
Why Join?
The UX Inner Circle is a professional learning community with a program of monthly events for UX researchers and designers, managers, and directors practicing UX and Service Design. We are a small group of 50+ UX and Service Designers, Directors, and Researchers currently 100% working in UX. Attendees come from orgs like Harvard, Google, IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, Capital One, US Bank, healthcare, government, and non-profits. So why join?
- Refine or expand your current skills-- push the boundaries of your learning.
- Get advice and guidance: Put a top-performing UX expert (Frank Spillers, CEO of award-winning UX firm Experience Dynamics and top instructor at Interaction Design Foundation) in your pocket. Stay connected with the latest on what Frank is thinking and prioritizing in UX and Service Design.
- Ask anything to other UXIC colleagues on a dedicated private Slack channel. Also, collaborate during monthly meet-ups (Masterclasses).
- Get a promotion at work or upgrade your skills, portfolio, or process knowledge. This is the #1 reason folks keep subscribing to the UX Inner Circle.
Get this event FREE:
- Join FREE, or Paid- access starting at $99 USD/ mo.
- Membership includes access to ALL monthly event recordings and more (going back 25 years of Frank's UX career). 200+ recordings. Monthly live meet-ups (Masterclass topics) and workshops (every other month). Miniclasses (short webinars) and more...
Financial inclusiveness membership: USD$49 per month for Nonprofit-Student- or you live in the Global South/ Emerging Market (.org; .edu)
Regular membership: USD$99 Individual per month
20% discount on Annual Price; switch anytime, cancel anytime.
