Research trends in 2025

Research has come of age

In recent years, demand for customer research has grown significantly, driven by the combined effect of several factors.

On the one hand, customers have increasingly high expectations of digital products and services — they expect seamless, personalised and intuitive experiences.

On the other, design organisations within large companies are becoming more mature: research processes are being integrated into decision-making, and a deep understanding of user needs is becoming an unbeatable competitive advantage.

Finally, technological advances — such as automated analysis, more advanced data analysis tools and more accessible testing platforms — make research faster, more accurate and potentially more cost-effective. Customer research has now found its rightful place in product and service development: decision-makers now see it as a critical step.

Combined methodologies

As user research becomes more widespread, organisations are becoming more deliberate in designing and developing user experiences. As a result, they are now also open to using combined research methodologies within individual projects. In one of our projects, for example, we helped define the app development roadmap for a telecommunications provider. We first mapped out typical personas based on different customer behaviours through an online survey, then gained detailed insights into each persona’s attitudes through in-depth interviews. At a later stage, we validated the designed user journeys through further customer interviews.

Repetition is the mother of risk reduction

Research is often no longer conducted only at the initial design stage of products, but repeatedly across different phases of development. This gives teams continuous feedback and enables them to respond more flexibly to changing needs. This approach supports not only a better user experience but also reduces risk, as issues can be identified and corrected earlier. Overall, embedding regular research into processes contributes to creating more market-ready, user-centred products.

Alongside the growing role of user research, several new trends have emerged in this field in recent years:

Customer experience in BPR

It is increasingly common for customer experience to become a key consideration in BPR (Business Process Reengineering) projects too. In several of our projects, our recommendations for improving internal processes and operations were guided by the impact that changes would have on the customer experience. Our clients are increasingly open to this approach, too. In some cases, clients have rejected a more cost-effective solution if it would have caused customer frustration.

Specialist target groups

At the same time, research target groups are becoming increasingly specialised — whether narrow professional communities, such as registered solar panel installers; hard-to-reach consumer segments, such as busy managing directors of SMEs; or people affected by sensitive topics, such as reaching disabled people in accessible design. This makes recruiting participants considerably more difficult.

Content research

There is also growing demand for content research, as not only how features work but also the clarity of information, the style of communication and the relevance of content are critical for users. Content research helps ensure that products and services are not only intuitive, but also understandable and communicated effectively.

In-house research platforms

Finally, more and more organisations are recognising the importance of their own research platforms: independent, customisable systems enable faster, more cost-effective and flexible research. They also make operations more scalable and create scope for optimising internal processes.

Together, these trends show that user research is not only broadening but also deepening, gaining ever greater strategic importance in how organisations operate.