Reflecting on a Year of Growth and Insights at System Concepts
Updated: Oct 5
As we near the end of 2025, we want to take a moment to reflect on the past year for the System Concepts’ UX team. Our team grew by two this year. One of our new members is the lovely Sarah, who joined us from Guide Dogs. The other addition is Frankie’s gorgeous baby girl!
The rest of the team has remained the same, and we continue to enjoy our work together. Our average tenure at System Concepts is an impressive 11.5 years, even including Sarah, who has only been with us for six months!
What Did We Accomplish in the Last 12 Months?
Catherine and I spent the first few months of the year visiting supermarkets. We interviewed staff to gather insights and requirements for their Intranet site. Running in-context research is one of our favourite project types. We met many wonderful employees, gained access behind those mysterious swinging doors in supermarkets, and indulged in more meal deals than I care to admit.
Meanwhile, Naomi and Mickela also enjoyed getting out and about. They visited people in their homes to explore their experiences with TV streaming services. Observing interactions in context and seeing people’s media setups at home proved invaluable to the project.
Innovative Research Methods
For projects where going out into the field didn’t make sense, we turned to online diary studies and ethnography tools. One project aimed to improve our client’s social media interactions with new and existing customers. We conducted discovery research to explore how customers engage with clothing, homeware, and beauty content online. We examined their perceptions and expectations for the client’s content and identified what was working well and what wasn’t.
Another project involved understanding an investment bank’s customers’ experiences with investing their money. We delved into how they chose the right investment approach for themselves.
Engaging with Children
We were also fortunate to conduct research with children, which is one of our favourite types of research! While we can’t share the specifics of the research subject, we ran a pre-task via a messaging service. Then, we chatted for 60 minutes with children aged 7-16 about their media usage. Suffice it to say, the experience was enlightening, funny, challenging, and unpredictable all at once!
Empathy Workshops
Mickela designed and led empathy workshops for one of our clients in preparation for the EU Accessibility Act of 2025. During these workshops, we created empathy stations focused on six accessibility profiles derived from our previous research for the client. These stations addressed the needs of blind, visually impaired, neurodiverse, and mobility-impaired customers. We provided empathy tools, tasks, guidelines posters, and expert support to answer questions.
Building Empathy Through Video
Another client sought our accessibility expertise to conduct research and produce high-quality video reels. These videos demonstrated the lived experiences of customers, particularly highlighting key pain points in online shopping. The main objective was to foster empathy and understanding.
We continued our work with both these clients and others, performing ongoing accessibility audits. These audits support their commitments to making digital services accessible and compliant with WCAG 2.2.
Expanding Our Knowledge
Our ongoing work with long-term clients, whom we love collaborating with, has been incredibly rewarding. We spent more time increasing our knowledge of airline systems, business travel booking tools, and traveller behaviours. One of our favourite travel-related projects this year involved testing airport check-in kiosks at Heathrow. We focused on complex scenarios, including visas and dual passports, with various travellers, including those with accessibility requirements.
Additionally, we have continued supporting one of our financial clients with their products and the FCA’s Consumer Duty. We have provided them with valuable customer insights since we began working with them a few years ago.
Celebrating Our Achievements
Alongside all this work, we enjoyed some social events. We dressed up as our favourite music icons (think Eminem and Abba!) and got a bit too competitive with the health, safety and ergonomics team at Ping Pong!
Writing this article has been a rewarding exercise for us. It’s fulfilling to look back at everything we’ve achieved as a team this year and all the relationships we’ve nurtured. Now, we look forward to 2026 and what it holds for us all.
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