User research at the UK Intellectual Property Office
How to take part in user research at the UK IPO – signing up, who we want to meet with, why we research and your data rights.
Why your help matters
Our user research team is committed to improving our intellectual property services so they better suit your needs. All feedback is helpful to us and taking part provides a chance to have your say in how our services look and feel.
How to get involved
Whether you have intellectual property or not, if you’ve spent time on our website, we want to hear from you.
Sign Up
Tell us a little about yourself by filling in our user research survey. This helps us determine which research opportunities would be a good fit for you.
Answer our invitation
When we’re doing research we think you would be interested in, we’ll send an email with details and next steps.
Take part
If you’re available, join the research we invite you to. This may be a meeting with our team or a simple survey.
What to expect in a user research activity
Each research session is different; our email invitation will give more detail.
Research may be:
- 1 to-1 or group conversations where we ask about your day-to-day activities, your interactions with our existing services and what you might expect from us in the future
- a meeting with one of our researchers where we ask for feedback on one of our new designs or processes
- a survey or short questionnaires
We might have a member of our team taking notes or observing the meeting. If you’re not comfortable with this, that’s fine, just let us know at the time of booking.
Who we want to meet with
Our team is interested in meeting with anyone who interacts with the UK Intellectual Property Office. If you own a patent, trade mark, design or copyright, are a legal professional, or are simply doing research, we want feedback from all our customers. We research a variety of our services, and no matter your experience with intellectual property there is a study for you.
We ask you to fill out our survey so we can match you to the most relevant research. Due to the nature of our research, we may not contact you immediately because we will be waiting for a study that’s a good match. We may contact you at any point if you remain registered.
Please note: Joining our user panel does not guarantee you will receive an invitation to any research activity and receiving an invitation does not guarantee you will be chosen to take part.
Your data rights
Before a user research session, the user research team will ask you to sign a consent form which explains your data rights. You can request we delete your information at any time; to do this please email UserTesting@ipo.gov.uk.
We use the information you provide to determine your eligibility for our user experience research activities. We use certain demographic information (age, gender, etc.) to ensure we are gathering feedback from an inclusive and diverse group of customers. We will not share your information with third parties or use it for marketing purposes.
For further information about how we treat your personal information, please see the Intellectual Property Office Personal Information Charter.
If you no longer want to take part in user research, please email UserTesting@ipo.gov.uk and we will no longer contact you for user research sessions.