Qualitative · Usability · PPIE · Co-design
Research, testing, and PPIE - without the fluff
Pick the method you need, or start from your sector. Everything links to the detail pages so you can get to the right answer fast.
Core services
Most projects use one of these as the starting point.
Structured testing for regulated products and medical devices, with governance friendly outputs.
Task based testing to surface friction, confusion, and accessibility risk before launch or roll out.
Heuristic evaluation and expert design review of your live site, app, or prototype, with prioritised findings and recommendations. No user recruitment needed.
Qualitative research to understand behaviours, needs, and barriers, then turn insight into action.
Patient and public involvement that is inclusive, ethical, and credible for NHS and research settings.
Recruitment and research designed for sensitive contexts and high scrutiny audiences.
Facilitated sessions that cut through opinion and reveal what people actually need and will adopt.
Fast, proportionate feedback to test assumptions and de risk your next step.
Map diagnosis pathways, treatment decisions, and care transitions with real patients and caregivers.
Co-production, lived experience research, CBPR, and action research, done with communities, not on them.
When trust, stigma, or complexity matters, go deeper with lived experience insight.
Validate the problem and the concept with real people before you commit budget to design and development.
Field studies, shadowing, and contextual inquiry in the settings that matter: call centres, wards, community care.
Capture behaviour as it happens, not as someone recalls it afterwards. Scheduled or event-triggered, text, photo, or voice.
Chatbots, copilots, and recommendation engines tested with real people, not synthetic data or AI generated feedback.
Closed alpha cohorts and wider beta programmes with real users, run over days or weeks before you launch.
Policy leads, clinicians, NHS board members and public sector professionals, screened by role and seniority. Take the sample on its own, or the whole study.
Already have the study designed? We find, screen, schedule and pay the people, from The Collective, the Professional Panel, or seldom-heard communities. You run the session.
Why professional research?
There are three common ways to get research done. Here is how they compare.
| Professional research Participation Studio |
DIY interviews | AI personas | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participant quality | Screened, representative, ethically recruited | Convenience sample, often biased | Synthetic, no real behaviour |
| Uncovers unexpected findings | Yes, skilled moderation surfaces what you didn't know to look for | Depends on interviewer skill | No, only responds within the frame you gave it |
| Defensible for governance & ethics | Yes | Rarely | No |
| Reaches underserved communities | Yes, actively recruited through trusted routes | Hard without community networks | Underrepresented in training data |
| Credible for regulated submissions | Yes | No | No |
| Speed | 2–8 weeks | Variable | Instant (but unreliable) |
AI tools have a place in how we prepare and analyse research. They do not replace the research itself. Read more →
Not sure where to start?
Start with the decision you need to make. We will recommend the lightest approach that still gives you robust evidence.
Is this worth building?
Surveys or quick research to test demand, barriers, and language.
Will people actually use it?
Usability testing to catch friction and adoption blockers before launch.
Do we need strong evidence?
PPIE and validation when governance, safety, and credibility matter.
Specialist approaches
Where the standard methods above are not the right shape - because the community has to help design the study, because the people you need are the ones panels never reach, or because the evidence has to satisfy a funder.
Participatory and community research
Participatory research is the starting point, with co-production, action research, CBPR and lived experience research as the specific approaches.
Already have a study, just need the people?
Participant recruitment is recruitment on its own, from The Collective, seldom-heard communities, or clinicians, policy leads and service managers.
PPIE in depth
PPIE for grant applications, NIHR patient involvement, and PPIE for NHS trusts, PCNs and universities.
In person, by location
We work UK-wide from West Yorkshire. See research by location for Leeds, Manchester, London, Birmingham and Sheffield.
New to any of this?
Plain-English explainers: what is PPIE, what is usability testing, and what is participatory research.
Want a number first?
The cost calculator gives an instant ballpark from our real pricing, with no email required.
Want a recommendation?
Send a short description of your decision, timeline, and audience. We will come back with a suggested route and a clear quote.
Contact usWe usually respond within one working day.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
Prefer to talk it through first?
Book a free 20-minute call. No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you honestly whether research is worth it for your decision, and what it would cost.