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Advocating for UCD in government - 1.5 day training - Brighton & online - £375/£450

Fri 18 Jul 2025 9:15 AM - Fri 25 Jul 2025 12:00 PM Brighton station

Advocating for UCD in government - 1.5 day training - Brighton & online - £375/£450

Fri 18 Jul 2025 9:15 AM - Fri 25 Jul 2025 12:00 PM Brighton station

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This course will help designers and researchers advocate for user-centred design (UCD) in their roles, teams and organisations. 

1 day in Brighton (Friday 18 July 9:15 AM - 4:30 PM) + 

2 hours follow-up session online (Friday 25 July 10am - 1pm) 

10 hours total

The biggest barriers to practicing user-centred design in government is usually the people around us.

  • How do we influence decision makers to fund and make space for research?

  • How do we convince stakeholders that users are important and need to be at the heart of our digital services?

  • How do we advocate for design throughout a service lifecycle?


Feeling confident about these questions is important for researchers and designers at all levels, in all organisations. It's a core part of being a UCD practitioner. 


In this course, we will

  • Explore the barriers to UCD in our organisations
  • Look at how to talk about and demonstrate the benefits of UCD

  • Think about the arguments against UCD and how we might respond to them

  • Talk about influencing different types of people in different ways

  • Practice understanding and getting involved in decision making, management, funding and governance

  • Reflect on when might UCD not be the right approach to take

  • Talk about looking after yourself and each other

  • Put together a plan for your workplace


About your trainer, Clara

Clara worked at the Government Digital Service (GDS) for 8 years, including 5 years on the User-centred design community team. She created 7 training courses, ran them over 70 times training over 1400 civil servants.

Clara first created this course working with NHS digital, and also ran it for GDS and the cross-government community.

photo of Clara presenting into a handheld microphone, gesturing in the air, people around her listening.



Who the course is for

This course is for designers and researchers in government, and anyone else who is trying to grow and support user-centred design and research practices.

We will not be covering what user-centred design and research is or how to do it - the Introduction to user-centred design in Government course is the place to be for this foundation.

This course primarily designed for people working in or with central government department, local government, NHS, Parliament, arms-length body or regulator, but the content is very relevant for anyone interested in user-centred design.

The learning on this course happens in activities and reflection. You will be invited to participate in chats, discussions, small group and individual exercises.


Discounts and opportunity tickets

We offer an early bird discount up to a month before the training day and a group booking discount for groups of 3 or more colleagues.

We have a few subsidised or free opportunity tickets available. If you’re Black, disabled, trans, First Nations, not university educated, or if you’re working in the climate space - get in touch.


Food and drinks

Tea, coffee, water and snacks will be provided. We will have an hour break for you to have lunch - being in central Brighton, there will be plenty of lunch options available, and there is a kitchen where you can heat up your lunch or sit and eat.


Venue accessibility and access needs

The course will be held in person in a training room in a lovely co-working space a short walk from Brighton station. The exact location will be sent to attendees before the course starts. The follow up session will be on Zoom, and will use Mural. 

People with all access needs are welcome on this course!

Let us know what your access needs are when you buy your ticket and we will make sure you can access the training venue and get the most from the course.


Sign ups and cancellation

We need a minimum of 6 people to run this course. If we don’t reach this number we will refund your ticket, and we will let you know about a future date for the course.

You ticket is fully refundable if you cancel it more than 14 days before the course starts, otherwise full charges will apply.


Get in touch

If you have a question or there is anything we can do to enable you to be able to fully participate in this course, contact Clara.
You can give us anonymous feedback at any time using this form.


Cover photo by JSB Co. on Unsplash

Location

Brighton station