Speakers, workshop facilitators, and conferenciers 2025
Freddie ÖstFounder & Brand Director @Snask. Closing keynote.
Freddie Öst, the Swedish brand director who co-founded Snask. Freddie defies norms and breaks free from the boring chains of convention. He's a champion for self-expression and boldness, which is downright obvious in Snask's eye-popping projects. Freddie has spoken in over 40 countries the last years at places like Stanford University, Google HQ, SXSW and many others. Brace yourself.
SNASK is your future romance. A creative agency of misfit geniuses conquering the world through fine lookin' design and real emotions. They seek to challenge conservative frameworks and they do it with their backs straight, supported by their unbreakable values. They don't cower away from the challenge, as they see that the magic lies within the unexplored. In order to be great - you have to be brave and bold. In order to be real - you have to stand up for your opinions and beliefs. And that is Snask - brave, bold and real. They excel at branding, design and film and refuse to do anything else than what they see as world class. They are doctors of disturbance, wizards of disruption and spokesmen of disobedience. They take on the responsibility to stay engaged, give a damn, and strive for empathy. There is a short word for this assumption of responsibility: Snask.
Closing keynote: Human before technology - branding in a digital era
In the era of new technologies it's key to not forget the human aspect. Human needs to direct tech, not the other way around. In UX it's extra important since what we see as "natural" comes from being human beings, not being tech savvy. Branding is a huge part of design and technology and something we need to remind ourselves where it comes from, the heart and souls of humans.
Annelie TinworthUX Content Design Lead @Volvo Cars
Annelie is the UX Content Design Lead at Volvo Cars, overseeing customer support content across in-car, app, and web platforms. With nearly two decades of experience in UX, content and localization, she has worked with global teams in fin-tech (Klarna), consumer goods (Dometic), lifestyle (Nike), and software (Bluebeam).
Annelie embraces AI as a tool to enhance her craft, blending content design with analytical systems thinking and creativity. Some call it 'content engineering'. She calls it 'frustrating fun'. Based in Stockholm, she enjoys kite surfing and sharing her knowledge as a speaker and mentor in the design community.
Prompt like a content designer
"Words don't come easy," especially when they aren't your usual design element. But with the right frameworks and prompting techniques, they can become more manageable.
Join Annelie for an engaging exploration of practical frameworks and prompting strategies that will help you craft compelling content that resonates with your users—both with and without the assistance of AI.
In this interactive session, you will:
- Learn essential techniques for crafting clear and impactful messaging in user interfaces.
- See concrete examples that illustrate these techniques in action.
- Gain practical confidence to care for the words in the user experience, regardless of your role in the development process.
This is an opportunity to enhance your content creation skills and build a pragmatic toolbox that elevates your design practice.
Oliver SchöndorferTypography Consultant & Founder @Pimp my Type
Oliver Schöndorfer is a typography expert and UI designer from Austria, helping UX and design teams improve digital products through smarter type. With 15+ years of experience, he empowers designers to boost usability, accessibility, and brand consistency. Through Pimp my Type, the Font Friday Newsletter, and consulting, he shares practical insights in a uniquely fun and engaging way. When he’s not geeking out over type, he’s hiking with his wife, takes care of their three girls, or hand-grinding coffee – because details matter everywhere.
Bad Typography Kills
Typography is a key part of every design – yet it’s often an afterthought, until something goes seriously wrong. What do IKEA’s off-putting Verdanagate, the wrong movie winning an Oscar, and Apple’s Liquid Glass disaster all have in common? They show that typography isn’t just about aesthetics – it’s a critical part of user experience.
For UX designers, type isn’t decoration – it’s structure, clarity and tone. The right typographic choices can guide users, build trust and even increase conversions.
In this fun, fast-paced session, you’ll sharpen your eye for type and walk away with practical tips to make your digital product clearer, more effective, and far better for your users. Learn how to transform typography from a silent killer into one of your most powerful tools for crafting standout user experiences.
Workshop: Typography CPR
Bad typography hurts users – but the good news? Most issues are totally fixable, if you know what to look for.
In this fun, hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to triage common type emergencies and bring your designs back to life.
We’ll cover how to:
- Spot font choice red flags (before they blow up your layout)
- Fix broken visual hierarchies and messy reading flows
- Catch and prevent common accessibility traps in type
Whether you’re designing apps, websites or prototypes, you’ll leave with a sharper eye, smarter strategies and practical tools to make your typography cleaner, clearer, and way more effective. If you want to, bring your questions, your curiosity, and your worst type crimes – we’re here to save them.
Andre Fangueiro Head of Design @Tietoevry
Andre Fangueiro is a seasoned design and innovation leader with a career spanning over two decades across Europe. With a background in Design, Andre has worked with global brands such as Canon, Nestlé, Giant Bicycles, Invacare Medical, and Laerdal Medical, as well as pioneering startups.
Currently serving as the Head of Design at Tietoevry and the Founder of Human-Lab.eu, Andre specializes in creating human-centered experiences, shaping design strategies, and driving innovation at the intersection of technology and business.
The Future of UX: AI-Enhanced Workflows and Beyond
AI is no longer a futuristic concept it’s here, reshaping how designers work, create, and innovate. But how do we ensure AI enhances, rather than replaces, the human touch in UX?
In this session, we’ll dive into:
- AI’s role in UX workflows—from research to prototyping and beyond
- The shift from human-led to AI-empowered design
- How to integrate AI tools effectively without losing creativity
- The impact of AI on productivity, decision-making, and personalization
Key Takeaway: AI won’t replace designers but designers who embrace AI will redefine the future of UX.
Oleksii TkachenkoSenior Content Designer @TravelPerk
Oleksii is a Senior Content Designer at TravelPerk, currently based in London. With 8+ years of expertise in Content and UX, he champions scalable content strategies to help products communicate with clarity and consistency. Beyond his role at TravelPerk, he’s teaching Content Design and provides mentorship for aspiring tech professionals (with 90+ students graduating in the last 3 years). Outside of work, he finds inspiration in street photography and enjoys creating zines, photo books, and limited-run prints.
Designing Scalable Product Copy with Content Systems
With AI, Content designers and UX Writers see a shift in their priorities. We’re no longer focused on ad-hoc copy support. It is now expected of us to come up with a more systematic approach to product copy.With this talk, I’d like you to add a content system building to your stack of skills. Just like a classic design system provides designers with building blocks to maintain visual consistency, a content system will lay the foundation for consistent messaging within your product. And since no system exists in a vacuum, we’ll also touch on how lightweight Content Ops practices can support adoption and maintenance—so your system doesn’t gather dust after launch.
Marianne StjernvallFounder & CRO Expert @ConversionHub
Having spent over ten years in CRO, growth, and personalization roles, Marianne has just launched a new CRO agency—ConversionHub, which guarantees senior consultants. This self-professed ”Queen of CRO” has worked as a Digital Director for Tele2 and advised the AI startup Bubbi.ai. For Marianne, giving back to the community is essential, so she’s a regular event speaker and happily gives a helping hand whenever she can.
Why Your A/B Tests Aren’t Giving You the Effects You Want
We like to say we're data-driven — but sometimes, that leads us to the wrong decisions. Sometimes we need to look beyond the horizon. This talk explores what happens when we focus too much on high-level KPIs and ignore signals deeper in the user journey. Through real CRO examples, I’ll show how some A/B test "winners" actually damaged the experience — and how to combine data with gut feeling, qualitative input, and context to make smarter decisions.
We’ll look at
Why winning tests can lead to losing users.
How to spot misleading metrics.
When human judgment should override the numbers.
Tessa GriffioenSenior Service Designer @nlmtd
Tessa is a freelance senior service designer and design strategist with experience in effectively leading teams in translating human insights into physical and online experiences. In her recent roles, she was responsible for redesigning end-to-end journeys and service maps with high social impact. She loves to bring together different people within an organisation and translate strategy into concrete human experiences, frameworks, and visuals.
From knowing towards doing: growing your users’ capacity to act
The Dutch WRR (Scientific Councel of Government Policy) recently published reports on humans’ capacity to act. Consisting of both cognitive and non-cognitive capabilities, one’s capacity to act defines how capable we are in navigating certain goals in life: such as filling in tax returns, paying our bills, applying for jobs, or (financially) planning for retirement.
In the context of a public compensation scheme, me and my team developed a framework for better understanding, activating and informing different user groups based on their capacity to act. Within this framework, six archetypes are defined based on the level of their cognitive and non-cognitive capabilities.
The key takeaway is the content of this framework, and how it can be used to help your users use and understand your service our product.
Workshop: Growing your users’ capacity to act: working with an archetype framework
The Dutch WRR (Scientific Councel of Government Policy) recently published reports on humans’ capacity to act. Consisting of both cognitive and non-cognitive capabilities, one’s capacity to act defines how capable we are in navigating certain goals in life: such as filling in tax returns, paying our bills, applying for jobs, or (financially) planning for retirement.
In this workshop, we are actively working with a framework for better understanding, activating and informing different user archetypes. By the end of the session, you will have applied the framework to your product or service, and refined it based on your users' cognitive and non-cognitive capabilities.
Daniel StridsbergCo-founder & Design Director @ROST Studio
Daniel Stridsberg is a senior interdisciplinary designer and co-founder of ROST Studio, where he and Johan Ronnestam help brands and products come to life through strategy, storytelling, and human-centered design. With nearly two decades of experience leading UX, product, and brand initiatives, Daniel works across disciplines and industries to turn complexity into clarity — and ideas into impactful experiences.
He specializes in bridging narrative and systems thinking, facilitating deep design processes, and helping teams shape meaningful and emotionally resonant solutions in a world of rapid automation.
Defining Quality in Barbie World: Adding Value When the Extraordinary Becomes Ordinary
When everyone is empowered with the opportunity to create anything, and looking stunning is the new baseline — how does that affect our general perception of quality? Is it a curse forcing humans out of craftsmanship? Or a blessing in disguise, forcing a paradigm shift from appearance to meaning and depth? What could such a shift mean for future work? And what would be the difference between seeming great and being great?
Take a leap into an analogy where surface-level perfection is expected, but depth and meaning are far from guaranteed.
In this session, we’ll dive into:
– What is “quality”?
– Design implications when perfection is the norm
– Moving from execution to essence
– A shift in the designer mindset
Roberto ChavesProduct/UX Designer @Tabi
First impressions define whether users stay or leave. In today’s competitive landscape, a functional MVP isn’t enough, you need a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) that users genuinely enjoy using from the very start.
In this workshop, you’ll learn to identify the core experiences that matter most, remove friction, and design for moments of delight. Together, we’ll explore strategies for building products that people don’t just try, they fall in love with!
Breaking Rituals and the Art of Communicating Design
How do we break free from outdated rituals and redefine design processes to create real impact? This talk explores the art of effectively communicating the value of design to stakeholders while critically evaluating and adapting processes for each unique team and project. Through engaging stories and practical lessons drawn from years of experience as both a designer and former developer, Roberto Chaves shares how to improve collaboration, inspire change, and put user-centered design at the heart of decision-making.
Attendees will leave with new tools and mindsets to navigate complexity, challenge unhelpful habits, and drive meaningful impact across the entire product development process.
Workshop: The Art of Designing Minimum Lovable Products
First impressions define whether users stay or leave. In today’s competitive landscape, a functional MVP isn’t enough, you need a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) that users genuinely enjoy using from the very start. In this workshop, you’ll learn to identify the core experiences that matter most, remove friction, and design for moments of delight. Together, we’ll explore strategies for building products that people don’t just try, they fall in love with!
Cori Widen & Beccy Poole User Research Lead & User Research Manager @Photoroom
Cori Widen is a user research leader with more than 13 years of experience in tech and works with product and design teams on understanding their users and meeting user needs. At Photoroom, she's taking a human and AI driven approach while leading the user research function.
Beccy brings together experience from startups focused on connected medical devices and AI-driven digital products, helping teams uncover user needs and translate them into meaningful product opportunities.
Workshop: Combine humans and AI to get fast, actionable user insights
Collecting and utilizing user insights in the product design process is often seen as ideal, but time consuming. We'll learn practical strategies for humans and AI to work together to get fast and impactful insights.
Key takeaways:
- Learn a framework for using both human ingenuity and AI to generate insights about users in the design process
- Learn prompting strategies for analyzing user interview sets and usability tests with ChatGPT when testing prototypes, copy, and competitors
Josefine SchönebeckUX Designer @ Platform24 Healthcare
Josefine is a Stockholm-based UX designer with a background spanning banking, retail, pharmacy, non-profit, and healthcare. With ten years in the field, she’s found that what matters most isn’t just what we design, but how we design it - together.
She’s especially interested in the collaborative side of UX, and how shared understanding in a team leads to better, more human-centered products. Today, she works with a SaaS platform in healthcare at Platform24.
Relationships as key to moving fast and delivering value
Emerging technologies demand speed and it’s easy to get caught up in the tech - but it’s relationships that make or break the product. This talk shares lessons from building AI tools for healthcare: how to design for trust, involve users in a regulated context, and work closely with cross-functional teams to keep the human experience at the center.
Panel Discussion: Human VS AI in research and design
In today’s design landscape, AI is no longer a distant concept — it’s a creative partner. From synthetic personas and vibe-coded prototypes to deeply personalized experiences, AI is reshaping how we explore, test, and build. At the same time, human-centered research, design craftsmanship, and the pursuit of perfection remain vital to creating meaningful and resonant products.
This panel brings together voices from both worlds to explore how human insight and machine intelligence can co-evolve. What have we learned from early adoption? How do we design with — not just for — AI? And what does the future hold when intuition and computation collaborate?
Jarno KoponenHead of AI Product Design @Zalando
Jarno M. Koponen is an internationally recognized senior Product Design and Innovation leader who combines AI with human-centric product design and business to build impactful products, effective teams, and innovative organizations. His work has been featured in notable publications such as Fast Company, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat among others. Jarno is currently leading AI product design at Zalando, for example leading product design for Zalando AI Assistant, GenAI content and Trend Spotter.
Designing generative AI -powered customer experiences – learnings from Zalando Assistant
Designing dynamic customer experiences powered by generative AI – Learnings from Zalando Assistant
- How to design and scale AI-powered customer experience from zero across all European markets for more than 50M people
- How to pragmatically drive customer-centric CX innovation in a fast-moving space in cross-functional teams
- How to combine product design CX and generative AI to create impactful and engaging experiences
Mall AllpereIndependent Design Leader
Mall Allpere is an experienced design leader who has built and scaled thriving UX, product and Service design teams at companies such as Tele2, Swedbank, Telia, Electrolux, and Nokia, Mall Allpere specializes in bridging design practice with business strategy and tactics. Passionate about design maturity and organizational impact, Mall Allpere brings a mix of practical insights and candid lessons from working at the intersection of practical design and business leadership.
The Business Value of Design - From Trust to Tangible Impact
We often talk about “getting a seat at the table.” But what does it take for design to earn that seat, and keep it?This talk introduces a practical framework for understanding and communicating the business value of design. Through real-world examples from Tele2 and other large organizations, we’ll explore how design drives both direct impact; measurable outcomes like increased conversion, reduced costs, and smarter business models and indirect impact; building trust, retention, and long-term growth.We’ll also look at what makes these efforts succeed (or fail) and how connecting design practice to business goals turns “getting a seat at the table” into becoming part of the business itself.
Digital Workshop: The Business Value of Design: From Practice to Impact
Designers often talk about wanting to influence early and having “a seat at the table”, but what does it actually take to earn trust and influence in business decisions that impact design and customer experience? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore practical ways to connect design practice to measurable business value. We will talk about real examples of successes and failures that illustrate how design can become a trusted partner in corporate decision-making. Together, we’ll reflect on strategies that work, pitfalls to avoid, and how to build long-term credibility for design within organizations.
Key takeaways
- Concrete tools and stories on how to to link design activities to business outcomes in a clear and credible way.
- Practical methods to position design as a strategic partner, not just a service provider.
- Inspiration and tools for gaining trust and influence with stakeholders and executives.
Ramya ThalmannSenior Product Designer @Deel
Ramya is a Senior Product Designer at Deel, with over nine years of experience designing SaaS platforms across fintech, HR tech, and payroll. Her expertise spans 0→1 product building, product strategy, and leading end-to-end design. A career highlight includes designing an analytics platform from scratch that was later recognized by Forbes as the #1 reporting system in its category. She is passionate about building scalable, user-focused products that drive business growth.
Workshop: How to design AI products people actually trust
AI is powerful but unpredictable. How do you build user confidence when the system itself is not always reliable? In this hands-on workshop, you will explore a practical framework for turning uncertainty into confidence. You will learn how to communicate clearly, give users meaningful control, and design safety nets that make AI features feel dependable when integrated into complex products and existing workflows.
Panel Discussion: Human VS AI in research and design
In today’s design landscape, AI is no longer a distant concept — it’s a creative partner. From synthetic personas and vibe-coded prototypes to deeply personalized experiences, AI is reshaping how we explore, test, and build. At the same time, human-centered research, design craftsmanship, and the pursuit of perfection remain vital to creating meaningful and resonant products.
This panel brings together voices from both worlds to explore how human insight and machine intelligence can co-evolve. What have we learned from early adoption? How do we design with — not just for — AI? And what does the future hold when intuition and computation collaborate?
Alexander DebkaliukHead of Design Execution at Star
Alex heads the Design Execution practice at Star, managing a talented team of designers crafting cutting-edge products across the Automotive & Mobility, AdTech & Media, Fintech, and HealthTech industries for large enterprises and scale-ups.
He has delivered multiple projects with automotive brands such as Toyota, Nissan, VW, Audi, Lotus, SAIC, and Huawei.
With over 17 years of experience in UX design, as well as team and project management, Alex helps clients imagine, build, and scale successful products around the world.
By applying the latest design methodologies and cross-domain expertise, he facilitates digital transformation and innovation—bridging communication gaps, challenging what’s possible, and defining what’s next.
Panel Discussion: Human VS AI in research and design
In today’s design landscape, AI is no longer a distant concept — it’s a creative partner. From synthetic personas and vibe-coded prototypes to deeply personalized experiences, AI is reshaping how we explore, test, and build. At the same time, human-centered research, design craftsmanship, and the pursuit of perfection remain vital to creating meaningful and resonant products.
This panel brings together voices from both worlds to explore how human insight and machine intelligence can co-evolve. What have we learned from early adoption? How do we design with — not just for — AI? And what does the future hold when intuition and computation collaborate?
Gabriela Celeste Flores VillarrealSr. Product Designer @ VASS Peru
Gabriela is a peruvian Senior Product Designer and one of the Friends of Figma team leads in Lima, Peru. I’m passionate about creating meaningful digital experiences that balance user needs and business goals. With global experience across diverse markets, I blend creativity, strategy, and collaboration. Recently, I’ve been exploring how AI can shape smarter, more intuitive products. I’m always learning and growing.
Digital Workshop: Figma Make: Redefining Product Design Through the Power of AI
In this workshop, we will explore how Figma Make uses AI to help designers create smarter and more complete digital solutions. You will see how this tool can fit naturally into your design workflow, how it can boost your creativity, and how to make the most of its AI-powered features.
Together, we will design a new project from scratch, a simple MVP that shows how Figma Make can help you move from idea to execution faster and more efficiently.
Key takeaways:
- Learn how Figma Make integrates AI to enhance your design process
- Discover practical tips and real examples of how this tool can make your workflow more efficient and impactful
- Create a small but complete MVP project to experience AI in action
Linda Wohlfeil & Kristina SaboticHead of DXC & QA Engineer @ VASS Sweden
Linda Wohlfeil leads the Digital Customer Experience practice at VASS Sweden. With a background in technology, design, and business strategy, she’s passionate about exploring how AI can enhance creativity, collaboration, and the way we build digital experiences. Her leadership is grounded in a deep understanding of user behavior and a strong belief that meaningful innovation starts with real human needs.
Kristina Sabotic has extensive experience leading testing efforts in complex system environments at companies such as Axfood, Dahl, and Aimo. She has been responsible for large-scale integration testing and knows what it takes to ensure the quality of both new and existing solutions.
She has also worked with test automation and has developed strategies for automated testing – from unit tests to end-to-end – in large organizations.
The future of development teams
What if the future development team isn’t a dozen specialists, but a focused trio: a UX designer, a tester, and an IT architect? In our latest initiative within VASS Sweden, we’ve been exploring what happens when AI becomes a true part of the team — not replacing human expertise, but amplifying it. What if AI could help us reshape how we collaborate, ideate, and deliver digital products?
In this project, we’ve experimented with integrating AI throughout the entire lifecycle: supporting user research analysis, ideation and prototyping through generative tools, assisting with automated testing, and even contributing to code generation. Could this be a way forward? A more adaptive, efficient, and human-centered approach to building products? During this session, we’ll share our learnings, reflections, and open questions from this ongoing exploration within VASS Sweden.
Yelena Koselnik OlovssonIndependent UX Leader & Designer
Yelena Koselnik Olovsson is a senior UX leader and designer with over a decade of experience bridging user needs, technology, and business goals. After several years as Head of UX at Cartina, she recently launched her own practice to help organizations strengthen their UX capabilities, solve design challenges, and build collaborative, human-centered products and teams.
Yelena has led design work for companies such as CDON, Coop, and Sveaskog, and contributed to Hyper Island’s Human-Centered Design program as an industry leader and workshop facilitator. Known for her hands-on approach, curiosity, and ability to bring clarity to complex projects, she helps teams design meaningful digital experiences that balance user needs and business goals.
Digital Workshop: Collaboration Rewired: A Lean Coffee on Thriving in Tech-Accelerated Teams
Emerging technologies are transforming how we work—bringing both exciting possibilities and new tensions. When AI becomes a creative partner, prototyping happens overnight, and teams experiment with powerful new tools, collaboration can get complicated. In this interactive Lean Coffee session, we'll co-create the agenda with topics that matter to us right now. We'll discuss real challenges and opportunities, vote on what to explore, and learn from each other's experiences navigating this shift. Whether you're trying out AI-assisted workflows, maintaining alignment at AI speed, or figuring out new team rituals when machines join the mix, this is your space to connect and think together. Join us in our AR room in Co Society to share, question, and explore what effective collaboration looks like when technology moves faster than our processes.
Ville Österlund & Meri-Tuuli KosonenFounder and CEO @ Leanlab & Business Developer @ Nordea Life Finland
Ville Österlund is passionate about helping brands to work more closely with their users. With 20+ years' experience in user insights, he's aided numerous Nordic and global brands such as Finnair, Google, Spotify and Sony to create better Products and Experiences through enhanced user understanding. Before founding Leanlab, Ville was a Partner at a Nordic design/tech agency, Digitalist. Before that, he ran his own user insights agency operating in Helsinki, London and Singapore.
Meri-Tuuli Kosonen is a business developer at Nordea Life Finland. She is developing Nordea MyLife application and wellbeing benefit which is a unique and rewarding smart insurance solution. By exercising actively, customers can increase their personal insurance coverage by up to 25%. In the core of product development is to understand customer insights and to participate end-users through active customer community, MyLife Lab.Meanwhile Meri-Tuuli is a PhD student in insurance science and risk management at Tampere University . In article-based dissertation her passion is to combine behavioural science and financial services to co-create value.
Building better life assurance with customers: Case Nordea Life
Life assurance is deeply personal yet often feels distant. How do you build digital products for life's most important decisions when traditional research gives you snapshots, not continuous understanding?
In this session, Nordea Life shares their journey from occasional customer interviews to running an always-on customer lab where 300+ real customers collaborate on product development.
We'll explore:
- The challenge in getting to 'continuous discovery' and customer learning motion
- How Nordea Life recruited and activated their digital customer lab participants
- Real examples of insights that shaped product decisions
- Practical lessons learned from running a customer lab
Key takeaway: See how continuous customer discovery not only impacts what you build, but how your entire service development process becomes more customer centric. Learn the practical steps to build your own customer lab, whether you're in financial services or any B2C context where deep customer understanding drives competitive advantage.
Karin ZingmarkAuthor, Keynote Speaker, Investor @Zingmark Consulting
Karin has extensive experience in change management and communication from leading positions in various industries, most recently as CMO at Microsoft in Sweden. She is the author of two books “Maxa Snacket” (Liber 2017) and its sequel “Maxa Modet” (Liber 2020). Karin is active on several boards, both startups and a publicly traded company, and she also invests in some of these companies. She has a certification in the foundations of Neuroleadership from the Neuroleadership Institute and is a part of the global team of educators of Duke Corporate Education. She is a sought-after moderator and speaker, and is also named one of Sweden’s 100 most popular speakers for six consecutive years.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Short intro by the host
- Theme of the year: "Emerging Technologies & Human Experience"
Highlight today's structure, key sessions, and sponsors
Panel Discussion: Human VS AI in research and design
In today’s design landscape, AI is no longer a distant concept — it’s a creative partner. From synthetic personas and vibe-coded prototypes to deeply personalized experiences, AI is reshaping how we explore, test, and build. At the same time, human-centered research, design craftsmanship, and the pursuit of perfection remain vital to creating meaningful and resonant products.
This panel brings together voices from both worlds to explore how human insight and machine intelligence can co-evolve. What have we learned from early adoption? How do we design with — not just for — AI? And what does the future hold when intuition and computation collaborate?
Richard LiljaSenior Designer and Frontend Developer @ VASS Sweden
Richard is a Senior Designer and Frontend Developer who’s passionate about where humans and technology intersect. He's curious about all things design and a champion of user-centered design and research. Richard enjoys mentoring junior designers, helping them find their paths and feel at home in our awesome design community. He believes in swapping rigid rules and one-size-fits-all solutions for a flexible toolkit and an open mind.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Short intro by the host
- Theme of the year: "Emerging Technologies & Human Experience"
Highlight today's structure, key sessions, and sponsors
Panel Discussion: Human VS AI in research and design
In today’s design landscape, AI is no longer a distant concept — it’s a creative partner. From synthetic personas and vibe-coded prototypes to deeply personalized experiences, AI is reshaping how we explore, test, and build. At the same time, human-centered research, design craftsmanship, and the pursuit of perfection remain vital to creating meaningful and resonant products.
This panel brings together voices from both worlds to explore how human insight and machine intelligence can co-evolve. What have we learned from early adoption? How do we design with — not just for — AI? And what does the future hold when intuition and computation collaborate?
Tommy MarshallHead of UX and design @ VASS Sweden
Tommy Leads the UX and design team at VASS Sweden and is one of the founders of SXC.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Short intro by the host
- Theme of the year: "Emerging Technologies & Human Experience"
Highlight today's structure, key sessions, and sponsors
Jazgul Ismailova & Vicky KarponiCo-founder and CEO @ Glimma AI & Senior UX designer @ VASS Sweden
Jazgul is a forward‑thinking leader blending user‑research expertise with AI‑driven product innovation. At Glimma AI she is spearheading a new generation of usability‑testing tools that help teams set up, conduct and analyse tests faster — transforming how insights are gathered and applied in product design.
Vicky is a Senior UX Designer and Researcher with over 15 years of experience in the design field, specialising in mixed-method research, systems thinking, and agile design collaboration. Driven by curiosity and a commitment to continuous learning, she promotes UX maturity and supports evidence-based design across teams.
Workshop: Add AI-moderated usability tests to your toolset
In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to set up and run AI-agents that conduct usability tests from start to finish. You'll walk through the full process: prompting and configuring your test, collecting AI moderated test results, and generating automated and instant reports. Perfect for product managers, designers, and UX-researchers who want to speed up their usability testing.
We’ll also share practical learnings and tips on how to use these tools efficiently, based on insights from real projects.
