UX research has always been a powerful tool for charities. It helps uncover what supporters, service users and wider communities really need. Not just what they do online, but why they do it.
Whether it’s testing a donation journey or understanding how people access support, UX brings clarity to digital experiences. At its heart, UX research is about listening and turning what you learn into human-centred design that works for the people charities help.
The fear around AI
Since the arrival of ChatGPT and increased public accessibility to AI, UX research and the charity communications spaces have adapted in an effort to come to terms with this new technology. This has often happened against a backdrop of fear about the role that AI is taking in our work and our lives, and whether it will replace us and make humans ultimately redundant.
Some of that worry is a general sense of dread, which is difficult to act on. But much of it is specific and entirely reasonable. What happens to people’s jobs? What do these systems cost the planet? Whose data was used to train them? These questions deserve more than reassurance. But we don’t think you need to resolve every one of them before you can work thoughtfully with AI.
It’s true that at its worst, AI can be used to replace human intelligence and creative thinking. But, at its best, it can free us from time-consuming, mechanical and administrative tasks. This allows us to focus our creativity and efforts on what humans do best: connecting with others, understanding them, and working for our collective good.
AI is a tool, but not a neutral one
It’s tempting to call AI a neutral tool, and to say that whether it helps or harms depends entirely on how we use it. We don’t think that’s quite right, and as a B Corp we’d rather say so. These systems carry real costs, including significant energy and water use, training data gathered without consent, and companies behind them whose wider commercial choices not everyone on our own team is comfortable with. None of that is resolved simply by good intentions at the point of use.
What we can control is whether we use these tools deliberately, proportionately, and in service of the people our clients exist for. That’s a harder position to hold than “it’s just a tool”, but for organisations whose credibility rests on their values, we think it’s the more useful place to start.
In the context of charities and UX, AI is a powerful instrument to run research, analyse data and gather insights.
As a digital agency that works exclusively with charities and non-profits, we’ve been using AI in our work at Studio Republic for several years, from conducting research and running tests to delivering insights for our clients. We’re currently formalising how we use it across the agency, with input from the whole team rather than just the enthusiasts. That process has taught us more than the tools have.
But the word “tool” is key. AI is there to facilitate and sharpen human-led work. When we plan research, we start from a place of listening and empathy, and then combine these with our expertise to develop the best strategy for our clients’ needs. Only then, after a plan has been put in place, do we turn to AI.
For example, we use AI to transcribe and summarise interviews, as well as identify themes. Because those sessions often involve people in vulnerable circumstances, we treat consent as a specific requirement rather than an assumption. Participants are told at recruitment, and again at the start of a session, that AI will be used to process the recording, and we check that our clients’ own data agreements allow it. If you take one operational point from this article, take that one. In our experience, it’s the question that gets asked least often and should be asked most.
The surveys and usability tests platform (Maze) that we use has in-built AI tools that analyse and categorise both quantitative and qualitative insights. These tools can spot patterns in open-ended feedback and so help flag usability, findability or content issues on our clients’ websites.
In our experience, the best way to use AI is to treat it like a competent assistant with a sharp eye for details and patterns, but no context. Give it good instructions and check its work. Use it to build a first draft, not the final answer. The most powerful insights still come from real people, and those insights still need our attention and care.
There’s one rule we’ve adopted internally that’s worth passing on. We don’t use AI to produce more. A longer research report isn’t necessarily a better one. Where AI creates capacity, that capacity goes into sharper thinking and more time with the people we’re designing for, not into volume. It’s easy to mistake output for value, and AI makes that mistake very easy to make at scale.
What AI still can’t do
AI can also speed things up. But, it can’t replace our role in strategising, storytelling or interacting with charities’ audiences. It can tell us where users drop off, but it can’t tell us why a page doesn’t align with an organisation’s values, or whether the tone of a message hits the wrong note.
AI doesn’t know when silence in an interview or a usability test means discomfort, nor can it shift its questions to suit someone’s emotional state. Charity communicators and charity researchers do though. We bring cultural awareness, emotional intelligence and the ability to read between the lines.
These qualities don’t just make research kinder, they make it better. It means we can uncover subtle needs that data alone can’t reveal and ensure that every decision is rooted in lived experience.
There’s also a risk here that’s particular to charity research. Ask a model to extract themes from a set of interviews and it will optimise for the dominant pattern. But in work with underserved communities, the outlier is often the finding. The one participant whose experience doesn’t fit is frequently the reason a service isn’t reaching the people it’s meant for. AI summarising tends to smooth those voices out, and you won’t notice what’s missing unless you go back to the transcripts yourself. So we do.
Designing with people, not just for them
We need to design with, not just for, the people we’re trying to reach. When we use AI strategically, we gain space for deeper impact with the communities we serve. As charity communicators, we know how to hold space for tough conversations, make complex ideas understandable, and connect people to purpose.
AI can’t automate these skills. AI won’t replace the human heart of charity comms. However, if we use it with care, it can make our work more effective, and even amplify it.
Scepticism about AI is useful, and we’d encourage you to hold onto it. Some of the most valuable input on our own approach has come from colleagues who’d rather we used less of it, not more. The point isn’t to talk anyone out of their reservations. It’s to let those reservations shape how we work, rather than setting them aside because the technology is convenient.
What we need to do is guide it, so that we can improve the quality of our work and give our clients better support. Because when we bring human insight and powerful technology together, we can shape user experiences that are not only efficient, but empathetic and inclusive.
This is a moment of potential. A chance to forge new tools with the values that guide our sector. The future of UX research isn’t about choosing between AI and people. It’s about building something better with both.
If you want to find out more about how UX research can optimise and maximise your charity’s digital presence, boosting engagement and conversions, please visit the Studio Republic website to explore our services.
Image credits: Vitaly Gariev on Pexels.
