In today’s fast-moving, globally distributed work environments, short-form research experiences like Empathy Days and Cultural Immersions are proving invaluable. These formats reconnect teams with real users, either through energising, collaborative sessions or deep, contextual exploration in local markets. Though brief, both deliver enduring impact by challenging assumptions, aligning teams, and anchoring innovation in authentic human insight. This article helps you choose the right format, and shows how intO delivers each with strategic care and cultural sensitivity.
In fast-moving global markets, it’s easy for innovation teams to become detached from the people they’re designing for. Speed, scale and remote collaboration are the norm, but without lived context and direct user connection, decisions can become dangerously abstract.
Sometimes, what teams need most isn’t a vast research programme, but a focused experience: one that reorients them toward the realities of everyday users, sparks internal alignment, and unlocks shared understanding.
At intO, we deliver two high-impact formats that do just that: Empathy Days and Cultural Immersions. While they’re short in duration, their influence typically lasts for years, helping teams shape products, strategies, policies, and experiences with confidence and care.
Why now?
Product teams face growing pressure to make fast decisions, often across multiple markets and in collaboration with colleagues they rarely meet in person. When everyone’s working remotely, alignment becomes harder. The risk of global assumptions and cultural blind spots grows. And as user expectations shift rapidly, the cost of misjudgement gets higher.
That’s where immersive, time-bound experiences come in. Empathy Days and Cultural Immersions offer something rare: a moment of pause, presence and perspective. They create space for teams to connect with each other, and with the people they serve. And they restore user-centred thinking to the heart of strategic decision-making.
Meet the formats
Empathy Days
Empathy Days are short, powerful experiences designed to reconnect teams with the users at the centre of their work. They’re typically held in your office or in the field and bring together cross-functional colleagues for a shared deep-dive into user behaviours, needs and motivations.
Empathy Days are:
Inspirational – spark creativity and new thinking
Collaborative – ideal for distributed, remote or multifunctional teams
Flexible – shaped around your goals, timeframe and context
User-centred – grounding teams in lived experience and real-world use
These sessions are often used to align teams at key moments, for example, before roadmap planning, market expansion, or the launch of new initiatives.
Cultural Immersions
Cultural Immersions are high-touch, in-context research experiences that allow teams to explore the culture, rituals and values that shape behaviour in specific markets. Held in homes, communities and local environments, they provide strategic depth and a nuanced view of what drives user decision-making in a particular geographical region’s context.
Cultural Immersions are:
Foundational – inform product-market fit and localisation strategies
Strategic – ideal for market entry, global rollout or brand positioning
Immersive – put stakeholders directly into local environments
Transformative – shift perspectives and surface deep insight
These experiences are commonly used to support strategic innovation decisions, bridging the gap between global intent and local relevance.
If you’re considering a Cultural Immersion for your team (or just want to understand how to run one well) we’ve put together a free Cultural Immersion Planner. It’s packed with frameworks, checklists and tips to help you design experiences that deliver real insight, strategic clarity, and lasting impact.
Alignment, energising team culture, reconnecting with users
Foundational market insight, localisation, cultural depth
Location
Office or field-based (client-determined)
In-context: homes, streets, shops, and communities
Team involvement
High – ideal for remote or multifunctional teams
High – excellent for stakeholder buy-in and strategy
Output
Shared team empathy + immediate takeaways
Rich insight + strategic direction
Both formats can be tailored to fit your organisational needs and often, they work best together. Empathy Days can reinvigorate teams early in a process, while Cultural Immersions provide strategic grounding for big decisions.
Impact that outlasts the experience
We’ve seen teams return to insights from these experiences again and again – months or even years later – because the memory of real, lived encounters is powerful. Empathy Days often catalyse internal change: sparking user-centred product pivots, improved team dynamics, or new design principles.
Cultural Immersions deliver durable impact by shaping strategy with authentic, in-context knowledge. They’ve helped global organisations like YouTube and Google navigate complex markets and launch with cultural intelligence and confidence.If you want to explore examples, our latest case studies show how both formats deliver lasting value. We’re happy to walk you through them and discuss how projects like these could support your objectives. Book a quick, no-pressure call with intO’s Commercial Director, Chloe Amos-Edkins, to explore what’s possible.
As a globally distributed team of design researchers, we know that the best insight comes from collaboration, care and local context. Our unique model allows us to embed teams in authentic environments – anywhere in the world – with thoughtful, safe facilitation and rigorous delivery.
With intO, you get:
Premium yet authentic experiences that are locally grounded and globally insightful
A team that understands both the strategic importance and the emotional resonance of direct user engagement
Confidence that short-form engagements will lead to long-term clarity.
Let’s design your next Empathy Day or Immersion
Whether you’re planning your next sprint or entering a new market, we can help.
Get in touch to explore which format fits your needs, and let’s co-design an experience that brings your team closer to the people they’re building for.
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