My experience as a user research
My Work
User Research Academy
Founder & Instructor
February 2019 - Present
Created an Introduction to User Research Self-Paced Course and helped over 70 students through their first user research portfolio piece, which has led to students landing their first user research job
Taught students from over 30 different countries and cultures
Maintained 1x1 mentoring sessions with over 20 students, helping them excel in their current role, leading to multiple promotions
Created over 25 pieces of free content (templates, guides) to help those on their user research journey
Offer multiple methods of learning and services, such as regular webinars, job interview preparation, and company-wide workshops
Zalando
User Research Lead
May 2020 - Present
Developed and managed four direct reports in both qualitative and quantitative research, leading to two promotions
Worked across over 15 teams as the research point of contact for many stakeholders, conducting several end-to-end research projects
Created over 10 templates to help facilitate stakeholders' research requests and prioritization, reducing meeting time by 25%
Created and led the bi-weekly advanced research training for stakeholders, empowering about 10 stakeholders a month to conduct evaluative research
Organized the user research mentorship and user research review program to facilitate continued learning on the team and encouraged peer feedback
Led over 15 interviews for user research candidates, from associate to senior level, increasing our team by 10%
Strategized and contributed to the operational plan, which determined how user research fit at scale in the wider context of Zalando
Dovetail
Contract Writer
February 2021 - Present
Plan and write two articles a month on user research to increase brand awareness for Dovetail
Work with the team to understand the trending topics in the space
dscout
Contract Writer
February 2019 - Present
Plan and write four articles a month on user research to increase brand awareness for dscout
Work with the team to understand the trending topics in the space
Work with the team on research projects on a consultancy basis
fromAtoB
Senior User Researcher & Tribe Lead
February 2019 - May 2020
Created a user research structure and framework, which placed user research within an agile environment and reduced wasted development time by 45%
Reduced the number of bugs in new and existing features by 25%
Developed user research templates and curriculum to teach 10+ colleagues how to conduct user research sessions
Worked across 5 squads, through usability testing and generative research, to improve the experience, which increased customer retention by 45% and increased conversion rate by 16%
Used creative sharing methodologies, such as usability bingo and opening night, which aided in executive buy-in and led to a 20% increase in the annual research budget
Freelance
Senior User Research Consultant
January 2014 - January 2019
Selected Works
CLIENT: Wiley Publishing [1 month]
Conducted several generative research sessions, allowing internal stakeholders to evangelize the user’s needs across the organization
Synthesized findings into a simple and actionable research report, which drove the creation of a new feature to increase online readership by 20%
CLIENT: HelloFresh [3 months]
Scoped out client’s immediate research needs through a heuristic evaluation, which led to the fixing of over 35 bugs and small UX/UI improvements
Led 18 generative sessions, which culminated in a new, innovative product offering, increasing revenue by 4%
Conducted 19 evaluative research sessions, resulting in an improved overall usability, increasing retention by 15% and conversion rate by 6%
Pratt Institute
User Research Instructor
January 2018 - January 2019
Created a user research syllabus that is now used widely throughout the Pratt UX research curriculum
Supported students through their first UX research portfolio piece
100% graduation rate with all 75 students, with 47 students going into a UX-based career within 6 months
Olapic
User Researcher
September 2016 - December 2017
Led over 150 generative research sessions, which evangelized a user research-focused strategy across the organization
Conducted over 75 usability tests, which resulted in actionable insights, increasing customer satisfaction scores (SUS) from 46 (below average) to 71 (above average), and increased overall task completion by 23%
Leveraged personas to prioritize the feature roadmap, and empowered product managers and developers to write customer-centric user stories
Used customer journey maps to inform sales strategy, and reduce client implementation timeline of our product by 50%, from 6 months to 2-3 months
Gathered, shared, and maintained research in a “homemade” repository with effective search and discovery capability
ALICE
User Researcher
December 2015 - September 2016
Led the full, end-to-end user research process for 15 projects
Conducted over 50 usability tests, with actionable results leading to an overall redesign, increasing customer retention rates by 20%
Created an overall framework for user research processes, and workshop facilitation, which enabled the creation of 4 personas, and a customer journey map, used by product managers and engineers to prioritize the roadmap
Education
MEd - MA in Education
University of Exeter
2018-2021
MA in Psychology
The New School for Social Research
2013-2015
BA in Psychology & Education
Smith College
2007-2011