"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. – Attributed to Henry Ford
Building empathy while empowering teams with credible insights, my research has consistently revealed latent needs and defined known gaps to provide teams with new perspectives and opportunities that can distinguish products and offerings with pleasing – useful and usable, experiences. 
MY EXPERIENCE
My research and strategy work has included a broad range of methods with quantitative and qualitative insights which I communicate with usable deliverables to ensure they reach the immediate team's needs as well as the broader audience of the organization. 
I have also created UX programs including directing and managing staff, developing recruiting strategies for unique customer bases, bringing different data groups across organizations together to create a unified vision of users and an understanding of what different data means, and always driving an understanding - and sometimes the integration of, UX methods into the business.
my general approach 
My approach is grounded in social behavioral psychology. Collaboration has always been a key in my success and the success of insights - Connecting the business objectives, product purpose, and questions for research with each facet of the research. When I work "guerrilla" I consciously scale, and communicate the impact of the scaling down to ensure we all understand the strength.
INDUSTRIES + SOLUTIONS
PROJECTS
My experience includes generative + formative + evaluative + summative research and strategies using HCD and UCD - some projects have included Service Design and Futures + Foresight Methodologies.
Due to NDAs I am highlighting my approach with samples of work rather than exposing complete findings from any one effort.
Customer and Service Design Research for WEX, Inc Fall and Winter 2023-2024
Formative, Usability Testing Validating the application of contemporary design patterns and system to an existing B2B portal 2024
Designed an unmoderated usability test to validate the usability and needed improvements to the user experience with the application of contemporary design patterns and the design system. Also gathered expectations of the homepage and feedback about the dashboard concept.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Research - Formative | Interviews | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Formed a foundation of the Beyond Fuel ecosystem 
Informed the definition and roadmap for a new product suite with a series of qualitative studies and prepared for quantitative personas with the design of a quantitative survey. 
Formative, Qualitative Study Exploring Commerical Fleet Service Shops (Independent and National Chain) and their relationships with Commercial Fleets 2023-2024
Designed a study - unmoderated interviews using UserTesting.com. Explored Merchants' mental models and perspectives about commercial fleet service to inform a broader, quantitative study to be outsourced to an agency as well as studies with Commercial Fleet (small to large fleets) roles responsible for service coordination, central garage service, contracts, etc.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Research - Formative | Interviews | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Formative, Qualitative Study Exploring Commerical Fleet Roles and Value Drivers 2023-2024
Designed and facilitated qualitative, moderated interviews with different roles within Commercial Fleets to understand their perspective to inform a broader, quantitative study to validate assumptions, ensure the breadth of the study, and establish frequency and saliency of themes to inform product priorities and road map. Also used to inform convergent studies to explore prominent themes.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Research - Formative | Interviews | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Formative, Qualitative Study Exploring the mental models of virtual cards with Small Businesses with commercial fleets. 2023
Designed and facilitated interviews with small business owners and staff responsible for payments to understand their projected use and understanding of virtual cards to inform product road map and marketing position.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Research - Convergent | Interviews | Remote | Meta-Analysis
POV + Thought Leadership The Challenges, Failures, and Opportunities of GenAI Chat Bot 2023
Led the exploration and crafting of this Thought Leadership and POV presentation to be used internally across BUs to promote working together on business development efforts and used with pitches.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Industry Scan| Research - Literature Review |  Human-Centered Design | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Futures + Foresight POV The impact of metaverse technologies on healthcare 2023
Led the expansion of a previous effort to include the impact of metaverse technologies, academic research government statistics, and all phases of the patient journey as well as future patient scenarios to drive the understanding of the impacts and pivots on patient health outcomes while facilitating the conversation with different facets of the healthcare industry.
Project Breakdown - Coming Soon
Research - Divergent | Futures + Foresight | Human-Centered Design | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Generative, Quantitative and Qualitative CX Research for CSC ServiceWorks 2023
Meta-Analysis across different surveys to gain additional insights into Consumers' laundry habits to understand and improve their satisfaction and identify additional engagement and partner opportunities.
Project Breakdown - Not available due to partner NDA.
Research - Convergent | Formative | Innovation | Modernization | Internet of Things | Consumer Product Goods | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Formative CX Studies for Supernal (Air Mobility) 2022
Qualitative Studies |  Summer + Fall
Led and supported research to explore the passenger experience to inform the design of the cabin of a new type of transportation - Air Mobility. Answering product and leadership questions about the passenger experience that is coming to fruition. My role included research planning and execution, coordinating mock-up changes with engineers, coordinating with recruiting,  conducting activities,  and analysis and reports including Journey Mpas. Also leading initiatives to create Literature Reviews completed by vendors. Consulting on CX Program development.
Project Breakdown - Not available due to NDA and innovative nature of work. 
Research - Convergent | Innovation | Human Factors | Human-Centered Design | Remote | Meta-Analysis
Generative CX Research CSC ServiceWorks 2021/2022
Designed a research study to complement and build upon a local pilot study to ensure the consideration of this business idea included all possibilities and challenges with high confidence including statistical results. I conducted a competitive analysis of the space, surveys across our national consumer base, and interviews with representative consumers to explore the business idea from the consumer perspective.
The study validated the business idea but revealed the assumptions about the appeal and needs of the consumers were not complete and not broad enough. The study established the portion of our consumer base who would benefit as well as their needs, their concerns and those related needs, and the longevity of their engagement. Produced personas to ensure the new business unit had actionable research artifacts along with a large formal report.
Project Breakdown - coming soon
Research - Divergent | Generative | Innovation | Modernization | Internet of Things | Remote | Personas | Study + Instrument Design
Consumer Segments/Personas v.001 for CSC ServiceWorks 2021-2022
Qualitative and Quantitative Studies |  Winter + Spring 2021
Conducted a divergent research effort as the Consumer Research Manager to establish an understanding of consumer perceptions that would set the foundation for convergent research and a draft of personas. I worked collaboratively with the Product Management team and leadership across the organization to understand questions about our consumers and understand the different facets of our industry and service to define surveys and follow-up interviews to probe our basic topics to establish consumer perceptions about - laundry, technology, and themselves to define consumer segments/draft personas. Presented to executives, leadership, and product team.
Project Breakdown - coming soon
Research - Divergent | Generative | Personas | Internet of Things | Innovation | Modernization | Remote | Personas | Study + Instrument Design
Consumer Benchmark Satisfaction Surveys for CSC ServiceWorks 2021-2022
Usability and Qualitative Studies - International | Winter + Spring + Summer 2020
As the Consumer Research Manager, I worked collaboratively with Product Management and other stakeholders to design a baseline and benchmark study of the consumer experience to move the organization to include consumer satisfaction as part of the definition of their overall success. I worked with stakeholders - Senior Leadership to integrate findings into other business reporting.
Project Breakdown coming soon
Research - Evaluative | Survey Design | Innovation | Modernization | Remote
Contract Usability Studies for Amazon Goodreads 2020
Usability and Qualitative Studies - International | Winter + Spring + Summer 2020
Conducting quick usability studies and qualitative interviews to inform their redesign and expand their understanding of their users - both members and non-members.
Research  Formative + Evaluative | Desktop | Mobile | Usability | International | Remote | Social 
Contract International Cognitive and Usability Studies for Facebook and other Facebook products 2019 - 2020
Cognitive Studies - International | Fall  2019 and Winter 2020
Working as support to three studies and an Analysis lead on two via Applause. 
1 large and 1 small study engaged several moderators across the globe to gather qualitative feedback from people in several countries in exploring the usability of survey items across languages and cultures in 12 international markets on top consumer concerns.
1 Smaller qualitative study explored the name of a new mobile app to ensure it resonated with targeted users and had a consistent meaning across cultures - 10 international markets.
Usability Study - International 8 Countries | Winter 2019
Working as a lead and support to a Usability Study for Messenger producing a final report that included a comparison to a Spring study as well as in-depth insights of previously identified usability issues. The study had been designed by another lead in the first study.
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Brand | Desktop | Mobile | Usability | International | Remote | Social
Contract CX: Competitive Analysis, Opportunities, and Vision for US Cellular 2019
Explored the competitive space of the cellular retail experience - both offline and online as well as the industry trends to identify the baseline cross-channel customer experience to inform a proprietary, store associate mobile product that works with their planned store redesign.
Research - Formative + Generative | Strategy | Modernization | Brand | Service Design | Cross-Channel | Remote | On-Site
Contract Evaluation + Strategy of NikePlus 2018
A competitive and heuristic analysis of the retail shoe and member experiences to identify gaps in the shoe market's customer experiences on .Com and Mobile apps.
Competitive Analysis | Heuristic Evaluation | Modernization | Strategy | Brand | Desktop | Mobile | Remote
Contract CX and Service Design Research + Strategy for Sling TV 2018
A Product Management leader decided to introduce his Product and UX teams to User Experience Research. While we decided how to make the research results both usable and useful, the engagement expanded to include strategy.
In-home studies were conducted to gain a holistic understanding of the user experience including accessing Sling TV and its competitors using different devices such as Play Station, Amazon Fire Stick, XBox 360, Roku, etc. with Cross-Channel considerations of Desktop and Mobile | Winter 2018 
Card Sorting to explore the mental models around accessing Episodic and Movie content. | Spring 2018
Interviews with sports fans to gain an initial understanding of the Sports consumption experience, needs, and user objectives to inform the definition and design of a Sports landing page and navigation. | Spring 2018
Iterative A/B Testing to validate the redesign direction including navigation and initial design patterns for Live and OnDemand, omni-channel experience, and console experiences | Winter + Spring 2018
Project Breakdown -- currently drafting - almost done
Research - Generative + Formative + Evaluative | innovation | Strategy | Cross-Channel | Console | Mobile | Desktop | Ethnography | Personas
Contract CX + UX Research + Strategy for Genentech's Physicians' Marketing 2016-2017
2 Ethnographic Studies to inform online | Fall 2016
.Com and communications) and offline (conference booth) experiences for 3 different specialists - Rheumatologists, Retinal Specialists, Ophthalmologist  to inform acquisition and retention strategies 
Research - Generative + Evaluative | Strategy | Brand | Service Design | Ethnography | Personas
Cancer Immunotherapy Foundations | Winter 2016-2017
Exploring Cancer Immunotherapy + Getting to Know Oncologists with generative research to empower physicians' marketing teams to best serve and connect to Oncologists as Cancer immunotherapy evolves. Conducted validation study of Promise Statements, Card Sorting, Interviews, and Surveys to gain an understanding of mental models, expectations of pharma, and attitudes within the space.
Research - Generative + Evaluative | Strategy | Card Sort | Concept Validation and Exploration (Positioning statements) | Brand | Personas | Omni Channel | Acquisition + Retention  | Remote
Contract CX, Service Design, UX Research + Strategy for Toyota Financial Services 2016
Formative Research - Explored the pain points of financing a new car after Toyota Motor Sales identified that the finance portion of the customer experience is the most painful.  Conducted User Interviews, Card Sorts, and Meta-Analysis of TMS Customer Research to inform .Com redesign strategy. Topline report empowered marketing in their pending .Com redesign and email campaigns, and prepared them to collaborate with TMS in redefining a more consumer-centric showroom experience.
Research - Formative | User Interviews | Modernization | Card Sort | Service Design | Brand | Web | Omni-Channel Experience Blueprints | Personas | Acquisition + Retention | Remote
User Research for Renaissance Learning 2015-2016
I led research efforts working collaboratively with product managers to inform Agile Epics and set Sprint teams up for success.
Establish a central UX practice and a credible research program. Harnessed a combination of Lean and Formal Research efforts to establish a persona library and task flows to unify and strengthen the understanding of users across the company. Established a Usability Report Card for each product that was used to communicate every month the health of products with the board.
Formative Qualitative Interviews and Card Sorts Teacher and Specialist User Needs + Dashboard Tasks | Summer + Fall 2015
Formative Qualitative Interviews and Card Sorts District Admin User Needs + Dashboard Tasks | Fall 2015
Formative Qualitative Interviews Student + Parent Homework-Related Needs | Summer 2015
Formative Qualitative Interviews and Card Sorts Teacher Student Assessment-Related Tasks | 2015-2016
Baseline, Concept, and Usability Testing and Card Sorts Teacher Dashboards | Summer – Fall 2015
Project Breakdowns not available
Research - Formative + Generative + Evaluative + Summative | Strategy | Card Sort | A/B Testing | Concept Testing | Usability Testing | Omni-Channel | Brand | Web | Mobile | Personas | Retention | Thought Leadership | Remote | Field Studies
Contract User Research + Strategy for Cisco Security 2015
Conducted lean User Research + crafted a strategy for Security Communications and process definition as CISCO CSTG reorganized and realized they had duplicative communications and wanted to address low responses. | Spring + Summer 2015
Formative Qualitative Interviews: Conducted lean User Research + worked collaboratively to shape a new disruptive product - hailed as the biggest thing to come out of Cisco in 20 years | Summer 2015
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Strategy | Card Sort | Brand | Acquisition + Retention  | Remote
Contract Evaluations + Strategy for Country Music Television 2015
Conducted a heuristic evaluation + meta-analysis of strong brand research to craft a strategy to inform offline and online experiences and marketing efforts.
Evaluative| Strategy | Remote
Contract Meta-Analysis + Strategy for TIBCO Streambase LiveView Web 2014
Created a product strategy by researching the heuristics of data visualizations and both static and real-time data. Produced a strategy that included defining. a web version of the established product, MVP for a disruptive product, product and technical roadmap, approach to maintaining a disruptive status, and interaction design.
Generative Research - Meta-Analysis | Innovation | Strategy | Product Design | Interaction Design | Thought Leadership | Remote
Contract Meta-Analysis + Strategy for Toyota Financial Systems Customer Portal 2014
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Strategy | Card Sort | Concept Validation | Brand | Experience Blueprints | Acquisition + Retention | Thought Leadership | Remote
Contract Evaluation + Content Strategy for Elavon.com Redesign 2014
Conducted a content analysis of an existing and newly acquired.Com to identify overlap and relevant content for a redesign including ROT analysis, and proposed a new approach. 
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Modernization | Strategy | Card Sort | Concept Validation | Brand | Experience Blueprints | Acquisition + Retention | Thought Leadership | Remote
Contract Card Sorting + Strategy for CTIA Wireless Lobbyist 2013
With only 100 hours available for a new Navigation Strategy, I conducted a content inventory and ROT analysis, conducted card sorts with representative users, and drafted a Navigation Strategy. 
Research - Formative + Summative | Strategy | Card Sort | Information Architecture | Page Type Template Design 
Service Design Evaluation for Lowes Home Improvement 2011-2012
Cross-Channel Heuristic Evaluation: Customer Experience from home planning to shopping online, and in-store research and purchase for customer loyalty program | Winter 2012
Research - Generative + Evaluative | Strategy | Service Design | Thought Leadership
Research + Testing for The George Washington University 2010-2011
CX Research to establish requirements for CMS product purchase | Winter 2011
Concept Testing to validate CMS (Drupal) customization strategy | Spring 2011
Research - Generative + Formative + Evaluative | Strategy | Contextual Inquiry | Stakeholder Interviews | Design Thinking | Personas | Workflows | Participatory Design | A/B Testing | Thought Leadership
Contract User Research + Strategy for Golf Channel's GolfNow 2010
Conducted User Research to identify user groups and needs and crafted a strategy  for the GolfNow mobile app | Summer 2010
A/B Testing product concepts and designs for GolfNow Mobile Apps | Summer 2010
User Research for Golf Central B2B Dashboard | Fall 2010
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Strategy | Stakeholder Interviews | Personas/User Profiles | Mobile | Product Design | Interaction Design | Concept Validation | Usability Testing | Thought Leadership | Remote
Contract Analysis + UX Strategy for E! 2010
“Ride-Along” on Brand Research tour | Winter 2010
Persona definition via collaboration with internal Research team | Winter-Spring 2010
Content Analysis  against research for new Content Strategy
Card Sort to inform UX Strategy and IA | Spring 2010
Defined a CMS strategy to streamline work and ensure compliance with Content Strategy and Business Objectives.
Research - Formative + Evaluative | Strategy | Stakeholder Interviews | Personas | Participatory Design | Thought Leadership
Formative Research for Kadoo, Inc 2008
Baseline Testing to inform product and UX planning | Winter 2008
User Research to inform product definition (MVP) and design decisions | Spring – Summer 2008
Iterative Paper Prototype Testing to validate design patterns | Spring – Summer 2008
Brand Focus Group to validate homepage design's alignment to brand | Spring 2008
Research - Formative + Generative + Evaluative + Summative | Strategy | Innovation | Product Design | Baseline Testing | Iterative Paper Prototyping | Interaction Design | Thought Leadership
Analysis + Research for Social Security Administration (SSA) 2002-2006
Contracted via LMIT as staff augmentation, my primary responsibility was supporting the SSA’s effort to modernize the disability process. I also worked on several smaller efforts including web-based apps and informational sites. Disability projects included internal processing of claims from local>state>federal levels, as well as public experiences. Smaller efforts included SSA.gov and internal informational and application projects.
User Research - Contextual Inquiries | 2002-2006
A/B Testing | 2002-2006
Usability Testing | 2002-2006
Heuristic Evaluations | 2002-2006
Positioning validation (internal) | 2005
Special Project: Exploring the usability and usefulness of UX Deliverables | 2005
Research - Formative + Generative + Evaluative + Summative | Modernization | Baseline Testing | Iterative A/B Testing | Interaction Design | Personas | Contextual Inquiry | Thought Leadership
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