Build the right thing, and build the thing right
I'm a Design Researcher who is passionate about helping teams build innovative, customer-focused products and services.
How I work
Mixed Methods Research
Planning and executing research to uncover actionable customer insights through interviews, contextual inquiry, surveys, usability/ prototype testing, analytics, and continuous discovery programs.
Collaboration
Working closely with design, product, data and engineering teams to define measurement strategies and establish feedback loops.
Storytelling and Facilitation
Creating impactful artifacts, communicating insights and opportunities, and facilitating workshops.
Research Operations
Scaling research through efficient participant recruitment, research repositories, and establishing shared research tools and processes.
Selected Projects
Trial Conversion Study
This study was designed to address the question: What are the major obstacles preventing qualified Format trial users from becoming paid customers?
I approached this question through the lens of Jobs-to-be-done, interviewing both lapsed and converted trial users to understand:
The circumstances that led them to seek out a solution
The triggers that pushed them into trying Format
The outcomes they were trying to achieve as they started their trial
Why they were successful or unsuccessful in achieving their outcomes
The findings of this study included opportunities to improve product, onboarding, and marketing engagement with customers throughout their journey, and help them become successful, converted customers.
Research Lab Recruitment Program
At [redacted company] product & design teams were experiencing a major research bottleneck due to slow, manual participant recruiting.
With the goal of reducing the time and effort involved in recruiting and booking qualified candidates, I collaborated with Product Operations, Design Leads, and Customer Service Managers to establish an in-house panel and recruiting system.
More than a database of participants, the Research Lab included 3 pillars that made it scalable:
A CRM for finding and communicating with research candidates
Tools for managing candidates and data
A communications program to obtain sign off from CSMs on customer communications
Following the launch, recruiting for a product beta was completed in less than one week, one-third of the previous time. After 3 months, Metadata was added to 60% of the candidates, enabling more accurate targeting.
Format Workflow
Format.com is an award-winning portfolio website builder for visual creatives. In 2020, the business developed a vision to offer end-to-end tools for running a creative business, starting with its largest customer segment — photographers.
In collaboration with the Head of Product, product managers, designers, and engineers, I helped define, test, and launch the Workflow product.
In order to develop a product and design strategy, we needed an informed point of view on what photographers want and need to run their businesses.
Through feedback analysis, a customer survey, and in-depth interviews, we learned what tasks, tools, and workflows are key to managing photographers' businesses. Most importantly, we learned about the tools that made their lives easier, and what obstacles got in the way of running a successful photography business.
From there, our team was able to prioritize and MVP feature set and build a product for limited release.
Enterprise Customer Journey
The goal of this project was to learn how [redacted company]'s Enterprise Business customers research and make purchase decisions — their needs, the resources they draw on, and the pain points they experience — in order to identify opportunities to improve this process via digital channels.
Our team conducted 15 x 60-minute interviews with participants working at companies representing the range of company sizes that the company caters to, primarily decision-makers at enterprise-level companies. The data was then analyzed and synthesized into a journey map, documenting the research and purchase experience from a customer perspective.
The outcome was a clear picture of the customer journey for key personas, and a set of recommendations for optimizing the path to purchase though digital channels.