Hello!

I'm a UX Researcher and Designer interested in creating delightful, meaningful experiences for all kinds of end users via user-centered design and qualitative research-based strategies.

ABOUT ME AS A RESEARCHER

I’m very much a qualitative research generalist. I enjoy working with many different methods on many types of projects. From running design thinking workshops to fuzzy front end explorations to evaluative assessments— I’m happy doing it all because to me, they are all part of the same skill set. In fact, one of my very favorite problems is determining the best method or activity for a project while balancing audience, budget, timeline, and deliverables. I firmly believe there are many paths to successfully accomplishing UX research and if the one you’re using isn’t working it’s time to iterate.

I’m always learning something new, so this list keeps getting longer and longer, but here’s a selection of some of the methods and activities I’ve used in past projects:

DESIGN THINKING SKILLS
Workshop Planning & Facilitation
Applied Methods: Brain Writing, KJ Technique, Mind Mapping, Affinity Mapping, Priority Matrices, 18f methods,
Tools: Post-its, Sharpies, Whiteboards

UX RESEARCH SKILLS
Multi-Disciplinary Team Collaboration
Qualitative & Quantitative Research Studies
Applied Mixed Methods: Interviews, Observations, Job Shadowing, Contextual Inquiries, Surveys, Card Sorts, Journey Maps, Service Maps, Ecosystem Maps, Competitive Reviews
Transform Data into Actionable Guidance and Recommendations
Narrative & Visual Reports
Custom Designed Data Visualizations
Custom Designed Templates & Excel Analysis Tools
Tools: UserTesting, Atlas.TI, MAXQDA, Dedoose, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Excel, PowerPoint

UX DESIGN SKILLS
Wire Frames & Rapid Prototyping
Heuristic Reviews
Usability Testing, SEQ & SUS Scoring
Tools: Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Azure DevOps, Kanban

My main goal in UX research activities is always actionable outcomes. “What did we learn?” and “What can we do about it?” are always at the forefront of my mind. My anthropological training helps me to understand and analyze end user behaviors and my design background gives me an edge in understanding digital products and unraveling complex data into digestible visuals and/or reports to get the right information to the right audience.

I am a Design Researcher. I was a DVD and BluRay packaging designer at an anime company leading multidisciplinary project teams for almost six years before going back to school for my MFA in Design Research. You can see a sample of my design work here.

I am now fully focused on the research half of that title, however, the skills that I honed during my design career still serve me well today and deeply enhance my research practice. In my design role, I was the functional Art Director for all of my titles, which meant I quickly learned how to work in a highly collaborative manner with creatives and executives alike. I also worked primarily in systemic design, focusing on big picture consistency and quality of experience- skills that directly translate to my user experience practice.

As a designer for many years, I also have the luxury of having the skills to directly create reports and data visualizations from my research that exactly communicate what I want viewers to understand. Translating complex data into easily digestible visuals results in greater understanding and retention of important research points. I also recognize the importance of knowing your audience and am comfortable communicating data in many different ways - what a dev needs to progress a feature is totally different from what an executive needs to know to progress a project. Likewise, because I understand the thought process behind product design decisions and feedback requests from design teams, it’s much easier for me to conduct heuristic evaluations and usability testing.

Research is all about gathering meaningful information and design is all about how to organize and communicate that information in a meaningful way—design research is the best of both worlds. Mainly, though, being a design researcher means that design thinking (really, just critical thinking) and user centered design is at the core of my research practice and I strongly adhere to the tenet “people before ideas”.

Have an interesting user problem for me?
I’m currently seeking remote work opportunities. Let's chat! hello@uxcate.com