Facilitating a culture of human-centered design

At InterSystems, I lead the UX initiatives for our Data Platforms division, working with cross-functional teams and external contractors to support product design from concept to launch. As the company's resident UX Strategist, I also work with stakeholders and teams across the company to identify the gaps in how we deliver value to our users and work behind the scenes to nudge company culture towards a more human-centered approach to innovation. 

Growing teams, scaling impact

As a Partner and Research Director at Ozmo (a boutique Strategic Design consulting firm), I founded the user research group and helped build an enduring culture of collaboration, empathy, growth, and results. I also created a suite of digital research tools that help companies leverage their internal data to boost team performance, scale up product innovation programs, and connect customer satisfaction metrics to business processes. 

Building data pipeline tools for Data Scientists and Analysts

Over the course of a year, I partnered with colleagues across the company to scope and design a new flagship product for the data-centric teams of the future. As the UX Strategist and Lead, I guided the shape of the product from the initial exploratory research to a functional proof of concept. This included conducting user research, negotiating product scope, creating wireframes and mockups, and working with the development team to build a functional piece of software that met our users' needs and opened new potential revenue streams for the company. 

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Re-engineering the SQL Engineer experience

Based on years of customer feedback and in collaboration with our clients, internal SQL engineers, database developers, and product team, I designed a new interface to better enable SQL users to explore relational data, craft effective queries, and manage their recent statements. I began by conducting competitor research and facilitating discovery workshops with internal teams responsible for managing and implementing SQL databases. Then I worked with a core product management and development team to create, validate, and iterate the solution concept from initial concept sketches and storyboards, to high-fidelity interactive mockups, to front-end development. 

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Designing for graph data and the future of health data interoperability

I led a team of UX designers and front-end engineers in designing a minimum viable product (MVP) for network administrators and health data analyst users to use FHIR (a type of interoperable graph data structure for health-related data). I conducted journey mapping workshops with stakeholders and the development team to better understand both the user requirements and the technical requirements of the FHIR standard, working with my team to produce wireframes and mockups for the product within a week of conducting the workshops. 

Aiding consumer financial decision-making with visual scenario simulations and behaviorally-informed design

At a large international bank, I led a team in planning and conducting in-depth interviews, card sorting exercises, and phenomenological analysis to inform the design of a new employee-facing application. We then built iterative wireframes and applied a design system to create mockups for an app that let employees manage their retirement investments in ways that better aligned with their mental models of money. Our solution also increased usability and complied with applicable regulations and bank policy. 

Usability testing

Working as an educator and practitioner, I've trained more than 60 emerging designers and researchers how to plan and implement usability studies. This includes considerations like choosing a sample size, understanding the tradeoffs between purposeful vs quantitative sampling techniques, creating screeners and recruiting participants, structuring interview guides, crafting questions that minimize bias, conducting interviews and usability tests, managing user data and obtaining informed consent, and analyzing and presenting the results. 

Applied behavioral research

At one of the largest microfinance organizations in Latin America, I guided multidisciplinary teams of behavioral researchers, data scientists, and designers through the planing and implementation of a series of randomized control trials that expanded access to financial instruments to qualified customers and resulted in an estimated US$ 22 million in new revenue. 

Exploratory user research

With a startup in the healthcare and insurance space, I planned and conducted exploratory research including 10 in-depth interviews, rapid ethnography, and concept prototyping workshops to uncover the needs of key user archetypes and their Jobs To Be Done, resulting in a unique value proposition, product strategy, and model for service delivery. 

Large-n survey research

Working with an international non-governmental organization, I led a team of more than 20 research professionals to implement a five country survey of thousands of primary and secondary education institutions. This involved managing the creation of a representative sampling frame, coordinating the writing, translation, and programing of the survey instrument, overseeing data collection, auditing, and cleaning, reviewing the exploratory data analysis, and managing stakeholder relationships throughout the project. 

Mixed-methods social research

In partnership with an anti-corruption NGO, I led a team in running a series of research initiatives, including planning and executing focus groups and co-design workshops, conducting web scraping of public social media forums, training a research team in Discourse Analysis and applying it to the collected data, and using the data to model scenarios where corruption could occur. These initiatives informed the creation of a strategic plan to reduce the impact of corruption on Mexican youth. Collaborating with a design team, I then translated the research into a pitch deck and storytelling materials that helped the NGO access increased funding to bring the strategic plan to life. 

Data Visualization with D3.js

Working in a team of three, I proposed, designed, and implemented a data visualization project that explores US State of the Union Adressess throughout history.

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