UX Researcher, Spire Digital, Denver, CO (2017-18)

UX Researcher for custom software agency:

• Designed and conducted user experience research for digital product agency including user interviews, contextual inquiry, survey development, and usability testing to make strategic recommendations

• Directed research teams for large projects, organized data collected by a multi-person team

• Coached clients in problem definition, strategy, and feature prioritization for digital products through design and UX methodologies

• Collaborated with designers, product owners, and developers

• Wrote epics and user stories catalogue for use in MVP product roadmap

• Developed best practices for post launch lean/agile UX research

• Experience with startups and enterprise companies in financial services, aviation, real estate, insurance, legal services, technology, consumer products, and startup investing

Sample Projects

Project 1: Real Estate Services, startup

Challenge: Real estate agents need to schedule and order photography of properties online (versus telephone)
Methods:
- Stakeholder interviews
- Contextual inquiry and interviews with the telephone scheduling team
- User interviews with 8 real estate agents already using service
- Top task survey asking 400 respondents to choose 5 most important of 30 features generated from research
Outcomes:
- Research report sent by CEO to everyone in company
- Prioritized feature list used as basis for design
- CEO requested I attend all design meetings due to my insight into customer needs and workflow order/priorities
- Client hired Spire for development of product based on strength of research and design

Client testimonial: "It pays to have a PhD in your corner. We were fortunate to have Rachel on the team assigned to us for a project with Spire Digital. Rachel led the research aspect of the project which ultimately led to the UI / UX and design of our new ordering system. Rachel exceeded all expectations when it came to surveying and interviewing our clients and internal staff. She was incredibly courteous and patient with everyone she worked with and presented communicated and illustrating her findings in an easy to digest presentation and report. Thank you, Rachel!"
--Kori Covrigaru, CEO, PlanOmatic

Project 2: Financial Services, enterprise

Challenge: Salespeople need a single web app to collect materials from many different online sources after company merger for sales presentation on ipad
Methods:
-Stakeholder workshop to discover main categories of information (sticky note exercise asking everyone to create the categories they thought the web app should contain, then put on board and voted with dots)
-User interviews with salespeople on most important materials, workflow, and pain points
-Survey for salespeople including most important features and categories, key materials, usability with ipad
-Created journey maps for current process and proposed journey map with new solution
Outcomes:
-Categories from workshop and interviews formed basis for web app categories in design
-Effective collaboration with designer and client on prototype to best address user needs
-Satisfied client who reached out to Spire CEO with positive testimonial, possibility of ongoing engagement

Client Testimonial: I worked with Rachel on a mobile app development project. Rachel did an exceptional job helping us during the research and discovery phase of the project. She interviewed our target user audience, ran an on-site workshop with our marketing team, and also developed a survey to help us reach out to a larger group of target users. Most impressively, she was able to synthesize the results of all those different research efforts into a set of tangible recommendations that served as the foundation for our application feature set and design. We've been very happy with the outcome. — Megan Michuda, Global Head of Marketing Technology at Janus Henderson Investors U.S.

Project 3: Aviation, startup

Challenge: Airline technicians and crew need a diagnostic tool for troubleshooting wifi connection while in flight
Methods:
-Stakeholder interviews (1 day), internal team and customer support
-10 user interviews with aircraft directors of maintenance and technicians
-Led feature prioritization/categorization workshop with internal team to determine main features for prototype
-Usability testing with 8 users with prototype

Outcomes:
-Successful mediation with 20+ person internal team from different divisions of enterprise company
-Research directly informed design (troubleshooting categories and features) for web app tool
-Research findings requested for presentation to company top leadership

Designer Testimonial: "Rachel is a joy to collaborate with on projects. The research expertise she brings to the table is unparalleled. I had the amazing opportunity to work with Rachel at Spire Digital where we put our heads together to tackle our clients challenging problems. Rachel's strengths are in bringing a critical eye to each project where she questions everything. She isn't afraid to push back and propose different directions which makes her an asset to every client project. I learned so much from Rachel every time we worked together and I hope to have the opportunity to do so again in the future." --Becky Pierson, Product Designer, Spire Digital

Director of User Experience Testimonial: "We brought Rachel on to define and lead our research processes at Spire Digital, and in a short time, she had made a significantly positive impact on many projects. Rachel is a gifted researcher who possesses a great combination of passion, thorough analysis, and communication skills. She was a tremendous help and a service-oriented professional who was able to build and maintain important client relationships, work with relative autonomy, and precisely communicate her findings with the rest of the team. All of her work was completed with favorable results despite deadline pressure. She’s passionate about “the why” and thoroughly understanding a problem, and I appreciated her determination to understand the best way to integrate UX research into a lean product development process." --Garrett Kroll, Director of User Experience, Spire Digital

UX Research Consultant for Startups, Boulder, CO (2017)

Project 1: Help a founder create a digital healthcare tool for health literacy in underserved populations

Methods:

1) Project Scoping and Assumed User Journey Map for community healthcare coordinators
2) Three days of interviews and contextual inquiry with community healthcare clinics, refined journey map
3) Timeline: 3 weeks

Insights & Recommendations:

1) The main problem is that patients are overwhelmed and need concrete next steps for treatment plans, especially for nutrition and lifestyle health. Recommendation: Build a prototype of a free app that provides personalized health care plans for underserved populations. This app should guide patients to educational materials and ways to interact with providers and coordinators depending on their situation.
2) Find a patient population with a complex disease state, such as diabetes, for a pilot study to test the prototype (partner with the American Association for Diabetes and a community clinic in Denver).
3) Work with a developer familiar with integrating app overlays with electronic medical records. 

Project 2: Help a small software product in the study abroad space gain market share from a larger, established product

Methods:

1) Interviews and contextual inquiry with User Type 1, Study Abroad Office employees, on current software experience and barriers switching to Via TRM
2) Interviews and usability testing with User Type 2, students who have studied abroad or are in the application process, on using Via TRM software for their applications
3) Timeline: 3 weeks

Insights & Recommendations:

1) Everyone agrees that the User Interface and User Experience of Via TRM is superior. The main features that study abroad offices use are email and application forms, after they finish uploading programs. Recommendation: Improve the UI of email and forms features through more prominent placement in the workflow and enhanced search features.

2) All users like that Via focuses on students before they commit to study abroad. Via does this through a quiz that identifies their interests and barriers. Recommendation: This feature could be improved by creating a customized guide that follows students through the process rather than appearing only at the beginning. 

3) [Two key features] are areas where the competitor's software currently has an advantage. Recommendation: Create a plan to address [these two key features] within the more intuitive and appealing UI that Via is known for.

4) Users of the competitor's software are worried about the data migration process. Local experts who manage the competitor's software within offices are also wary of losing their expert status. Recommendation: Shape an easy path for data migration, and find a way for local experts to retain specialized knowledge through managing Via in a key way.

5) Study abroad offices are dealing with different challenges. The three main goals I heard are: 

• Increase student participation

• Promote internal programs

• Do more with less staff because of budget cuts

Recommendation: Find a way to speak to these three key challenges in the software problem space. Above all, do not ignore one in favor of the others, as we want to increase market share as broadly as possible.