Senior user research leading an effort to improve the digital employee experience for over 200,000 employees.• Generating insights: Planned and led three large generative research projects within my first 9 months, Results from one study spurred a reimagining of our main intranet site, while another drove the decision to switch vendors for our community site.• Introducing new methods: Introduced and incorporated quantitative research methods into our research studies. A recent mixed methods study brought together data from card sorts, web analytics, satisfaction surveys, and user interviews to present a 3-dimensional picture of how employees used our digital tools to get their work done.

Led user research efforts to better understand customer and employee needs, including consumers of our wearable products, candidates applying for jobs, and employees using career services. User Experience Research Highlights:• Driving results: Designed and ran field studies, 1-on-1 interviews, usability testing, focus groups, and surveys to identify issues and help uncover issues and test solutions. For one important product release, my team uncovered a critical user issue, proposed a solution, and tested the new version all in less than two weeks,. Our efforts were credited with increasing customer satisfaction scores in the released product by 50%.• Focusing on what matters: Using my background in data analysis and technical writing, developed product dashboards and charts that cut through the noise and allowed stakeholders to focus on key issues and solutions. In one project, I was able to distill hundreds of user comments into a few solvable problems, thus helping to focus the development effort.* Improving the customer experience with collaboration and creativity: Partnered with stakeholders across the organization to develop methods for gathering customer feedback continuously throughout product development, including piloting a method for field testing prototype (pre-alpha) devices in naturalistic settings.* Researching with agility: Led an agile user research team for several years, working quickly each sprint to put new features in front of users, run further research to pinpoint problems and solutions, and present a prioritized set of recommended improvements ready for the next sprint.Project Management Highlights: • Drove an efficiency effort which reduced user trial costs by more than 50% while increasing the number of unique bugs.• Reduced development costs by 90% while increasing efficiency by researching and coordinating the move from dispersed custom-built tools to an integrated testing platform.

Launched and ran a successful technical writing business, producing written and online user/reference guides, articles, specifications, and training materials. Responsible for project from conception to publication for clients including Autodesk, Intel, Schnitzer Steel, WebCrossing, and Sybase. Wrote for a wide range of audiences, from a pictorial user guide for children to an API guide for electrical validation engineers. Accomplishments include:• Simplifying complex technical material: Worked with electrical validation engineers at Intel to create training and online help for a set of complex technical tools. (Intel)• Focusing on customer experience: Improved the customer experience by proposing, researching, and writing a comprehensive planning guide for users of online forum software. The guide proved so popular that the client later offered a training class using the same material. (WebCrossing)• Creating innovative solutions by working across departments: Set up a series of listening sessions with technical support to understand where customers were struggling. From these sessions, designed and wrote a set of manuals with an easy-to-understand visual approach. These redesigned manuals reduced technical support calls and won an award from the Society of Technical Communicators. (Island Graphics)• Always up for a new challenge: Focusing on the best way to solve customers' problems, produced a unique type of materials to meet each need, including: curriculum for a multimedia science application for Junior High students; training manuals for college-level computer classes; and grant proposals and scientific journal articles for an occupational health firm.

Consulted with our community customers—including Oprah Winfrey, CSPAN, and Intuit—to increase the success of their online communities.• Overhauled and managed technical support: Asked to oversee and implement an overhaul of our technical support department. As part of the overhaul, I added phone support, created free training for new customers, and generally made the department friendlier and more accessible while maintaining our reputation for responsiveness and technical savvy. • Improved customer success by proposing, researching, and writing a comprehensive planning guide for users of our community software. The guide proved so popular that we later offered a training class covering the same material.