I moved Splunk from role-based personas to behavioral modules for generating neutral archetypes fresh enough to be task- and feature-specific.

It's natural to think in terms of role-based enterprise personas. Designers and product managers, though, can't use personas that more closely resemble market segments too ambiguous for new product, version, and feature development. 

I implemented a research plan to generate behavioral archetypes using modules that reflected customers' desired outcomes, process flow type, responsibilities for a task, key stakeholders, others who are impacted, etc. This involved gathering everything we thought we knew about product uses and tasks (hypotheses) + priorities by product roadmap, and then kicking off several methods to learn from customers and then triangulate for the base set of modules.

Google smart device interaction, virtual tech as a tool
DAYDREAM XR || 3D TAILOR
ATAP || PROJECT JACQUARD | PROJECT SOLI | PRE-BETA PROJECTS
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For most teams, I provided their first UX research to discover, describe, and collect evidence to create frameworks, conceptual taxonomies for internal communications, and promising directions for their products. All were intended for a world in which digital interfaces are functionally embedded in analog reality. Socio-cultural and ethical implications.

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Jacquard at SXSW 2017-19​

Project Soli on Google Pixel 4-5...

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Code-name "3D Tailor"

This biometrics/online shopping project "graduated" to Daydream, the XR group at Google. I was invited to move with that team. I supported the Proof of Concept and formative design stages. Research conducted in the US and Ireland.

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Key question: If people could assess themselves online trying on new clothes, what are the acceptable modes of seeing themselves as a 3D mannequin? Are there "types" of people with sharply different mannequin tastes?

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Sr. UX Researcher

Established the UXR practice in the Business Unit

• I conducted formal and informal customer ethnographies in an initiative to overhaul the software purchase platform in the transition from licensed to SaaS business models.

• I hired and managed a vendor to implement a baseline/benchmark series. At the same time, I ran iterative Formative studies to refine product requirements with the design team and PM.

Key finding: Loyal users of legacy software can adopt interface and functionality updates when they have been treated like development partners.

Sr. UX Researcher, Enterprise

Back when only executives had corporate Blackberries, other employees could not use their own cell phones to access work files, email, phone contacts, etc. It made sense for them to have phones, but unsecure access halted bottom up movement.

Then the 2008-2009 Recession hit. Executives were shorn of their corporate Blackberries. But just a year earlier the iPhone came out and executives were getting phones as personal gifts. They desperately called their IT desks  -- 'how can I get my email on my iPhone?'. The IT teams were stumped. And so, the demand for consumer devices used for work came from the top down.

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Regular activities

• Consulting with stakeholders about research needs and requirements

• Foundational research: Etnographies, diary studies, participatory design

• Ran the platform vendor review, recommended a vendor, and managed the vendor relationship

• Migrated a private Enterprise community to a new site with public Consumer and private Enterprise communities

• Coordinated with customer support, marketing, and product development

• Alignment with social media function in Marketing

• Managed structural, feature, and visual planning and implementation, content administration with a team located in the US, Germany, and The Phillippines 

• Initiated Spanish and Portuguese language areas

Habitat for Humanity's two-step process for evaluating and selecting candidates for new households was subjective. The process itself was disruptive for the organization and lead to decisions fraught with policy, legal, financial, and material issues.

I proposed and ran a program for gathering extensive and comparable qualitative data that was documented and referenced during the household selection process. It was, in essence, ethnographic semi-structured field sessions, audio-recorded and transcribed. 

The outcome led to evidence-based evaluation and selection.
Findings sharpened or established stronger policy requirements.
This program is still used by the Bay Area Habitat for Humanity organization.

Xbox 

Lab investigation of a prototype game designed for women and girls.

Product manager question: what kinds of games are most attractive to women and girls?

Research question: Is there a gender difference in game genre preferences? What general factors, inherent and social, might influence preferences?

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Key finding: People in general dislike games they cannot win, especially when the stakes are emotionally high.

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PlayTable (Surface, PixelSense)

I was asked to join this team working on a secret project - the first horizontal touch interface for non-productive computing.

We started with a generative and formative three-phase study to inform engineering, product requirement, and marketing decisions. I planned and executed an ethnography with seven families that included an in-lab session. 

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Key finding: it was conceptually both an appliance and a piece of furniture.

Manager, Market Research & Competitive Analysis

I was the first and only person in this role

For the first study, I investigated the feasibility of our company partnering with a hospital group in a nearby city. I contacted the State for statistics and commentary and created demographic and economic maps of the neighborhoods in the area. I wrote a conclusion that was mild about the prospects.

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Two weeks later, while my company sat on the sidelines, the hospitals were being purchased by a competitor. If our company had proceeded with the partnership, we would have relinquished our quarterly profits from the partnership to the competitor. I was given an office next to the CEO.

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Regular activities

• Researching and compiling reports on the markets and competition in each MSA where we did business

• Conducting bi-annual ad and brand awareness surveys with The Gallup Organization

• Planning, managing, and conducting analysis and writing reports on focus groups

• Creating bulletins on competitor activities e.g., executive comings/goings, product/marketing announcements, M&A activities, legal/regulatory issues

As a project researcher in the Organization Effectiveness group, I was given the task of rescuing a project that had gone south, one that was funded by a $10,000 State grant. It involved getting clinical units to provide certain metrics. I contacted each of them and helped them identify and provide the correct data in the correct format to fulfill the grant stipulations. 

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When that was successful, we were given an unexpected follow-up State grant for $25,000 to provide a different set of metrics.

The rest of the time I interviewed providers and HMO members by phone and in person about healthcare delivery and generated analyses and reports.

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Regular activities

• Support a consultant assigned to a regional hospital.

• Phone and in-person interviews with medical and administrative staff, and HMO members. 

• Collect internal data 

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