UX without user research is not UX
Understand, explore and materialize
Empathize
To effectively solve any problem, it’s essential to deeply understand your users. Are we asking the right questions? By putting yourself in the shoes of both the customer and the stakeholder, you gain the ability to think, say, feel, and act as they do. This perspective allows you to uncover their frustrations, fears, abilities, limitations, reasoning, and hopes.
At this foundational stage, research becomes the cornerstone of your process. Ideally, this involves direct interviews with users and stakeholders to gather insights firsthand. The key here is to set aside personal assumptions and approach the process with an open mind, allowing the true voice of the user to shape the solution.
Examples of Work:
Presented here are key deliverables from various UX research initiatives, showcasing a range of approaches and insights across industries:
Survey for User Feedback - Developed for United Healthcare to collect actionable insights directly from users, helping to inform design and process improvements.
Synthesized Findings - A detailed analysis of customer needs and behaviors from a user study with Homesite Insurance focused on enhancing the online servicing experience.
Proto-Personas - Crafted for Harvard Medical School to foster a deeper understanding of user profiles and behaviors, enabling tailored solutions for their specific needs.
Define
You can combine all your research findings to pinpoint where users encounter challenges and then distill these insights into a clear problem statement.
As part of a UX study involving 300 customers, my team and I worked to uncover the motives and behaviors driving policy cancellations, which had reached record levels. Analyzing the results, we comprehensively understood the underlying issues and accurately explained what happened.
Examples of Work:
Thematic Analysis - A comprehensive evaluation of recurring issues and patterns within the claims insurance application at United Healthcare, identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Site Map - At Evoke Mind+Matter, I developed the information architecture for a pharmaceutical product, creating tailored pathways for two audiences: healthcare providers and patients. This included designing intuitive user flows, organizing critical content, and building a framework that ensured seamless navigation and effective communication for both groups.
Ideate
Brainstorming, whiteboarding, and filling walls with sticky notes are at the core of collaborative UX design. These activities bring together team members from diverse roles, sparking creativity and fostering alignment. As Jeff Patton aptly notes, story mapping isn’t about requirements—it’s about building shared understanding and team consensus.
At Harvard Medical School, the Director of IT and I transformed our workspace into a dynamic hub of ideas. We filled walls with wireframes, sharpie annotations, and colorful stickies, creating a visual roadmap for team discussions. These sessions weren’t just about debating feasibility; they were about uncovering innovative solutions. Our workspace became a living laboratory for collaboration and problem-solving, driving impactful outcomes.
At Homesite, my product owner and I embraced a collaborative and iterative approach to problem-solving. Every week, we dedicated time to brainstorming and revisiting ideas—generating fresh concepts or rethinking old ones with a new perspective. Using Miro as our primary tool, we filled our sessions with sticky notes, doodles, and impromptu sketches.
Often, we took pieces of existing wireframes, scrapping and "Frankensteining" them together to build new, more refined concepts. This hands-on, creative process sparked innovation, strengthened our partnership, and aligned our vision for creating better user experiences.
Prototype
How can we validate whether our ideas will work? Prototyping offers a cost-effective approach to testing concepts. It helps us identify strengths and weaknesses with tactile representation before full development. Prototyping is where design thinking meets execution, turning ideas into tangible solutions.
Prototyping is an essential step in the design process and can take many forms, from low-fidelity sketches to high-fidelity interactive prototypes. These prototypes help visualize and test ideas, ensuring user needs and functionality alignment. Below are examples of different prototyping approaches I’ve worked on:
Paper Prototype – Pall Corporation:
This prototype represents an antibody-producing machine interface. It served as an initial, low-fidelity visualization of user interactions, allowing for quick feedback before advancing to more detailed designs.Physical Prototype – Pall Corporation:
Based on the wireframes I created, this physical touchscreen prototype demonstrated functionality for a machine used in sterile environments. Buttons were designed to have large enough target space to accommodate users wearing thick hazmat gloves, ensuring usability under strict conditions.Wireframes – FOSPRO Dashboard:
These wireframes were for a Next-Level Dashboard in an online servicing platform. They focused on structuring information and user flows to provide a seamless and intuitive experience for servicing tasks.High-Fidelity Mockup – Homesite Insurance:
This responsively designed data and information table is one of the main tools claims processors use to handle ‘fall out’ claims for analyzing duplicate checks for AARP. It allows for easy comparisons and supports efficient decision-making during claims processing.
Each prototype played a critical role in its project, helping bridge user requirements with functional designs, improving usability, and ensuring alignment with business goals.
Test
Does Your Solution Meet Your User’s Needs?
Testing your solution directly is the only way to know if it resonates with users. Getting designs or prototypes in front of users is essential. Tools like A/B testing with Optimizely or conducting sessions through UserTesting.com provide invaluable user feedback to refine and validate your ideas.
On the right is an example from Rectangle Health, where I conducted user interviews to gather complaints and frustrations. After identifying pain points, I presented a viable solution to users and gathered their reactions. This iterative process ensured the solution addressed their needs effectively and aligned with their expectations.
Implement
Bringing Solutions to Life
Implementation turns research and design into a functional product. Collaboration among designers, developers, and QA ensures the solution meets user needs and project goals.
Key Steps:
Translate insights into actionable development.
Validate quality and user experience through testing.
Measure success with user feedback and metrics.
Continuously refine the product to adapt to evolving needs.
Implementation bridges concept to reality, ensuring a solution that works and evolves to meet user expectations.
Working Example
Collaboration Summary: Enhancing FOX Application Performance
In December 2023, I collaborated with Ian Ascencio (Lead Developer) and Donalee Baily (Project Manager) to resolve a critical user-requested enhancement in the FOX application. The issue involved performance problems when claims examiners processed over 1,000 member results, often causing the system to crash.
The Approach
To address the issue:
Ian and I proposed integrating a filtering feature within a modal to reduce displayed results and improve performance.
We prioritized using Bootstrap for scalability and reusability and evaluated existing UI components for alignment.
I visualized user workflows using Miro, created wireframes, and developed high-fidelity mockups to ensure usability and alignment with business needs.
Outcome
The solution, presented during a business meeting, was approved and integrated into the sprint plan. It provided:
A multi-sorting feature to address performance issues.
A user-friendly filtering modal for efficient navigation.
Clear design standards for required and optional fields, ensuring consistency.
Impact
This cross-functional effort addressed immediate performance concerns while improving user workflows. By fostering close collaboration between UX, development, and project management, we delivered a scalable solution that met business and user needs on time.
Below is a screenshot of our collaborative Miro board working session. Additionally, you can View the PPT Summary
Summary of Contributions to the Implementation Phase of Design Thinking in an Agile Framework
In the implementation phase, I play a pivotal role in ensuring seamless integration of UX deliverables into the Agile development process. Leveraging insights from prior UX research and established collaboration processes, I support product owners (POs), business stakeholders, and development teams to drive successful outcomes.
Contributions to the Agile Process:
Alignment with User Stories and Features:
Collaborate closely with POs during refinement meetings to ensure user stories and features align with user needs and business goals.
Translate research findings into actionable user stories and epics within tools like Rally, enabling shared understanding across teams.
Subject Matter Expertise:
Act as a UX subject matter expert during daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, and refinement meetings.
Address team questions and resolve user flows, interactions, and design decisions ambiguities.
Asset Delivery and Design Handoff:
Create and deliver high-fidelity mockups, annotated design specifications, and interactive prototypes.
Ensure development teams can access all required assets in tools like Figma, streamlining the handoff process.
Fostering Collaboration:
Maintain a collaborative workflow with cross-functional teams, including regular one-on-one meetings with POs to address bottlenecks and align priorities.
Facilitate discussions with developers, QA, and business stakeholders to ensure feasibility and alignment of design solutions.
Building UX Maturity:
Participate in initiatives like the UX Collaborative Working Group to define and refine design review protocols and development handoff checklists.
Advocate for integrating UX into Agile pipelines from the earliest stages, enhancing the visibility and value of user-centered design.
Impact and Outcomes:
Through these contributions, I bridge the gap between design and development, ensuring that user-centered solutions are effectively implemented. My proactive involvement supports creating robust, scalable products that meet user needs while aligning with business objectives. This approach fosters trust, streamlines workflows, and sets the foundation for continued UX maturity within the organization.