About Me
I’m a UX leader, researcher, speaker and writer. I’m currently the Vice President of Research and Content at Nielsen Norman Group.
I live in Raleigh, North Carolina with my husband, cat, and English bulldog. We spend most of our free time fixing up our historic home built in 1890. I’m also into yoga, photography, antiques, and hand embroidery.
Me & Cleo, my 50-pound lap dog
Expertise
UX research
Planning, conducting, analyzing, & interpreting
Training
Coaching & upskilling stellar UX research teams
Insights
Translating research findings into decisions that drive business goals
ResearchOps
Policies, tools, & processes to improve quality & efficiency of research
Communication
Presentations, public speaking (for any audience size), & writing
Education
MS in Information Science, with a specialization in HCI
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
BS in Information Science, second major in English
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Experience
2022 - Present (1 year)
As a member of a 4-person senior leadership team, led a 30-person world-famous UX consulting & training company
Initiated a comprehensive ResearchOps effort to improve the efficiency of UX research
Built a content strategy for the company’s massive, growing library of free UX articles, videos, & resources
Vice President of Research & Content
Nielsen Norman Group
Developed a new research proposal process to ensure research projects were properly scoped, planned, and executed to ensure appropriate ROI
Created a new, hands-on research training program to upskill junior staff as quickly & effectively as possible
Led the company’s AI task force
2022 (9 months)
Nielsen Norman Group
Initiated and built a new training offering called a “Series” -- a week-long virtual event focused on hands-on UX research training, which received record customer satisfaction ratings
Managed 3 UX researchers while mentoring many others
Director
Created a new content type called “study guides” -- recommended resources for UX pros learning new topics, presented in the order we suggest reading them
2019-2022 (2.5 years)
Nielsen Norman Group
Trained over 10,000 international UX professionals in methods & skills, particularly UX research & content
Consulted for Fortune 500 clients in a huge variety of industries, including: finance, healthcare, enterprise, social media, government, consumer electronics, real estate, & aerospace
Senior UX Specialist
Wrote articles & filmed videos (often based on my own ground-breaking research) consulted by hundreds of thousands of UX pros around the world
2015-2019 (4 years)
Nielsen Norman Group
UX Specialist
2015 (3 months)
Viget Labs
UX Design Apprentice
2013-2015 (2 years)
IBM
Frontend Developer
2011-2013 (2 years)
IBM
Content Manager
Events
UNC Alumni Lecture: The Future of UX of Remote (2021)
FITC Spotlight UX Online (2020)
The Content Wrangler: Lessons Learned from Eyetracking (2020)
FITC Spotlight UX in Toronto (2017)