United States

Service Design

Customer Experience (CX)

Scriptwriting

UX Testing

UX Research

Service Design Research

Master of Education (M.Ed.)

Heather Karlson

UXfolio

UX Researcher

Usability Testing

Qualitative research

Critical-thinking

Team player

Presentation skills

Stakeholder management

Blog writing

Data visualisation

User research

Qualtrics

Airtable

Balsamiq

Figma

Lucidchart

UserZoom

Mural

Principal Researcher at Fortune 1000 mutual company that provides more than one-third of fortune 1000-size companies with engineering-based risk management and property insurance. Partnered across the enterprise to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement in client-facing solutions. 

•	Transformed a highly technical user journey research artifact involving 20 systems, 13 users, and phases into an intuitive interactive resource for meeting an identified need for rapid onboarding and easy access to process and system integrations for established employees.

•	Attained senior product leadership buy-in on multi-phase research strategy for $100M client-facing portal resulting in the implementation of ongoing contextual feedback where none previously existed and directly impacted feature prioritization by implementing and distributing weekly client feedback reports to 15+ product owners.

•	Prioritized 100+ research questions across 15+ teams and delivered product value by conducting 1:1 client research based on business requirements.

•	Discovered client and service team unmet needs and opportunities with design thinking research that informed multi-million-dollar future investment in emerging technology.

•	Took initiative to drive strategic partnership between UX research and Change Management which resulted in an increase from no cross-team collaboration to teamwork within 6 months.

•	Led the creation of an innovative data reporting framework combining change sentiment with experience metrics to promote holistic metrics and drive executive strategic decision making.

Part of a global UX consulting group that provided UX research, design, and strategy services. Led engagements ranging from early phase start-ups to Fortune 500 B2B / B2C clients. Clients included Citizens Bank, BiogenIdec, Philips, DellEMC, Hearst, Keurig, and MassMutual. Primary point-of-contact to manage the product life cycle, from relationship inception to execute data-driven decisions driving improvements / increased satisfaction.

•	Mentored, Managed, and guided 21 Research Associates over 6 years in data collection, and analysis to ensure excellent client experience and high-quality deliverables.

•	Launched the UX Center's Blog; developed, curated, and edited monthly content shared with the broader UX community that resulted in a diverse resource that previously did not exist.

•	Consulted with a consumer new-to-market durable goods product before it went to market; conducted E2E studies including packaging, functionality, field studies, and unboxing experience. 

•	Empowered executives’ decision to alter the product size and led several rounds of user testing and iteration; the product went to market and won the IDEA Bronze Award for packaging.

As a User Experience (UX) Research and Design Associate at Bentley University’s User Experience Center (UXC), I contributed to diverse UX design and research projects across various industries. My role encompassed the following responsibilities:

- Created interview and usability guides, moderated, and analyzed data from research studies to uncover key insights and form actionable recommendations for clients.
 
- Moderated and conducted usability studies, leveraging usability testing and heuristic evaluations to assess user interactions with products and services, and gathered actionable insights for design improvements. Analyzed data from user interactions to reveal insights and enhance user experience, employing mixed methods research, qualitative research, and data analysis techniques.

- Co-presented reports and findings to clients to ensure communication of usability issues and recommendations.

- Led communications and coordination for The Face of Finance conference, focusing on financial industry user experience. Managed speaker communications, oversaw the conference website, and designed, authored content, and distributed communication media.

- Managed communication for World Usability Day and managed updates to the WUD website enhancing the event's outreach and messaging.

Heather Karlson🇺🇸

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