United States

UX Research

UX Design

UX Testing

Bachelor of Science

Masters

Sam Stephens

Senior UX Researcher

Prototyping

Qualitative research

Time management

Empathy

Presentation skills

Human computer interaction

User research

Qualtrics

UserTesting

Figma

Lucidchart

Miro

UserZoom

Strategies for maximizing your design internship or co-op program.

Getting the most out of my internship

Practice HR, technical and behavioural interviews with mentors.

Practice mock interviews

Identify and define potential product problems and generating possible solutions.

Identifying problems vs solutions

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

Tips on how to work and collaborate with designers.

Working with designers

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Explore different generative and evaluative research techniques. User research synthesis and presentation.

Conducting good user research

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

To generate more impactful insights, I worked closely with the design team during an internship, which enabled me to discover more strategic ways to integrate research throughout the design process.

Highlighted Accomplishments:
- Spearheaded the design of a new website entry point for Acorns Rewards, resulting in a significant increase in downloads of the rewards browser extension.
- Contributed to the development of new screens for A/B testing within the onboarding flow, helping to optimize conversion rates.

I led a team of four on a research initiative aimed at improving Code.org's Fundamentals course, designed to teach coding to 1st through 5th-grade students.

Highlighted Accomplishments:
- Conducted a series of mixed-method studies (including surveys, interviews, and heuristic evaluations) to pinpoint the most significant friction points in the e-learning platform.
- Developed user personas and student journey maps to provide stakeholders with a valuable reference for future course structure redesigns.

I served as the lead researcher for four product lines—Earn Rewards, Education, Invest, and Banking—where I developed strategic roadmaps and organized research efforts from product inception through post-launch refinement.

Highlighted Accomplishments:
- Mentored our UX Research Intern by helping them establish goals and conducting regular check-ins.
- Implemented usability testing to uncover and address critical issues ahead of a high-profile celebrity product launch.
- Conducted quantitative surveys and diary studies to identify best message positioning for Acorns Earn rewards which led to increased engagement rates.

I led 25 distinct research projects while also contributing to the development of our research operations to support the growth and scalability of our team's efforts.

Highlighted Accomplishments: 
- Created a reusable question bank for researchers to streamline their project scopes.
- Partnered with HR to design an onboarding program that educates new employees on the value of research and introduces them to the Acorns customer base.
- Revamped the research repository on Confluence, improving accessibility for stakeholders.

I launched Acorns' Voice of the Customer (VoC) program by analyzing NPS surveys, App/Play Store reviews, and account closure feedback to uncover the top UX pain points across the entire product ecosystem.

Highlighted Accomplishments:
- Created monthly, quarterly, and annual Voice of the Customer (VoC) reports to monitor key metrics, with select insights shared by the CEO during board meetings.
- Hosted cross-functional VoC workshops which led to a cross-functional experience team to tackle these pain points.

Resolved 70-90 customer cases each day through multiple platforms (phone, email, and chat services), while maintaining one of the highest CSAT ratings on the team.

Sam Stephens🇺🇸

About Sam Stephens

Expertise

What mentees say

Find More Mentors