I help organizations make better decisions by gaining a deeper understanding of the people they intend to serve.

My work sits at the intersection of design, research and advocacy. It gets called many things and means different things depending on the type of organization I work with (design firms, non-profits, academia...). I describe what I do as people-centred design research.

I help teams identify what type of information they need in order to take action. I provide support with:

• developing a research strategy,

• conducting the research and

• organizing the findings in clear and actionable ways.

I help answer overarching questions such as:

“What are people looking for in a mental health app?”

“What type of systems would help rural childcare operator experience less staff shortage?”

“How do people feel about a dog-walking app that includes virtual puppy dates?”

“What is the most effective starting point to engage policy-makers in dialogue regarding environmental issues?"

“What were churned customers actually looking for when they initially signed up for our virtual marathon?”

Data collection methods I use includes:

• in-depth interviews,

• surveys,

• diary studies,

• artifacts analysis,

• and more.

I make sense of this data by identifying recurring themes and clusters of themes. Such thematic analysis allows me to provide answers to the research questions the team started with (e.g., what are patients most worried about) and also surfaces knowledge we didn’t know we were looking for (e.g., hum, look at that, when we ask about data usage, many people start talking about battery use…).