Faris McReynolds, UX Researcher
Mix-Method Researcher
& Project Manager
Meticulous and orderly planner who is able to translate critical business questions into action steps that lead to strategic insights.
Qualitative Research: Ethnography, Field Observation, Interviewing, Usability Testing, Contextual Inquiry
Quantitative Research: Power BI, Surveys and Responses, Data Analysis
Analysis & Insights: Foundational Research, Comparative (C&C) Analysis, Data Visualization, User Personas, Verbatims
Design Research: Heuristic Analysis, User Flows, Journey & Site Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping, Tree Testing, UX Strategy, Information Architecture
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Portfolio Snapshot
Global Tech Giant
Situation: Large technology company wanted to understand employee satisfaction and engagement as work locations shifted between office, home, and hybrid during pandemic.
Solution: Meticulous interpretation, aggregation, and presentation of response data from over 80,000 employee surveys sent out bi-weekly using Qualtrics. Delivered crucial insights to top-level executives, enabling informed decision-making regarding employee experience.
Methodologies: Managed massive sets of qualitative and quantitative data utilizing PowerBI and Excel for efficient filtering, organization, and data presentation.
Global Animation Studio
Goal: Determine the point at which a WFH setup becomes unusable for an animator given the high demands on IT processing power needed for their work.
Solution: Scoping and management of the full project, recruiting and scheduling participants for ethnography and user testing, collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, and presenting findings to executives. Arrived at a clear understanding of performance thresholds. Shared the implications of a breakdown and how to address them.
Methodologies: User interviews, field observation, contextual inquiry, user performance testing
Food Truck App
Situation: With over 50,000 registered food trucks in the U.S. (and a much higher number of unregistered trucks), I was asked to conceptualize an initial product vision and design a MVP prototype app to locate these trucks in realtime. The startup’s vision came from a CNN producer looking for a solution to find nearby food trucks so that he could feed his large crew as production locations changed.
Solution: My research surfaced critical market insights on why existing food truck locator apps were not able to provide truck locations at scale due to the resistance of food truck owners to update their location in separate apps. My recommended solution leveraged Twitter’s API to pull in location status updates automatically. I delivered a wireframe and visual concept for the brand design.
Methodologies: Field observation, competitive and comparative analysis, value proposition exploration, feature sorting, information architecture drafting, and paper prototyping,
Government Space Laboratory
Situation: A portal used to store and share scientific papers and studies for peer review was poorly organized and overwhelming to use.
Solution: Conducted a thorough heuristic evaluation, generating detailed scoring and comprehensive documentation. Communicated findings to cross-functional teams in an empirical, objective way, promoting a clear understanding of the portal’s performance against industry standards and best practices.
Methodologies: Heuristic analysis, interviews
User Generated Content Site
Situation: An academic reading room, designed for sharing books and texts online had 500 beta users who were enthusiastic about having a space to share this content. However, when trying out the site, the users easily got lost and were confused about what actions to take, resulting in low engagement.
Solution: After conducting and synthesizing insights from market research, beta tests, and user interviews, we could identify distinct customer segments and clear value propositions. I delivered wireframes for a site redesign as well as a streamlined onboarding sequence that dramatically increased adoption.
Methodologies: Site usage data analysis, user profiles, conducted and coded long-form interviews, comparative analysis, wireframes, feature priorities, card sorting
Open Source
e-Commerce
Goal: Deliver a service design solution for group shopping and check splitting.
Solution: Delivered an innovative MVP prototype that brought two group shopping use cases (cart review and bill splitting) into an integrated UX well before solutions were introduced by more established companies such as Venmo. Solution included a QR code for POS transactions and a Chrome extension.
Methodologies: Comparative research, wireframing, prototyping, journey mapping, user profiles, service design mapping, information mapping
Vertical Social Network
Goal: Increase engagement on social network for investors and entrepreneurs.
Solution: By sharing customer journeys told through the eyes of the users and backed by data, I was able to help the executives clearly understand foundational issues with their concept. As a result of the findings, they adjusted their overall business strategy.
Methodologies: Beta tester roundtable (focus group), usability testing, “I like, I wish, What if”, website clickstream data
Shopify Plug-in
Goal: Design a plug-in to manage subscription payments across all Shopify sites.
Solution: UX strategy and service design blueprints.
Methodologies: Information architecture, journey mapping, user profiles
UX Methodology Experience
Since 2015, I have used the following tools and techniques to generate and discover usability data
2x2 Matrix/Quadrant Mapping
A/B Testing
As Is - To Be Mapping
Applied Product Research
Backcasting
Contextual Inquiry
Card/Feature Sorting
Cognitive Walkthrough
Competitive Analysis
Comparative Analysis
Concept Model Process
Data Collection
Data Reporting
Empathy Interviews
Empathy Mapping
Field Studies/Observation
Foundational Design Research
Free-listing
Future Workshopping
Heuristic Evaluation
“I Like I Wish What If”
Informal Usability Testing - Moderated & Unmoderated
Journey Mapping
Moderating Testing
Pluralistic Walkthrough
QA/IT Smoke Testing
Rapid Prototyping
Rapid User Profiling
Real-Time Conversational Feedback
Recruiting Participants
Regression Analysis
Scheduling Testing
Screen Flows
Single Ease Questioning
Static Evaluation and Markup
System Usability Scale
Surveying
SWOT AnalysisUser Flows/Use Case Visualization
User Profiling
User Testing - Moderated & Unmoderated
UX Storyboarding
Value Purpose Generation
Whiteboard Ideation & Iteration