Overview

1. Impact
2. Summer Internship Project
   1. end-to-end research plan, heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, UserZoom survey, affinity mapping analysis, impact
3. Accessible Component Patterns for Errors
4. Accessible Surveying
5. Takeaways

Due to an NDA, the specifics of the work are confidential - here are some censored samples!

From May - August 2024, I worked as a full-time UX Researcher intern over the summer before being offered a part-time position during the school semester (September 2024 to April 2025). I work in the Business Technology Solutions team > Digital Design team. I worked predominantly under the Design Systems team as 1 of 3 attached UX researchers. I’ve also assisted UX Researchers in other domains of the healthcare business technology. The following are just from some of the projects I’ve worked.

Impact

<aside> <img src="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" alt="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" width="40px" /> 1. Optimized WCAG accessibility and usability of design system components impacting 100+ employees and 22 subsidiary companies via end-to-end research, including recruiting, competitive and heuristic evaluations, surveys, usability tests, and A/B tests.

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<aside> <img src="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" alt="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" width="40px" /> 2. Helped senior UX researchers by qualitatively analyzing survey responses from 400+ users, extracting major usability flaws with cost-saving impacts that advocated for low-income, elderly, and disabled patients’ SaaS web experience.

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Summer Internship Project

Centene is developing a research-backed unified design system to create a streamlined experience across platforms for all users.

Problem: I worked on two core components that had not been developed yet, and my signature project involved thorough independent research from discovery to analysis, developing multiple deliverables from design boards to reports.

Tools: UserZoom for unmoderated surveys, Figma for designs, and FigJam for analysis.

Stakeholders: Senior UXR mentor (Myisha Bouleware), UX Designer for support (Jessica Ball), Product Owners/Managers (Nathan Dana and Christine Seed)

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Goals

Business Goals: Achieve enterprise-wide consistency for user accessibility and usability; minimize future designer friction.

User Experience Goal: Evaluate designers’ experience and preferences of new designs, including ability to use them to achieve accessible designs for end users.

Research goal:

• General discovery research for the component (limitations, patterns, how it functions in other states)
• Understanding behavior and current designer needs (since it is a design system, designers are an important client base—minimizing their friction enables continuity for all users’ experiences across platforms) </aside>

Methods and Analysis

Overview of methods: Project Background & Market Research (Heuristic Evaluation), Best practice design board based on Competitive Analysis, Research Planning and Study Design, Mockup Creation in Figma, UserZoom Survey Creation, and Analysis using affinity mapping

1. I conducted a heuristic evaluation using Nielson Norman Group heuristics to better understand the current issues with the component.
2. I was first tasked with supporting the designer, so to better understand the landscape, I conducted a competitive analysis and created an interactive FigJam board with specific examples, considering accessibility, states, and more.
3. I then began to plan the research, designing the study considering the above goals. I created screener questions and the tasks for a UserZoom survey to run by the other stakeholders.
4. I then heard that the designer was unable to produce the mockups for the survey, giving me the unique opportunity to create the mockups myself. I used the design guidelines already available and consulted with a UX designer (Jessica Ball) for checks on details.
5. I then launched a UserZoom survey targeted toward one of the client bases:
   1. Conducted an unmoderated userzoom survey with advanced UX Research Methods, including click tests, likert scales, open-ended comments, preference tests, and A/B tests (between subject design). The survey produced both qualitative and quantitative output
6. I coded the findings via affinity mapping on FigJam

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Why these methods? When designing the research study, I considered the following:

Stage of research: Early (discovery) - whys and whats & evaluation (how well)

Qualitative or quantitative: Both

Attitudinal or behavioral: both (for outside users, more behavioral; for inside designers, more attitudinal)

Methods:

• Click or prototype tests (because I ****don’t need full development of the component, but can still assess behavior)
• Survey (because I can ****get responses from large sample size quicker, can assess how people “feel” about something)
  • Likert scale (quantifiable data) with open-ended follow-ups for why
• A/B testing (seeing what works best by comparing randomized into 2 groups, assessing differences in behavior and perceived clarity)
  • Between subjects designs, so that we can compare ratings of otherwise similar groups
• All unmoderated to reduce desirability bias and reactivity effects vs. moderated - direct responses, can ask more tailored followups, see their direct reactions

Feasibility: All possible on UserZoom

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Impact

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Developed recommendations for the design team both on implementation and documentation, showing the value in not pursuing the component. Not only did this minimize designer friction, but it saved costs on future design and development hours.

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This project provided the opportunity to work with several different stakeholders with varying priorities. At times, it was difficult to maneuver, but I especially trusted my manager, Yvonnia Martin-Brown, who was able to point me in the right directions and give me the lay of the land. I was able to actively make changes to my work thanks to generous feedback from Myisha Boulware (Sr UXR), Yvonnia Martin-Brown (UXR Manager), and Tom Cona (Lead UXR).

I was also able to present my project presentation to 200+ employees of Centene as one of the selected intern presentations, amplifying the value of UX research.

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