Hello! I’m Kathy.

For the past 6 years I have been a User Researcher for IBM Software design. Throughout my career at IBM I had the opportunity to work on 7 different products, this included products not yet launched, products new to the market, and legacy products with strong customer bases. These products spanned the fields of data science and machine learning, data governance, and AI and automation.

In my latest position as Lead User Researcher I was in charge of forming our product’s user research roadmap, supporting teammates in project execution, and conducting impactful research of my own. Outside of project execution I formed our products customer outreach program and user research repository, among other things.

Take a look around this online portfolio and dig into some of my projects to learn more!

Projects

Customer Interviews and Seller Survey on Data Fabric Software Buying Experience

In order to improve sales numbers and identify internal inefficiencies, I collaborated with a team of 3 researchers to investigate expectations around Data Fabric, the current buying process, and seller challenges.

Results of the study uncovered customer difficulty in understanding the true value of a Data Fabric solution along with misalignment in the language and messaging being presented. Our results led to modifications across go-to-market materials, our internal seller website and contributed to a 4% increase in sales YoY.

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Value Prop Testing and Kano Survey on Semantic Layer Technology

I partnered with IBM Research scientists to evaluate user interest in new technology. In phase 1, we tested our value proposition to determine whether data engineers and data scientists felt it would add value to their daily work.

In phase 2, a Kano survey was used to understand which specific features appealed most to these users, results of which were used to prioritize features shared in demos during the IBM THINK 2023 main stage.

This work was published within the IUI '24: Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces

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Qualitative Usability Testing of the Conversational Skill Creation Experience

I conducted a usability test to evaluate the user experience for a new feature in watsonx Orchestrate

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Jobs to be Done and Outcome Driven Innovation

I led a team of 3 research colleagues as we conducted a large scale study to understand the goals, jobs, and motivations that our end users have.

This was a four phase study that included stakeholder interviews, primary interviews, an Outcome-Driven Innovation Survey, and a stakeholder workshop to bring our findings to life.

Results of this study contributed to our organizations foundational understanding of key personas, and product roadmap changes.

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Interviews to Understand Monitoring and Permission Needs for Automated Business Processes

I, along with an intern on our team, conducted this qualitative study to help the product team answer key questions around permissions and monitoring needs for automated business processes.