About Me
I'm a UX researcher passionate about empowering product, design, and engineering teams with an understanding of user behaviors, needs, goals, and motivations. I'm skilled in utilizing both primary and secondary research to answer the most challenging questions in a product's design. My goal is to enable product teams to use lean user research to better understand and solve real user needs.
Resume
Experience
Fivetran
Senior User Researcher (2022 - Present)
Snapdocs
Senior User Researcher (2021 - 2022)
Created a rapid research program for the company's new products growth team, supporting the company's 0 to 1 product initiatives.
Led the first cross-product research effort to better understand the user base. This project had a mix of cross-functional stakeholders, including the executive leadership team. Findings from this effort are currently informing important changes to the product roadmap.
Established a practice for both B2B and B2C UX research across product and design for every stage of the product's lifecycle.
Provides weekly research updates to the c-suite with live updates across EPD, sales, and support to drive ongoing alignment and awareness of successes and opportunities.
Credible
Senior User Researcher (2020 - 2021)
Established a user research team and practice across design, product, and engineering.
Successfully embedded UX research findings in the quarterly product roadmap process.
Created a process to support B2B and B2C user research across teams. This effort allowed us to democratize research across EPD.
Evaluated UX research tools and platforms before making recommendations to the c-suite. This effort resulted in reducing time-to-insights from weeks to days.
Hired and coached the team's first junior researcher.
Led a months-long study with EPD to map and visualize the 90-day mortgage loan life-cycle. This effort was key in revamping the product roadmap.
Blend
User Researcher (2018 - 2020)
Aided the lender tools product team in moving their struggling feature set from limited availability to a successful GA launch by identifying key product gaps.
Reduced time to feedback from weeks to days by establishing a customer innovation group.
Advocate for the product's value and champions the importance of consumer research in addressing the user's needs.
Lead knowledge sharing and education across all departments within the sales and customer service organizations.
Partner with data teams to help convert user data into actionable user insights.
Customer Engagement Officer (2017 - 2018)
Designed Blend’s enterprise change management and engagement strategy for enterprise and strategic accounts. Resulting in adoption increasing from 30% to 85%, maximizing ROI for the client.
Defined Customer Engagement Team’s methodology, objectives, and strategy.
Established a case to client executives and senior leadership to influence them to follow Blend’s recommended implementation path, ultimately driving transformational change within their organization.
Worked closely with all levels of client organizations to uncover opportunities for growth within their business.
Identified best practices and created messaging for training, workshops, and client engagements.
RPM Mortgage (2016 - 2017)
Loan Officer Assistant
Responsible for reviewing and maintaining sensitive client information.
Acts as liaison between loan agents, borrowers, and vendors.
Designed and implemented a CRM management review and update plan.
Instituted a one on one coaching and development plan for loan officer teams.
Created a new employee orientation and on-boarding program.
Reviews client documents and make recommendations to the loan officer for loan approval.
Union Bank (2009 - 2015)
CB Support Services Officer II /Assistant Vice President
Responsible for monitoring operations in over 28 offices across Northern California.
Lead teller growth and development panels, including mock interviews and resume review.
Assisted branch management with maintaining a schedule of formal training for all branch staff.
Aided Unit Manager in spotting trends and inconsistencies within the Support Services team to provide solutions and mitigate risk.
Assisted Divisions Operations Officer in the review audit reports to develop and implement action plans.
Built effective relationships with business partners.
Piloted and reviewed proposed changes to Bank-wide Policy manuals.
Skills
Communication
Research & Strategy
Emotional Intelligence
Decision Making
Problem Solving
Cross-Functional
Critical Thinking
Methods
User Interviews
Usability Testing
Personas
Journey Mapping
Card Sorting
User Surveys
Paper Prototyping
Software
Optimal Sort
Respondent
UserTesting, User Zoom
Confluence
Dovetail
Figma
Airtable
Trello
JIRA
SmartSheets
Asana
Education
Bachelor of Science in Business & Human Resources Management
Western Governors University
2017 - 2018
Associate in Liberal Arts & Sciences
San Joaquin Delta College
2005 - 2007
Endorsements
“Chrys is great at telling the story of her interviewees and in bringing their challenges to life. For example, when talking through usability challenges, Chrys pulled together videos and audio that made the product team wince in pain at how truly fragmented some of our user experiences were. She brings the numbers to life, and she is clear about what’s a priority vs. what’s not.”
“Chrys is someone who excels at fostering teamwork - she has shown this in every project we’ve worked on together but also with every person on the team. She takes initiative and cares about the development of others, which is significantly impactful to Blend’s future.”
“Chrys is strong in many areas. For starters, she is very much in tune with how people operate, which makes her successful in driving strategy. She understands critical decisions that need to be made and works to achieve in a thoughtful way. While it’s easy for people to share their thoughts ahead of listening, Chrys is very good at listening first. This allows her to use good judgment and speak up where appropriate, which has been impactful both internally/cross-functionally within Blend and within our clients’ organizations. She works very well and as a partner to many different teams with Blend - she has a solid grasp of who needs to be included in a decision and encourages the right people to be in the room. Chrys is dedicated to her work, and it shows with each project.”
“I honestly don’t know how she does it all! She is so organized and detail-oriented. And Crystal also tells folks when she can deliver the desired outcome to attain a goal. She not only is very productive, but the high attention to detail is something I have not seen many be able to produce.”
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