Hi! I am Stephanie M. Pratt, a seasoned user experience researcher (UXR) leader.
I am Stephanie M. Pratt, an experienced UX Researcher living in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania metropolitan area. I am passionate about understanding people’s points of view and building empathy for those points of view, psychology, user experience, usability, design thinking, UX strategy, information architecture, and tech trends. I have a Master's of Arts in human factors / applied cognition from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a minor in economics from Hollins University.
I am active in the UX community overall. When I lived in the Washington, DC region, I co-founded and chair the UXPA DC mentorship program, worked with Action Design DC to find them location venues, and many other volunteer activities. Now, I’m more focused on remote communities such as mentoring on the ADP List platform.
Along with my technology and people related interests, I am also very active in outdoor sports and making things. Outside of my professional life, you can find me playing with or training my dogs, backpacking, hiking, kayaking, practicing yoga, weaving, knitting, trying new crafts, or other DIY projects.
My Skills
User Experience Research
Expert in user experience research, from choosing which method, to applying the chosen method. Stephanie is experienced in all three phases of research: explore, evaluate, and assess. She has conducted several methods in her career such as field studies, diary studies, interviews, listening sessions, A/B testing, usability testing, heuristic evaluation, and surveys.
Understandable Research Outputs
When reporting on research, Stephanie considers who are the stakeholders for the effort and what their understandability of research is. She aims to meet stakeholders where they are, by giving them research outputs that will help them understand the customer’s point of view and empathize with them. This can be ranging from sharing insight outputs in a research library to a more educational storytelling approach, depending on the stakeholder.
Mixed Methods Approaches
Stephanie approaches every research project by identifying the objectives and scope of the research project through working with stakeholders, such as product managers. She then leverages multiple methods to reach a deeper understanding, especially if the conditions allow for it. For example, when wanting to do a deep research effort, she leveraged diary studies and field studies to get a mixture of reported and observed behaviors.
Mentoring & Coaching
Stephanie mentors and coaches others on research to ensure that quality remains high in the field of UXR. This may mean coaching UXRs, UX Designers, Product Managers, Marketing teams, etc. within an organization or supporting individuals in the field looking for guidance in their own careers with UXR.