UX Research · Sacramento, California

Nicholas
Pings
Rodriguez.

Consumer product research, at every stage of the life cycle.

Session in progress

Philosophy

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Scope

I cover the whole portfolio, not just the flagship products. The stuff barely anyone opens still gets real research. Traffic isn't what decides that.

Stage

Strategy, discovery, launch, iteration, the long maintenance tail after. I've worked all of it. What changes is the method, depending on what decision is actually on the table.

Process

My roots are in old school research. But I'm constantly testing what AI can actually do to speed the process up, mostly around screening and analysis these days. There's still a clear line for where a model gets trusted and where a person has to make the call.

Access

Not every question needs a full study. I built a self-service layer so stakeholders can get answers on their own, which keeps the team free for the work that actually needs us.

Impact

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24+Products launched
2.3K+Findings coded
30+Teams supported
1.5K+Voices heard

Work

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Experian Consumer Services

Sr. User Experience Researcher

2021 — Present

I research across the full consumer product portfolio, and across the full life of each product too, from strategic groundwork through launch, iteration, and long-term maintenance. The method changes depending on the stage.

  • Partner directly with design, engineering, and product teams, translating findings into product roadmaps and design decisions.
  • Led research on integrating generative AI into the consumer experience; recommendations shaped Experian's educational tools.
  • Introduced AI-assisted automation across screening, analysis, and synthesis, with defined limits on model use.
  • Built self-service access to insight for stakeholders and mentor researchers joining the team.

HP Inc.

UX Researcher, Contract · Personal Systems Software

May — Nov 2021

At HP I ran launch-aligned studies across Wolf Security, including VPN and antivirus protection, plus webcam utilities and HP Dev One. I also facilitated design thinking workshops with a cross-functional team spanning several business units.

Freelance

Principal User Experience Researcher

2018 — 2021

I scoped and ran full research programs for clients in travel, health and wellness, and personal organization, plus mobile applications and personal systems software.

  • Usability studies, concept validation, comparative testing, and generative workshops.
  • Delivered executive readouts, personas, journey maps, and prioritized recommendations.

Methods

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Generative7
In-depth interviews

One-on-one conversations that surface the reasoning behind what people do.

Ethnography

Immersive observation of people in their natural setting to understand behavior in context.

Contextual inquiry

Observing people in their own environment as they work through a real task.

Generative workshops

Structured sessions where teams and users produce early concepts together.

Card sorting

Participants group and label content to reveal the mental model behind an information architecture.

Persona creation

Consolidating research into a small set of user models teams can design against.

Journey mapping

Charting the full path a person takes across touchpoints to locate friction and gaps.

Evaluative6
Usability testing

Watching people attempt real tasks to find where a design breaks down.

Rapid iterative testing

Testing, fixing, and retesting in short cycles so each change is validated as it's made.

Concept validation

Putting an early idea in front of users to check the premise before anything gets built.

Heuristic analysis

Expert review of an interface against established usability principles.

Comparative testing

Running identical tasks across competing designs to see which performs better.

Diary studies

Participants log experiences over days or weeks to capture behavior across time.

Quantitative6
Survey design

Structuring questions so the resulting data answers the question actually being asked.

Statistical analysis

Testing whether observed differences in the data are real or noise.

Experimental design

Structuring A/B and multivariate tests so results are attributable to the change.

Net Promoter Score

A single-question loyalty benchmark, tracked over time and read alongside qualitative signal.

Longitudinal studies

Measuring the same population repeatedly to see how attitudes and behavior shift.

Adoption studies

Measuring whether a released feature is found, used, and kept.

Operations6
AI-assisted synthesis

Models handle transcription, tagging, and first-pass analysis under defined review standards.

Research repositories

A searchable store of findings so prior work is reused rather than rediscovered.

Self-service enablement

Tooling and templates that let stakeholders answer routine questions without a full study.

Research standards

Documented expectations for method, sample, and rigor at each stage of the life cycle.

Mentorship

Onboarding and coaching researchers through study design review and craft feedback.

Stakeholder management

Aligning partners on the question, the method, and what the findings can and can't decide.

Tools

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CondensFigmaGreat Question User InterviewsLyssnaOutset DovetailUserTestingdscout Optimal WorkshopMazeQualtrics SprigFigJamMiro TableauSPSSEthnio JiraUserZoomTheyDoLookBack

Your session

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Every visit here is a small usability session. I observe it the way I'd observe any study, with the same respect for the participant. Everything above was measured in this tab alone, is stored nowhere, and disappears when you leave.