Four rooms, one question: what's actually happening here?
UX Researcher, early-career, mixed-methods. I move between very different rooms: a partner's storefront, a nonprofit's classroom, a tour guide's restaurant table, a founder's laptop screen. I ask each of them the same question. Below are four projects that show how I answer it, through surveys, interviews, fieldwork, and synthesis.
Berkeley, CA · amirajourdan@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/amira-jourdan
I graduated from Vanderbilt in 2025 with a degree in Environmental Sociology and a minor in Human & Organizational Development. Since then I've worked across corporate operations, nonprofit consulting, academic fieldwork, and an early-stage startup. Each time, I've run research from scratch: designing the instrument, collecting the data, and turning it into something someone else could act on.
Improving the Partner Experience Across 888 IDEMIA Locations
Sole researcher: discovery, survey design, fielding, analysis, and recommendations.
Research question: What was making the partner experience difficult, and where were the biggest opportunities to improve it?
Context
IDEMIA manufactures the fingerprinting technology used at partner retail locations, places like Staples and Office Depot, to conduct background-check screenings. I was tasked with understanding and improving the experience of the 888 partner locations whose staff administer these services on IDEMIA's behalf.
Process
Discovery. Before writing a single question, I shadowed employees and gathered input from 8 internal departments on what they wanted to learn from partners.
Survey design. I iterated across roughly a dozen drafts, then built and fielded four segmented surveys in Alchemer, newly deployed and established partners, across two business lines, covering the fingerprinting devices, the enrollment process, and the partner relationship. Questions ranged from rating scales ("Rate your overall experience with IDEMIA") to open-ended ("Is there anything we could do to improve our communication and responsiveness to you?").
Timeline
| Date | Task |
|---|---|
| 07/11 | Sent partner communication announcing the survey |
| 07/17 | Disseminated the survey to partner locations |
| 07/31 | Closed the survey; began analysis |
| Week of 07/31 | Built an Enhancement Recommendation Proposal, mapping each recommendation to the functional teams it would affect |
| Week of 07/31 | Delivered final project presentation |
| Week of 08/07 | Wrapped up and handed off the project |
Findings
Fielded the survey to 888 partner locations and collected 191 responses (about 21.5%, a typical rate for this kind of partner outreach). Comparing results to last year's survey surfaced real movement: technology complaints rose from 30% to 48% of respondents, while communication complaints dropped from 39% to 20%, the clearest sign that earlier improvements had worked. Two specific issues stood out: 22 partners (11.7%) cited software update timing, and 19 partners (10.1%) wanted clearer visibility into which services they were being billed for.
Change by partner segment
Results were mixed, not uniformly positive, which is part of what made them useful: newly deployed partners on one business line saw satisfaction jump sharply, while existing partners on another saw it decline, pointing to very different root causes.
UEP (Universal Enrollment Platform) covers state and civil fingerprinting and background checks; UES (Universal Enrollment Services) covers federal programs like TSA PreCheck. "Existing" and "New" refer to partners deployed more or less than 90 days.
What partners actually said (anonymized survey responses)
Outcome
Presented the Enhancement Recommendation Proposal to about 15 Partner Acquisition managers and assistants. The internship ended shortly after, so I can't confirm what was ultimately implemented, but the recommendations were well received in the room.
Reflection
Gathering input from internal departments before drafting a single question taught me that good survey design starts with stakeholder alignment, not with writing questions. If I did it again, I'd build in a lighter-touch way to track whether recommendations were adopted after the internship ended. That's the one piece I never got to see through.
User Research for a Pre-Launch EdTech App
Independently plan and run research; synthesize and present findings directly to the founder.
Research question: What's actually getting in the way of international students building vocabulary, and what would make them trust a new product enough to try it?
Context
A pre-launch startup is building a vocabulary-building mobile app and desktop extension designed to help international students who use English as an additional language grow their vocabulary through their everyday workflow, rather than through separate study sessions. I conduct ongoing user research ahead of launch to inform product and landing page decisions.
Method
Interviews. Started broad, surfacing pain points across the app experience, then narrowed to reactions to the landing page specifically.
Synthesis. Presented findings directly to the founder, who incorporated them into a revised landing page draft.
Competitive research. Built a swipe file of 50+ landing page examples from other products to inform the next round of iteration.
Forward planning. Proposed a feature-performance tracking framework for use once the product reaches beta.
Translating research into product decisions
Beyond interviews, I built a set of research-to-product artifacts the founder now uses directly. Company and feature names below are generalized at the founder's request, since the product hasn't launched.
Vocabulary as a hidden performance tax
Synthesized peer-reviewed research on international graduate students to frame the core opportunity: vocabulary gaps slow reading comprehension, limit writing precision, and reduce classroom participation, independent of a student's actual intelligence or expertise.
A doctoral student balancing three moments: reading, writing, speaking
To keep design decisions grounded in a real pattern rather than an abstraction, I built a persona representing the product's core audience:
| Background | A doctoral student in mechanical engineering who needs strong technical vocabulary more than almost any other academic skill, yet feels least confident in exactly that. |
| Goals | Retain vocabulary long-term, read faster with fewer interruptions, and write with more precision, without adding a separate study session. |
| Beyond academics | Struggles most with jokes, cultural references, and unspoken social cues among peers. |
From skepticism to habit, in four phases
Mapping her likely path end to end made clear where trust breaks down and where the product needs to prove itself fastest:
One frustration, tested three ways
For each research-backed frustration, I drafted copy testing three angles, what she'd gain, what she'd avoid losing, and the data-backed logical case, at several lengths.
Findings
From the landing page interviews specifically, three themes stood out:
Internal jargon doesn't translate to first-time users. Early on, the team referred to features by internal names that required memorization. Interviews made clear that new users needed plain, 2–3 word descriptions of what a feature actually does, not a name to learn.
Text density overwhelms, especially for this audience. Landing page interviewees consistently said long blocks of text felt overwhelming, and responded better to short phrases paired with visuals. White space wasn't empty space to them; it made the page easier to digest.
Belonging matters as much as vocabulary. Several interviewees suggested the product go beyond academic vocabulary to help them navigate social fluency: understanding pop culture or sports references, so they could participate in everyday conversation with peers, not just classroom English.
Outcome
The product hasn't launched yet, so this work is ongoing. My findings directly shaped the founder's first landing page revision, and the three themes above are now informing both the next landing page draft and early product thinking.
Reflection
Starting with broad, open-ended interviews before narrowing to a specific decision let me surface problems the founder hadn't thought to ask about. The jargon finding also taught me something about my own blind spots: once you're inside a product, insider language starts to feel normal, and it takes deliberate outside-in listening to catch where that's working against the user.
Designing GrowthGauge: A Social-Emotional Growth Framework for Extreme Kids & Crew
Led the research and design of the framework, in collaboration with fellow consultants.
Research question: What evidence would let Extreme Kids & Crew demonstrate social-emotional growth to funders and community partners?
Context
Extreme Kids & Crew is a nonprofit that runs programs for neurodivergent children. They needed a better way to assess, report, and communicate the social-emotional growth benefits of those programs to funders and potential community partners. I was asked to design an evaluation framework they could use to collect and codify that growth.
Process
Benchmarking. Compared 5 peer organizations serving neurodivergent youth (GRASP, Kamp for Kids, Wellspring Learning Centers, DSAMT, and the Color of Autism Foundation) across how they measured and communicated program impact.
None of the 6 organizations had a formal framework
| Organization | Target Audience | Framework | Focus of Programs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extreme Kids & Crew | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| GRASP | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Kamp for Kids | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Wellspring Learning Centers | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| DSAMT | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Color of Autism Foundation | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
Every organization, including Extreme Kids & Crew, had a clear audience and program focus, but none had a formal way to measure or report growth. That gap is what GrowthGauge was built to fill.
Trends identified. Three practices came up consistently: using quantitative data to measure impact, gathering testimonials, and being transparent about impact with stakeholders. These three directly shaped the design of GrowthGauge.
Framework design. Built GrowthGauge around three Likert-scale questionnaires (one each for students, staff, and parents) measuring core social-emotional skills before and after program participation, so growth could be quantified and shown to donors.
Limitations I flagged
- Survey question bias
- Limited depth from closed-ended formats
- Cultural and linguistic barriers among respondents
Outcome
Presented GrowthGauge as a recommended framework, with next steps for administering the questionnaires, analyzing results, and using the findings to publicize impact. Received a certificate of completion and a performance evaluation from the externship.
Reflection
Benchmarking peer organizations before designing anything meant GrowthGauge was grounded in what was already working elsewhere, rather than built from scratch. Naming the method's own limitations alongside the recommendation is a habit I've carried forward since. Good research includes being honest about where it falls short.
Examining Historical Narratives and Their Modern Implications in the Dominican Republic
Independently designed, conducted, and synthesized the fieldwork.
Research question: How do colonial-era narratives still shape identity and belonging in the Dominican Republic today?
Context
Every Vanderbilt student completes an independent capstone project before graduating. Inspired by a course on borders, citizenship, and migration, I designed my own project to study how colonial-era narratives continue to shape national identity and perceptions of race in the Dominican Republic, traveling to Santiago and Santo Domingo to research it firsthand.
Method
Field observation. Participated in guided museum and historical tours across both cities, observing what was emphasized, what was glossed over, and how guides framed difficult history, including a tour of the Museo de las Casas Reales and a walking mural tour in Santiago.
Interview. Conducted a recorded, consented interview with Juan, a local guide, asking about identity, generational change, and how Dominican-Haitian history is or isn't taught.
Analysis. Transcribed the interview myself and synthesized it alongside field notes, photo and audio documentation, and secondary research.
Constraint. Limited Spanish proficiency meant I could only conduct the interview in English, which narrowed who I could speak with.
Findings
Observed a consistent pattern across both cities: African heritage was acknowledged but given markedly less attention than European colonial history in museum framing. The interview surfaced generational differences in attitudes toward race and identity, alongside a visible but gradual shift toward embracing natural hair texture among younger Dominicans. I also connected patterns of gentrification in Santiago to the same dynamics of displacement and erasure present in the colonial history I was studying.
Reflection
Going in with prior knowledge of Haitian-Dominican history shaped what I noticed, and I stayed conscious of that throughout, since qualitative research always carries the researcher's own lens. Doing just one interview, given the language barrier, was the project's clearest limitation. If I did this again, I'd prioritize building Spanish proficiency beforehand specifically to widen who I could meaningfully interview.