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Hi, I'm Sarah Ann!

I was named after both of my grandmothers, so I have two first names. My pronouns are she/her. I’m a curiosity-driven user researcher, with experience gathering insights on both consumer-facing and business-to-business teams for data-driven products and human-centered services.

I embrace the universal UX researcher challenge of striving to have long lasting influence within our organizations. I have strategized how to socialize findings for impact and team alignment; how to recruit difficult-to-reach participants in a scaleable manner; and how to collaborate with customer-facing teams to respectfully access their well-established customer relationships.

Currently, I’m expanding my knowledge of digital accessibility and inclusive design thanks to a scholarship from Deque University, as I pursue my International Association of Accessibility Professionals certification.

I earned my master’s degree in interaction design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. My studies deepened my understanding of human-centered design and challenged me to consider the unique research needs and ethical implications of emerging technology.

Understanding users through research builds upon my foundation as a story seeker. My former career as a photojournalist taught me to share stories that promote empathy and understanding. Today, I apply those skills to produce user research that is communicated in impactful and actionable ways.

In my free time, you can find me curled up with a good book and a cup of tea, or people-watching at Prospect Park. I’m always learning something new to fulfill my creative spirit. My latest nerdy-yet-artsy hobby is coding interactive generative art. ✨

Sarah Ann Jump

curiosity-driven user researcher
with experience in storytelling

LinkedIn ↗

Skills

Research

card sorting 
ethnography
usability testing
heuristic evaluation 
in-depth interviewing
participant recruitment
qualitative data analysis persona development 
competitive analysis
data visualization
survey design
tree testing
A/B testing

Leadership

people management
mentoring + coaching
ethical decision-making 
storytelling + communication
creative problem solving
project management
workshop facilitation

Design

accessible design
participatory design
customer journey maps 
wireframing + prototyping
service design blueprints
information architecture
user flow diagrams

Tools

Respondent
User Interviews 
Optimal Workshop
Adobe Creative Suite
Dovetail, EnjoyHQ, Notably
Figma, Miro, Webflow
UserZoom, Maze
Jira, Confluence
Excel, SQL, R

Experience

UX Researcher

Prison Journalism Project

2023 - Present

|

Remote Volunteer

    • Analyzes audience survey data and presents findings to leadership to help grow their audience and shape content strategy for the non-profit, which trains the incarcerated to publish their stories.

    • Supports the accessible document and website design and development process.

    UX Researcher

    Atlassian

    2022 - 2023

    |

    New York, New York

      • As part of the Enterprise Trust team, conducted research to serve the mission of building customer trust by fostering a sense of control over their productivity tools cloud environment through platform and infrastructure enhancements.

      • Recruited enterprise research participants in influential roles from Atlassian’s top 1% of customers by collaborating with Technical Account Managers, careful to respect and maintain established customer relationships.

      • Creatively shared findings with stakeholders and shaped organizational research socialization practices by documenting processes and creating templates.

      • Represented research leadership in collaborative workshops with design, product, and engineering to strategize, ideate, and prioritize for the product roadmap.

      • Managed research participant data with informed consent, maintaining privacy practices and adhering to international regulations such as GDPR.

      • Atlassian: Controlling Change 🔗

      UX Researcher

      Interos Inc.

      2021

      |

      Remote Contractor

        • Advocated for user needs based on qualitative and quantitative research for a machine learning-powered B2B SaaS supply chain risk management platform.

        • Designed, recruited, executed, and communicated the results of concept testing that influenced the design and product strategy for a high-priority new feature.

        • Spearheaded the development of 3 user personas based on 33 activity-based user interviews across various industries, areas of expertise, and countries.

        • Strategized engaging ways to communicate and socialize findings for alignment between engineering, product, design, and customer success teams. 

        • Developed research infrastructure by creating a strategy for recruiting participants for an industry-specific research panel.

        • Interos: Risk Analyst Personas 🔗

        Accessibility Researcher

        Women’s Parkinson’s Project

        2021

        |

        Remote Volunteer

        • Supported the accessible website design process with the needs of people with Parkinson’s disease in mind.

        • Uncovered dozens of opportunities to improve the user experience through an accessibility audit, heuristic evaluation, and navigation tree testing.

        • Women’s Parkinson’s Project: Web Accessibility 🔗

        UX Researcher

        Citi Ventures Studio

        2020 - 2021

        |

        Remote Contractor

        • Designed and executed a qualitative, generative and evaluative research study that influenced the design direction of a data-driven, consumer-facing tool to promote skills-based career growth created by Citi's innovation incubator.

        • Collaborated with the Product Manager to develop and implement the first protocol for recruiting existing product users for research studies, leading to increased stakeholder exposure to users.

        • Shared findings with stakeholders in multiple actionable formats, including an interactive visual report, a presentation, and product team ideation workshop.

        • As part of the Citi University Partnerships in Innovation & Discovery program, led a collaborative graduate student product design team in the end-to-end process to create a high-fidelity prototype, which was the winner of Strategic Innovation in Product & Service Design competition. Role was then extended into a contract position.

        • Citi Ventures: Reimagining Worthi 🔗

        Chief Photojournalist & UX Lead

        The Herald

        2016 - 2020

        |

        Jasper, Indiana

        • Conducted 250+ in-depth interviews and documented candid moments to tell 82 long-form journalistic stories that promoted understanding and empathy.

        • Led service design research and strategy to implement cost-effective solutions to improve The Herald’s digital products and innovate ways to reach new audiences, resulting in a 254% increase in page views and a sustainable workflow for journalists.

        • Hired, managed, and mentored a team of staff photojournalists and photo interns.

        • The Herald: Love Is Not A Memory 🔗

        Education

        master's degree

        Interaction Design

        School of Visual Arts

        2020 - 2022

        |

        New York, New York

        |

        Graduate Assistantship

        Master's Thesis Presentation: Moolah 🔗

        Moolah, my master's thesis project, was a concept of an educational platform that supports parents in learning about financial topics and raising money-confident kids. It was developed using research methods such as a literature review, survey, diary study, activity-based interviews, concept and usability testing.

        Select graduate coursework included: Research Methodologies, Strategic Innovation in Product & Service Design, Ethics of Emerging Technologies, Digital Accessibility, Augmented Reality, Smart Objects, Conversation Design, Content Strategy

        bachelor's degree

        Photojournalism

        Rochester Institute of Technology

        2011 - 2015

        |

        Rochester, New York

        |

        Summa Cum Laude

        Senior Capstone Exhibition: First Comes Trust 🔗

        New Roots, my capstone project, followed a Congolese refugee family through their first year of resettlement in Rochester, NY. Their story was told through an interactive website that I created to combine documentary photography, written reporting, audio, and data visualizations. (My first ever UX design project!)

        Data Analytics

        Google x Coursera

        2023 - Present

        |

        Self-Directed Learning

        Courses completed: Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere; Ask Questions to Make Data-Driven Decisions; Prepare Data for Exploration

        Web Accessibility

        Deque University

        2023 - Present

        |

        Self-Directed Learning

        Courses completed: Accessibility Fundamentals - Disabilities, Guidelines, and Laws; Designing an Accessible User Experience; Semantic Structure and Navigation; Visual Design and Colors; Accessibility Program Management

        User Research

        Interaction Design Foundation

        2020 - 2021

        |

        Self-Directed Learning

        Courses completed: Quantitative UX Research for Data-Driven Design; Conducting Usability Testing; Information Visualization; User Research - Methods and Best Practices

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