Work Highlights
Rolling Research Program
Development of the “Rolling Research” protocol to provide insights and direction for the many questions designers and product managers had regarding future designs and/or features.
The program delivered learnings while condensing research timelines.
Evaluative and Concept Research: New App and Future App Experience
Multiple rounds of evaluative research with different user types (e.g., existing vs. new) across different platforms (e.g., desktop, mobile, AppleTV) on the entirely new Zwift app UI.
Numerous rounds of iterative or concept research of key app areas, features, and UI layouts. Specific focus areas included navigation, information architecture, visual accessibility for color blind athletes, usability testing, and future design concepts evaluating new layouts, navigation, and content discoverability.
The culmination of this evaluative and concept research led to a customer-informed information architecture, improved navigation, and a new onboarding tutorial, all of which contributed to a 16% reduction in new members’ struggles understanding Zwift and a five-to-eight-fold increase in subscriptions by trialists.
Strategic Research: Why Members Cancel
Strategic research around member onboarding and “churn” which lead to the development of numerous surveys to to understand customer behavior and drive product strategy and prioritization.
This strategic research and survey data informed the development of new subscription offerings which reversed subscriber decline and contributed to a 10% year-over-year growth in subscriptions.
Diary Studies: Zwift Hub and Hub One Smart Trainers
Longitudinal diary studies with new and existing users aimed at evaluating the purchase, setup, and use of a new smart trainer alongside the use of that app.
These studies led to changes to the setup instructions, both written and video, and identified a key pain point which contributed to the development of a simplified system for attaching a bike to the second generation trainer. Additionally, these studies provided further evidence of the need for improved onboarding and content discovery, which led to a new onboarding tutorial feature and initial designs for better content discovery.
Foundational & Evaluative Research: Zwift Experience for Visually Impaired Athletes
Foundational and evaluative research with visually impaired athletes to make Zwift more accessible.
This work raised awareness and provided a framework for the steps Zwift needs to take to make Zwift more accessible.
Focus Groups: Understanding the Experience of Women on Zwift
Strategic research, to inform women’s strategy, in the form of three focus groups aimed at understanding the pain points and needs of women using Zwift.
This work led to the development of a new workout series specifically designed to support women's needs around training and community.
Colleague Recognition
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“I worked closely with Tim during our time together at Zwift. I was leading our in-game Content team, focused on creating high engagement experience in the Zwift massive multiplayer online game. Creating group experiences for 10k-100k+ members across 50+ countries is challenging and Tim was our UX research partner on understanding how everything from our marketing proposition to the end experience added value to our Zwifters. As a product centric leader, it was a huge boon to my team's productivity and judgment building to have Tim leading these efforts for us.
Tim brought a huge amount of humility and horsepower to every project he did at Zwift. He knows all of the best practices and is super obsessed with the customer. Fundamentally, he was part of the team driving insights and actions with the broader organization.
If I could have one UX leader come in, understand our members' needs, drive continual research and improvement, I wouldn't hesitate to bring in Tim. And in a UX team, Tim helps elevate all of those around him. It was a pleasure working with Tim. There's no question his work improved countless features, content experiences, and the culture of member obsession here at Zwift. He would do the same for your organization as well.”
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“Tim is incredible to work with. We collaborated on building a better onboarding experience, defining user needs for training, and researching accessibility improvements across the ecosystem.
When designing flows, Tim helped us pivot during our various design phases by quickly synthesizing information from customer interviews and surveys. Tim gave clear insights on how to enhance the experiences in his reports and readouts. During our design workshops, Tim presented his findings and helped the team develop empathy for customer pain points across the user journey.
Tim brings life, enthusiasm, and gusto to every project and team he is on. I couldn't have asked for a better teammate and UX leader. His passion and excitement is infectious and you'll love working with him.”
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“Tim leveled up Zwift's understanding of the customer beyond what we could have imagined, and is responsible for driving a lot of the insights that have fueled Zwift's corporate strategy today. It's one thing to think you understand your customer, but another to let Tim learn and explain to you who they really are and what makes them tick!
Tim shows an amazing knack for connecting with customers in interviews and an ability to dig deep beyond the surface to truly understand pain points. He quickly became one of the biggest customer advocates at the business - someone who always had a great pulse on customers' everchanging wants, needs, and overall product feedback. Importantly, in a world with tighter research budgets, Tim proved to be scrappy and resourceful to creatively solve complex problems.
From a work/culture perspective, Tim is the ultimate team player. You can tell he wants to make sure the customer is heard and that everyone at the business is on the same page. He also led cross-functional efforts to make sure research and key findings were accessible for all -- always taking the extra time to distill learnings into consumable reports for all employees at the business.”
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“Tim makes customer insights easy and is one of the most effective UX Researchers I have worked with. Whenever I needed a deeper understanding of our customers or early validation of a feature's direction, Tim was instrumental in getting the insights quickly and effectively. Tim has a myriad of tools he's able to use, and has shown expertise in the following:
* Understanding the outcomes needed from the research
* Customer Interviews
* Customer Surveys
* Distilling information into consumable reports
* Mentoring coworkers on research best practices
Tim's superpower is connecting with the users he interviews, gleaning a deeper understanding of each person's needs, wants, and desires as they relate to the product. Tim translates this information effectively into his reports, ensuring that his empathy for the customer is always shared by his audience.”
- Alex Young [Director, Product Management - Game Experience, Zwift]
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“Tim is a highly-capable UX Researcher. He consistently demonstrated proficiency in both designing and executing comprehensive research methodologies -- and easily pivoted from quantitative to qualitative research to help keep our company user-focused.
Communication and collaboration are particular areas of strength -- which helped the teams Tim worked with solve hard problems. He reported-out multiple, high-profile projects to senior leaders; and his poise and personality also consistently put stakeholders (and research respondents) at ease, yielding fruitful discussions and insights.
Tim was also an internal champion of accessibility best-practices, having led both research and evangelism efforts to help make our platform more accessible to everyone.
Lastly, Tim is incredibly resourceful and scrappy, which meant that the Research team relied on his technical acumen and creative determination -- in lieu of a Research Ops team -- to troubleshoot and optimize our suite of research tools and processes.”
- Marc Sasinski [Senior Director, Product Design & UX Research, Zwift]