About Jake
I have over ten years of professional research experience, having led research efforts in user experience (UX), customer experience (CX), survey research, and market research capacities for various government and non-government organizations. I am currently a Senior UX Researcher/Strategist at Booz Allen Hamilton where I lead the firm’s research workstream at the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Online Services.
Prior to my tenure at Booz, I was a leader on the Fors Marsh Group user experience research team, where I was responsible for project management in addition to conducting usability tests, cognitive interviews, and focus group design for a number of clients, including Citizens Bank, Facebook, the Department of Defense, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In addition, I also have extensive experience with survey design and quantitative data analysis.
Professional Experience
Senior UX Researcher, Booz Allen Hamilton, February 2017 - Present
Research Associate, Fors Marsh Group, May 2010 - February 2017
Research Fellow, U.S. Army Research Institute, August 2008 - May 2010
Education & Certifications
M.A., I/O Psychology, George Mason University, 2010
B.A., Psychology, Albion College, 2007
UXC, Nielsen Norman Group, 2017
CUA, Human Factors International, 2017
Current Research
I currently lead the firm’s research workstream at the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Online Services as the team’s quantitative research and survey expert, having authored and fielded dozens of surveys for the Service. Additionally, I’ve deployed several customer experience methods, including one-on-one user interviews and synthesis of direct customer feedback to create insight reports, personas, journey maps, process maps, and other outputs.
Work products for this particular client are proprietary; however, I would be happy to discuss my work on a one-on-one basis.
Past Research: Federal Government
Below is a sampling of Agencies that I've conducted research for within the federal government.
National Cancer Institute
I managed the research process for multiple rounds of usability testing of various sections and tools of the NCI website. These projects involved testing on both desktop and mobile devices with emphasis on eye tracking analyses for in-lab participants. Click here to learn more.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
I've conducted user experience research on multiple forms, web tools, and websites for the CFPB. Click here to learn more.
Internal Revenue Service
I helped the IRS conduct usability research on one of their most widely used web tools, the Where's My Refund tool. Testing revealed that the tool was easy to find and generally easy to use; however, the results page could be made more useful with some simple modifications to the color scheme and the addition of a few more pieces of key information that users wanted to know.
Past Research: Commercial Sector
here is a small samplE of past clients and projects.
Booz Allen Hamilton
I conducted multiple employee interviews and created a series of personas and journey maps to help inform the firm's executives on reasons for leaving and helping them identify opportunities to deploy initiatives to help retain employees. Click here to learn more.
Citizens Bank
I managed the research process for usability testing of various products on the Citizens Bank website and mobile app. Projects included iterative testing of the Citizens mobile app redesign as well as testing the online application process for Citizens’ student loan products. Click here to learn more.
I conducted usability testing of possible additions to various privacy settings for Facebook. The project involved examining the effects of different pop-up messages on the Facebook experience, and how users responded to them. Testing revealed that privacy is still a large problem at Facebook, specifically regarding who can see what types of information. For example, most users were able to figure out who could see their relationship status and their posts, but many had trouble figuring out who can see their birthday information and their friends list.
The Nielsen Company
I conducted usability testing to help Nielsen uncover and address problems with their paper diary process. Testing revealed that users found the included examples helpful in teaching them how to fill out the diary properly, but some were so poorly located that they oftentimes were overlooked. Additionally, user feedback revealed that the order of the columns on the diary pages was illogical and did not match user expectations, leading to an increased error rate.