About me

Most UX teams measure what users do. I find out why — and turn that into revenue.

The short version

Over 7+ years in UX, the last 5.5 in research, across e-commerce, fintech, social platforms and AI-driven digital health, I've owned the full research-to-impact cycle. At Okala (3M+ DAU), I led the CRO programme that delivered +18% conversion uplift and −30% cart abandonment — the full story is in the real-time research engine case study. At Together, I synthesised 20,000+ behavioural data points to surface AI trust patterns that directly shaped product strategy and retention — written up as Architecting Trust and Engagement.

I'm particularly drawn to AI product teams — not just because it's where the market is moving, but because I've spent the last year deep in how users actually behave when they encounter AI: where trust breaks down, where friction hides, and what responsible UX looks like in practice. That thread runs through Step Zero for responsible AI and my article on functional friction in AI products.

To stay close to the full product lifecycle, I recently drove an AI-powered MVP from research to deployment — the One Thing hackathon app — because researchers who understand how products ship make sharper, faster research decisions.

Where my edge sits

At the intersection of three things most researchers don't combine:

→ Deep qualitative insight

Generative research, cognitive science and behavioural economics — the foundation behind the trust patterns in my Together study, the Step Zero work on responsible AI, and my writing on visual perception and the gamer's brain.

→ Rigorous quantitative execution

Google Analytics, Hotjar, Pendo, Python and A/B testing — the engine of Okala's real-time research engine and the CRO programme behind its +18% conversion uplift and −30% cart abandonment.

→ AI as a force multiplier

Embedded in how I work, not a buzzword — from synthesising macro-scale social signals for the One Thing MVP to Claude and Gemini as analysis partners in my research instruments.

What I'm looking for

UX Research roles at the intersection of AI and human behaviour, where user understanding is treated as a competitive advantage.

I'm also applying for fully funded PhD programmes for 2027, to research how conversational AI interprets embodied and culturally specific expressions of distress. My recent preprint is a first step in that direction.

Based in Edinburgh · full work authorisation in the UK · open to on-site, hybrid or remote across Edinburgh, Glasgow, London or UK-wide

Methods

Interviews & Usability Testing: Moderated sessions end to end — from multinational social-network research at Together to validating the One Thing habit MVP against primary interviews.
Behavioural & Product Analytics: Live platform data at Okala's real-time research engine, plus Microsoft Clarity, Google Analytics and Hotjar. Certified: Product Analytics Micro-Certification (PAC)™, Product School.
Mixed Methods & Survey Design: Quantitative instruments designed and analysed honestly, combined with qual — as in the iToll high-stakes handover study. Course: UX Research — Overcoming Data Anxiety (LinkedIn).
Behavioural Science & Trust: Cognitive psychology and human decision-making applied to trust architecture — the thread through my Step Zero AI and functional-friction work.
CRO & Experimentation: Conversion research, A/B testing and funnel evidence — applied in the Okala redesign and across experimentation programmes.
AI-Assisted Research & Prompt Engineering: Claude and Gemini as analysis partners — from macro-scale social-signal synthesis to iterating research instruments. Certified: Introduction to Prompt Engineering for Generative AI (LinkedIn).

Tools: Figma / FigJam · Miro · Microsoft Clarity · Google Analytics · Hotjar · Jira · Google Sheets · Adobe XD

Painting and writing

My interest in how people experience their inner lives began during my undergraduate degree, when I read David Le Breton’s Sociologie du corps. It made me see the body as something shaped by culture and language, not only biology. Since then I have painted and written about people and their feelings in the modern world, and my work was selected for the Tehran–Istanbul International Exhibition at Milad Tower around 2019. Painting shapes how I think about the body in my research: showing an emotion through posture, colour or a part of the body is close to what people do when they draw on body maps.

Selected works, 2024–2026

A red winged figure with an exposed anatomical heart at its centre, painted on a dark canvas covered in handwritten Persian script and concentric white contour lines — In the Midst of Being: Hell

A wooden-framed mixed-media work: a handwritten line about gazing long into the abyss on cardboard, above red-painted tentacles curling across the lower half — The Hook

A small red textured canvas with a sculpted white winged eye at its centre and a pale tendril curling up and away beyond the canvas edge — Unbound

A black semi-circular form bearing handwritten Persian script, with tangled black wire encircling a small bound pale figure beneath it — BeholdThere is nothingnothing but ruinand in ruin, nothingruin within ruinnothing within nothing

A pale torso with lighter vitiligo patches against a dark background, with a square opening at the chest stitched shut in red thread — Vitiligo and the Soul

Poems

Translated from Persian.

The Tailor

You know, Doctor, I am not well. I feel my soul is in a meat grinder. I call the neighbourhood tailor to stitch you up — you’ll be fine. His work was superb. What beautiful embroidery! On my hands, the emblem of a poppy in the wind. On my leg, a cypress tree, and at its top a sparrow teaching its child to fly. What a skilful tailor. On my face, a vase of wild roses, acacia and jasmine. On my hair, butterflies, and on my eyes a ladybug, about to fly away. What is the ladybug afraid of? Why does it want to fly? On my hands, a basket of sunflowers, a few bees between my fingers. What was the ladybug afraid of? Why did it want to leave? Call the tailor. Why is the ladybug afraid? Ah, Doctor, I am not well. Why did you frighten the ladybug? Why did you draw it on my eyes? Now it sees what I see. Why did you frighten the ladybug? Call the tailor to take out my eyes. The ladybug doesn’t deserve this.

Confessions of a Single Shoe

I must confess: something in the symmetry of this world limps. I stand here not as a shoe, but as half of a leather understanding. In the museum of unfinished things, I wear on my chest the medal of honour for uselessness. Beauty? Perhaps, for an ant in search of a roof, or for the dust that has fallen asleep on my old polish. But for running? The law of the road demands my pair. The other one may have changed its identity by now; that is what lonely things do. Perhaps on some modern terrace they have filled its mouth with soil, and a flower’s root is working its way into its heel. Perhaps it has become a flowerpot, with a dignity only a survivor can carry. It smiles at the flowers and probably thinks that I, too, somewhere else, am busy blooming. We are both mistaken: it, in the role of a flowerpot; I, in the role of waiting. And the world, without batting an eye, goes on its way on feet that always wear two perfectly matching shoes.

Contact me

Let's talk about your project

Whether it's a role, a research collaboration, or a product question — I'd love to hear what you're working on.

Get in touchkazemzadeh.m77@gmail.com