Nikki Vaez - Senior UX Researcher & Strategist
From observation to decisions your teams can ship.

I think Design is not started from the schools and institutes.Design even is not part of human's life. It is the life itself and design thinking is the art of living.
I decided to become a UX designer before knowing it as its common definition.
I ground my decisions in the empirical data collected and I embrace improvisational techniques for maintaining resilience and adaptability. I encouraged myself the cultivation of critical thinking habits and practices.

Hi, I'm Nikki
UX Researcher | Brand Strategist | Systems Thinker.
I help purpose-driven creators and small brands find clarity, strategic focus, and growth direction through user insight and positioning.
What I offer:
Design Starts from exploring and exploring starts from observing
I think Design is not started from the schools and institutes.Design even is not part of human's life. It is the life itself and design thinking is the art of living.
I decided to become a UX designer before knowing it as its common definition.
I ground my decisions in the empirical data collected and I embrace improvisational techniques for maintaining resilience and adaptability. I encouraged myself the cultivation of critical thinking habits and practices.
Brand & Audience Clarity Sessions
(1:1 – 60 min)
Strategy Roadmapping
(for Creators / Startups)
UX Research Audits & Insights
(project-based)
Selected case studies
Health & Heaven (Med-Tourism)
Discovery → archetypes → IA → trust modules → MVP (FAQ, Guide, Pricing).
Outcome: shifted positioning to transparency; shipped credential/policy/price modules with QA cadence.
FitLoom (Wellness concept)
Mixed-methods; cultural trust cues;
semantic tags for later personalization.
Outcome: paused premature build; clarified onboarding tone and future AI-ready tagging.
Shell Recharge (B2B ops – anonymized)
Stakeholder mapping → archetypes → service blueprint → task-based tests.
Outcome: surfaced cross-team gaps; created handoff checklist; de-risked redesign scope.
While studying sociology my desire to understand people's behavior led me to become a field researcher. Anthropology and Sociology were providing me good backgrounds in theory by I was thirsty to feel and learn. So I stepped out of my safe box.
During 1 year field research I interviewed 905 women in the general public of Turkey. I realized that a good researcher is essential when observing and/or interacting with target audiences in their real-life environment so I know this research one of the key roles on my career. This project was designed for ministry of family and social services in Turkey.
Despite the experiences I had in serving victims of violence, especially while I was volunteering in Morcati, this research was a huge eyeopener.
Meeting victims in their homes, economic and social conditions was essential to improve empathy.

The second research 1 year was about refugees and their social and economical conditions. During this research, I interviewed more than 510 refugees in whole Turkey.
It was middle of Syria's crises. Huge number of refugees were led into Turkey and their situations were heartbreaker tragedy. Middle of the darkness I found myself practicing being rational while observing my biases. Spending time with refugees in their tents in a camp with only 50 km distance from the war zone was the hugest experience of empathy. Life was not sweet but it was the reality outside and I was in complete acceptance to soak in people's life.

In 2017, I became part of Child Foundation family to help children to remain in school. I was lucky to work for both sides of sponsors and social workers. I did sponsor research with determining research methodology including, survey development, listening sessions, interviews, and diary studies.
After analyzing the collected data, I presented my suggested strategy to the board of Child Foundation including some changes in the outreach approach. Child Foundation successfully collected more donations and gains more volunteers and sponsors in compare with past decade.
Selected clients & domains
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Freelance UX Researcher & Strategist - USA
- Domains: HealthTech, Med-Tourism, Energy (EV), E-commerce
- Typical scope: Discovery → Strategy (archetypes, IA) → Trust content & governance → Handoff/QA
- Tooling: Notion, Figma, Miro, Google Suite, AI for clustering/benchmarking (human-in-the-loop)
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UX Researcher- Shell Recharge Solutions
- Led mixed-methods research across end-user, enterprise, and internal platforms (SCAL): applied feature validation, usability testing, and workflow mapping so that new product features aligned with user and enterprise needs.
- Conducted 40+ stakeholder and enterprise interviews: identified gaps in information flow, reducing upselling opportunities, so that sales and product teams could capture additional revenue streams.
- Uncovered critical design flaws in early-stage Energy Management modules: prevented costly misalignment and avoided wasted dev resources, so that roadmaps stayed aligned with enterprise priorities.
- Delivered personas, journey maps, and workflow diagrams: facilitated cross-functional alignment across product, design, and enterprise stakeholders, so that PDLC decisions were evidence-based and user-centered.
- Synthesized research into strategic recommendations: directly influenced product roadmaps and enterprise workflows, so that features were prioritized to maximize business impact and user adoption.
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UX Program lead - Solution21
- Introduced human-centered research practices into a legacy engineering-driven SaaS company, embedding UX research across 70+ healthcare tech projects so that products met clinical workflows and patient-facing usability standards.
• Led mixed-methods research (stakeholder interviews, usability testing, surveys, journey mapping, prototype evaluation) to uncover adoption barriers so that onboarding friction decreased and churn was reduced.
• Partnered with product managers and engineers to validate features and redesign core SaaS flows so that enterprise clients expanded contracts and higher-budget customers were acquired.
• Delivered personas, prototypes, usability reports, and design roadmaps that aligned cross-functional teams so that PDLC decisions were data-driven and scalable across the platform.
• Advocated for a user-centric strategy in a traditional engineering environment, establishing research processes so that UX became an integrated driver of product and business outcomes.
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UX Researcher & Outreach Strategist- Child Foundation
- Piloted user-research-driven public events and coordinated logistics, resulting in a 30% increase in participant numbers and a 20% rise in donations through targeted community outreach, while managing budgets and securing optimal vendor contracts.
- Collaborated with marketing teams to refine outreach tactics using in-depth research, increasing campaign effectiveness by 18%, growing lead generation by 25%, and launching successful pilot projects for new engagement concepts.
- Conducted comprehensive research assessments and post-event evaluations, leading to targeted advocacy strategies, a 15% boost in volunteer engagement, a 25% expansion in campaign reach, and the implementation of improvements for future initiatives.
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Field Researcher | Hacettepe University & UNHCR
- Led two-year-long ethnographic studies on domestic violence and refugee displacement, conducting 80+ interviews, focus groups, and surveys across vulnerable populations.
- Synthesized insights into personas, journey maps, and policy reports: informed UNHCR service design and academic frameworks, so that humanitarian programs are better aligned with community needs.
•Applied participatory and mixed-methods approaches in sensitive field contexts: built transferable expertise for later enterprise and SaaS UX research.
Methods and tools
-
Methods
Generative:
- Ethnographic fieldwork / IDIs: on-site & remote; cross-cultural studies; sensitive contexts.
- Diary / longitudinal check-ins: behaviors over time; adherence & recovery.
- Surveys (Qualtrics/Maze): sizing signals; hypothesis checks.
Evaluative:
- Task-based usability: flows, content clarity, risk & reassurance patterns.
- Concept tests / copy tests: tone, microcopy, and policy comprehension.
- A/B or content experiments: trust modules (pricing ranges, credential card, policy previews).
Synthesis → Strategy:
- Behavior-based archetypes (not fictional personas) + composite journeys.
- IA & content modeling for trust (Pricing & Inclusions, Credentials, Guide/FAQ).
- Roadmapping with MoSCoW / Eisenhower → sprint plans teams can ship.
- Research Ops: repositories, stakeholder alignment, consent & ethics.
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Frameworks (how decisions get made)
- Archetypes & Journeys → align product, content, and ops.
- MoSCoW (Must/Should/Could/Won’t) + Eisenhower (Urgent/Important) → priority trade-offs.
- Content Governance: handoff checklists, named owners, ≤90-day review.
- Measurement loops: pre-consult question topics, time-to-confidence, drop-off analysis.
-
AI-assisted (human-in-the-loop)
- Clustering transcripts to find themes faster; manual coding for nuance & conflicts.
- Market/brand scans to benchmark positioning (ranges, proof, language).
- Tagging insights for reuse (semantic labels → later personalization).
- (Ethics first: consent, anonymization, and researcher validation.)
-
Tools
- Research & Testing: Qualtrics, Maze, Mixpanel (events/paths), Google Suite.
- Synthesis & Design: Figma, Miro, Notion (repos, ops, checklists).
- Collab & Delivery: Dev handoff specs, QA checklists, analytics dashboards.
-
Domains & Contexts
HealthTech / Med-tourism / Wellness, EV & Energy (Shell Recharge), EdTech, E-commerce, SaaS/ML.

