I Turn Complexity Into Clarity.
I’m a UX researcher and strategist with 10+ years of experience helping teams make sense of complex systems, organizations, and decisions. I lead research end-to-end and build the structures around it so insights don’t just exist, they actually get used. My work spans consumer, marketing, B2B SaaS platforms, and enterprise environments, partnering with teams at Google, Netflix, Disney, and beyond.
—Story Safford
Services
By combining behavioral data, qualitative user-centered research, AI-driven synthesis, and systems thinking, I help teams move faster, reduce uncertainty, and make smarter product decisions.
A comprehensive assessment of your current research operations with a detailed roadmap for improvement. Ideal for teams ready to scale.
Rethink how work gets done. Trust AI outputs you don’t fully understand. Redesign workflows. Half-day and full-day sessions for product teams on research, synthesis, and presenting insights that drive decisions.
Senior leadership for your research practice without the full-time overhead. Strategic direction, team mentorship, stakeholder alignment.
Focused, high-impact engagements for critical product moments: launches, pivots, conversion optimization, or foundational research.
1:1 coaching with a focus on career progression, navigating AI, research democratization, and building a customer-centric culture.
Case Studies
Cross-Platform Branded Experience
Netflix: UX Research | UX Strategy
CLIO BRONZE WINNER! Transforming a hit TV show for Netflix into a 360-cross platform multimedia brand, spanning print, digital, experiential, OOH and broadcast, delighting fans and building audiences. Check out this video case study outlining the research and strategy that I developed, led and executed as VP Research and Strategy XR.
Digital Transformation
Comic-Con: UX Research | Product Development
User testing, surveys, personas, frameworks, foundational insights and MVP requirements for a niche streaming video on demand platform for the rebranded Comic-Con HQ, fusing the unique qualities of the once a year live conference into a 365-digital experience.
Biotech
Regeneron: UX Research | Service Design
Regulated industries struggle to balance risk mitigation and compliance regulations with the ability to move quickly. This new approach for Regeneron embraces lean tools and processes, even at the expense of potential future rework as the solution scales.
Healthcare
Cigna: UX Research | Service Design | Product Development
A national pre- and post-pandemic study for Cigna examines how the quality of care evolved as healthcare providers expanded telehealth services—and how a branded mobile app can help patients at home get the care they need.
North American Launch
Softbank Robotics
In my role as VP Research and Strategy, I was instrumental in generating the key insights that informed Softbank Robotics’ Pepper the Robot’s place in society (in the face of research that showed that most Americans think robots are going to take over the world!) resulting in a landmark go-to-market product launch.
Zyrtec “Parks Unleashed”
I identified key triggers across the customer journey where we could insert Zyrtec’s messaging into an allergy sufferer’s everyday routine.
Named one of the "Most Impactful" campaigns on Youtube by Mashable, “Parks Unleashed” was a ground-breaking non-linear video scavenger hunt, with a surprising cameo appearance by Queen Latifah, consisting of 136 video vignettes and a collection of in-channel games bringing awareness to Fall allergy season.
I also wrote the business requirements for Zyrtec.com — based on a dynamic information architecture I designed that personalizes the user experience based on implicit and explicit inputs and marketing objectives. Visitors earn points, based on how many products they buy, and points can be redeemed with partner companies. The new strategy and positioning increased traffic to over 50,000 unique visitors each month.
