Workshop & Research
Design Sprint
Kristina led several short, intensive three-day Google-style Design Sprints, both remotely and in person. These workshops brought together stakeholders, team members, and end users to quickly explore challenges, generate ideas, build prototypes, and test them with users. The sprints consistently produced validated solutions and actionable insights for the company.
Stakeholder Workshop
Often inspired by Service Design and Design Sprint methodologies, Kristina prepares and leads workshops with stakeholders to generate ideas, clarify uncertain questions, identify gaps or problems, and narrow down toward solutions. These workshops are especially valuable when working with challenging or diverse stakeholders, helping align perspectives and drive collaborative decision-making.
Usability Testing
Usability testing is the fastest way to uncover issues with a product, from usability problems to other friction points. Conducted remotely or in person, it is Kristina’s most frequently used research method.
User Interviews
User interviews are especially valuable when problems and needs are unclear, technology is complex, or users are highly unique. They are one of the most reliable methods for discovery and insight gathering.
Survey
Surveys have supported Kristina across a wide range of projects, from branding initiatives to product feature prioritization and usability measurement (including SUS). Through close collaboration with senior researchers, she has developed a strong ability to evaluate survey quality and confidently interpret results.
Personas
Kristina begins every project with research-driven user persona definition. She establishes who the product is for, clarifies user needs and expectations, and identifies the problems the product is meant to solve. These insights form the foundation for all user journeys and interaction flows.
Personas are especially critical when designing complex, multi-role systems—such as customer, employee, and AI workflows—where clear role ownership and aligned experiences are essential to delivering successful outcomes.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is often part of the product discovery phase, but it proved especially valuable in branding and AI identity work. By evaluating and comparing products using consistent criteria, Kristina helped determine their relative performance through objective analysis—collecting measurable data and assessing results under the same conditions, without relying on personal opinions. This ensured findings were factual and unbiased.
In her latest work, Kristina collaborated closely with the team to build a comprehensive AI identity benchmark, reviewing 27 banking and adjacent products within a specific region.
Data Analytics
Across most products Kristina has worked on, data analytics was often the most desirable yet least utilized research method. Prioritization typically favored approaches that were easier to implement.
When analytics was used, funnels and recorded user walkthroughs delivered the greatest value, providing actionable insights that directly informed UX decisions.