Paige Nuzzolillo Portfolio
8+ years of UX research across healthcare, insurance and HR. Each case study shows research methodology alongside design outcome — rare and valuable combination.
Location
Whidbey Island, WA
Credentials
- M.S. candidate in Interaction Design & Information Architecture, University of Baltimore (expected 2029)
Skills
Notable
- Nielsen Norman Group Master UX Certified
- Named one of "37 Active UX Leaders to Follow" (UserInterviews, 2023 and 2025)
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
Methodology transparency — not just "I did research"
Each case study names the method and the sample: 27 broker and 14 employer interviews at Delta Dental, seven 60-minute IVF interviews for Cairn, a 15-response closed card sort for CHAI Baltimore, 32 survey respondents for Farm to Table Tours. "I did user research" tells a hiring manager nothing; a named method with a real participant count tells them you know what you're doing.
A real research artifact as the hero image, not a stock photo
The homepage banner is a literal photo of Paige mid-presentation, pointing at a hand-drawn red-marker whiteboard user-journey and empathy map (rows for Actions, Questions, Feelings, Pain Points, Opportunities across the journey). It's proof of process before a single word of the page is read.
Ten case studies, each tagged by exact method, spanning genuinely regulated domains
The "UX Work" grid runs ten projects — IVF/fertility support, an IA redesign for CHAI (a Baltimore housing nonprofit), a neurodesign concept for kids 9–12 overusing screens, a weight-loss app at RVO Health, dental-insurance broker portals, hiring tools at Indeed, food-justice participatory action research, a contraceptive-device field study, and teen substance-abuse prevention — each tile naming its exact methods ("Field Surveys, Interviews, Synthesis, Advocacy"; "Content Inventory, Proto-Personas, Card Sorting, Journey Maps"). Few portfolios show this much range across healthcare, insurance and public health this specifically.
Already naming AI-assisted tools in her own process
The Cairn Fertility tile lists "Proof of Concept Figma Make Prototype" and the Circle: Neurodesign tile is tagged "Secondary Research and Prototype Development with Lovable AI" — she names the specific AI prototyping tools she used rather than treating AI as a buzzword to avoid or oversell.
What UX Researchers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
Name your research methods specifically: contextual inquiry, diary studies, tree testing, card sorting. Generic "user research" is a yellow flag for senior roles.
Close the loop in every case study: research finding → design decision → measurable outcome. Stopping at the finding leaves the most important part out.
Healthcare, finance, and government experience commands a premium because the constraints are real and the stakes are high. Lean into regulated-industry experience.
Show your synthesis artifacts: affinity diagrams, journey maps, how-might-we's. The deliverable is the evidence that the process happened.
If you use AI tools in your prototyping process (Figma Make, Lovable, etc.), name the specific tool in the project tag — it reads as current practice, not a trend chase.
Case studies
On every project tile, the methods are named outright (card sorting, proto-personas, field surveys), so the process is legible before a single click. Paige Nuzzolillo holds that standard across ten projects, from IVF support and dental-insurance portals to a housing nonprofit's IA and public-health field research.
Farm to Table Tours — Survey-Led MVP Website Research (2018)
A tour company had France tours scheduled, no bookings, and an incomplete placeholder site for trips costing roughly $6,000. Paige ran a discovery session with the owner (including card sorting of the existing structure), reviewed ten competitor and reference tour sites, surveyed 32 respondents recruited from the company's Facebook page and past interviewees, affinity-mapped the results with the client, built a persona, ran a combined journey/empathy map of the FareHarbor booking flow, and produced a site map, pencil lo-fi and Sketch hi-fi wireframes, and a content inventory.
Tiny budget, real client, real constraint (a third-party booking flow). Shows how to get from a 32-person survey to a site map and wireframes, and is candid that testing hadn't happened yet.
The whiteboard journey/empathy map in her homepage hero photo is from this project
Hypotheses stated up front, then checked against survey data
Honest "Current Stage" marker and Future Work list instead of an invented result
CHAI Baltimore — Information Architecture Redesign (2026)
A graduate Information Architecture course project for CHAI (Comprehensive Housing Assistance, Inc.), a Baltimore housing and community-services nonprofit that partners with the University of Baltimore. Scope: full content inventory, five proto-personas, a search-system analysis (stemming, precision vs. recall, no-results page), competitive analysis of three competitors, a WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility review with WAVE, a 15-response closed card sort, journey maps and Balsamiq wireframes from homepage to L4 pages.
Documents the tradeoffs, not just the method: why a closed sort, why proto-personas instead of research personas, why ValidateThat over Optimal Workshop, and which results to distrust because of wording bias.
Manual card-to-category agreement tally when the tool's dendrograms didn't answer the question
Cites specific WCAG criteria (2.2.2 carousel pause, 3.2.1 focus pop-up)
States the next test it would run: a user-type IA with 15 fresh participants, then a tree test
Cairn Fertility — IVF Support Platform Research & Prototype (2026)
A self-directed study of women undergoing or recently through IVF. Paige wrote a research brief with an AI-usage ethics policy, had a lawyer draft the consent form, ran a secondary literature review, scored four competitors (Carousel Fertility, Conceive, Tilly, Berry Fertility) on a weighted feature matrix, recruited 15 interested women via Facebook groups and LinkedIn, and completed seven 60-minute generative interviews. Insights fed an AI-assisted design brief, a Figma Make proof-of-concept, and a manually edited Figma prototype (iteration 2).
Shows the full ResOps load on a sensitive health topic — consent, screener skip logic, optional camera — and names exactly where AI tools were used and where manual editing was needed to fix contrast and font size.
Links the live Figma Make prototype, Figma prototype, research brief and moderation guide
WAVE check on the AI-generated prototype found contrast failures; colors reworked toward WCAG 2.2 AA
Limitations section admits there was no evaluative round and no product team
Delta Dental of WA — Broker & Employer Portal Discovery Research (2018–2021)
Research to build new broker and employer portals from scratch for Delta Dental's digital customer platform. Paige co-wrote the study plan with stakeholders, ran 27 in-depth broker interviews and 14 employer interviews, coded them line by line in Atlas.ti, and followed up with UserZoom surveys and lo-fi and hi-fi wireframe feedback rounds with a standing user panel.
Shows research operations at scale inside a regulated insurance business: a full recruitment and tooling stack, QDA-coded interviews, and research that runs continuously alongside the build.
41 interviews across two user groups
Recruitment includes routing web complaints from customer service into the research panel
Lists the whole ResOps toolchain, down to GiftBit for incentives
More UX Researcher portfolios
Ready to build your portfolio?
Follow the UX Researcher roadmap — skills, projects, and timeline to get hired.