USERTESTING
ADVANCED TARGETING
(Intro)
A single recruitment experience that merges two products, two pricing models, and two mental models into one coherent workflow inside UserTesting.
UserTesting acquired User Interviews, creating an opportunity to bring advanced participant recruitment directly into the core product. The challenge wasn't adding a feature, it was reconciling two different audience building philosophies without customers ever feeling the seam.
The work spanned strategy, UX, UI, accessibility and validation, shipped as an MVP with a documented path to a fully unified future experience.
(Role)
END-TO-END PRODUCT DESIGN | PRODUCT STRATEGY | ACCESSIBILITY | AI-ASSISTED DESIGN & PROTOTYPING
(Product area)
CUSTOMER AUDIENCE CREATION
(Timeline)
4 MONTHS
Context
(The problem)
The acquisition of UserInterviews created an opportunity to bring advanced participant recruitment into UserTesting. The challenge was integrating two products that had been designed around different assumptions.
UserTesting was optimized for fast access to broad participant panels, while UserInterviews supported highly targeted recruitment with a much richer set of screening capabilities.
As a result, customers recruiting niche audiences had to leave their primary workflow, manage recruitment in a separate product, and return to UserTesting to run their studies.
The design goal was to create a unified experience that felt native to UserTesting, reduced workflow fragmentation, and balanced immediate technical limitations with a clear path toward a more integrated future.
PROCESS
This project marked a turning point in my design practice. It was the first time I intentionally integrated AI throughout an entire product lifecycle: from research synthesis and concept exploration to accessibility reviews, documentation, and interactive prototyping.
Working alongside Product and Engineering we continuously balanced customer needs, technical constraints, and long-term product strategy. Rather than replacing design thinking, AI accelerated exploration, communication, and iteration, helping the team deliver a project originally planned for 6 months in just 4, while creating space to shape both the MVP, the fast-follows and the future vision of the product.
Discover
Research, collaboration, and AI-assisted synthesis to align customer needs, business goals, and technical constraints.
Explore
Rapid exploration, prototyping, and AI-accelerated iteration to evaluate ideas before committing.
Implement
Close collaboration with engineering to deliver accessible, scalable experiences with high implementation quality.
Evolve
Beyond shipping the MVP, shaping future experiences that scale with both the product and the business.
designing with AI
ChatGPT
UX writing
Accessibility annotations
Workshops preparation
Design critique
Documentation
Claude
Interactive prototypes
Vision concepts
Flows exploration
Figma make
Layout explorations
Rapid ideations
Interaction ideas
solution
Standard vs. Advanced targeting
Advanced and Standard targeting relied on different capabilities and couldn't yet be unified because criteria mapping wasn't technically possible.
I designed two complementary targeting modes that clearly communicated their differences while encouraging exploration. Customers could switch between modes without losing their work, reducing friction while respecting the current platform constraints.
NEW targeting criteria
The end-to-end UX process was led from initial research and persona creation to wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing. Pivotal contributions translated complex financial processes into an intuitive mobile experience, ensuring users could navigate the application effortlessly.
audience feasibility
Customers had little visibility into whether their targeting criteria would result in enough participants before launching.
I introduced participant reach estimation directly within the Audience Builder, giving researchers early feedback about audience availability and allowing them to refine their criteria before launch.
Custom incentives & transparent pricing
Advanced targeting introduced a new incentive model to UserTesting: researchers could offer custom incentives to reach niche participants, through their UserInterviews prepaid balance. For the first release, Advanced targeting and custom incentives were intentionally coupled, so the focus was on making the difference with UserTesting’s default incentives clear throughout the journey. The experience was designed with a more flexible future in mind, where targeting and incentive choices can evolve independently.
DESIGNING FOR EVERYONE
The Audience Builder introduced complex interactions, such as multi-column criteria selection, dynamic reach estimates, changing selections, and modal workflows.
Accessibility was designed into these interactions from the start, defining keyboard navigation, focus behavior, screen-reader announcements, and dynamic states, then validating the experience with accessibility specialists and Engineering through implementation and QA.
designed for the future vision
The first release focused on integrating UserInterviews into UserTesting while working within existing technical constraints. The future vision moves beyond today’s split between Standard and Advanced: one unified targeting experience with no switching, more flexible incentives, and real-time audience feasibility. A direction shaped directly by research and designed for when the two platforms’ data and targeting logic can fully converge.
impact
DELIVERY
4 —> 6
MONTHS
Planned timeline reduced by 2 months with an AI-augmented workflow
RECRUITMENT
NICHE
AUDIENCES
Advanced targeting + custom incentives brought specialized recruitment into UserTesting
WORKFLOW
1
EXPERIENCE
Target, screen, incentivize, launch and analyze without switching platforms
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
“The experience felt familiar enough to use immediately, while unlocking a much more precise way to recruit.”
Participant 2 - Researcher @DocuSign