Requests
0
Keep in touch with meI'm using Intch to connect with new people. Use this link to open chat with me via Intch app
Work Background
Janna Kimel ConsultingUX Research Consultant
Apr. 2025Portland, Oregon Metropolitan AreaStrategic UX Research leader with expertise in bridging research insights and business outcomes. Excels at building high-performing teams, developing comprehensive training programs, and advising on tool selection and implementation.
Skilled at navigating organizational dynamics, collaborating effectively with legal, marketing, and business operations teams to drive research adoption. Combines deep empathy with analytical thinking to translate complex user needs into actionable strategies that drive product success, whether as a team builder, strategic advisor, or hands-on practitioner. Built the first UX research team at Hinge Health, leading a team of six researchers working across 25 product pods.
Providence Health & ServicesPrincipal UX Researcher
Oct. 2023 - Apr. 2025Leading innovative projects to change the path of healthcare for good. The Providence network includes 51 hospitals and 1,000 clinics serving 5 million patients annually. • Conduct generative research to inform product strategy, aligning with key stakeholder needs and market trends. By interviewing internal stakeholders, helped the team better understand the pain points and potential for creating new products in the space.
• Drive strategic research initiatives for emerging AI technologies, translating complex user needs into actionable product requirements
• Lead end-to-end research strategy and implementation for 0>1 products, crossing from research to product and creating requirements
• Present quarterly research findings to leadership, directly impacting strategic planning and product direction
• Figjam, Jira, Office Suite, User Interviews
third brain studioBuilding UXR teams, mentoring and conducting inclusive research
Jul. 2023 - Dec. 2023Portland, Oregon Metropolitan AreaProviding resources for individual contributors and companies seeking support in the areas of UX Research and Accessibility. -Creating UX research efforts or research teams - helping to build a framework including budgets, tools, frameworks, hiring strategy, team tenets, etc.
- Consulting on and implementing end to end UX Research efforts, specializing in qualitative research from generative to evaluative.
- Consulting on inclusive practices in UX Research.
- Consulting on efforts to support employees with a disability in your organization.
-Mentoring individuals looking to uplevel their work, seeking a thought partner, open a consulting practice or move to a UXR role.
Chronic Pain ProjectExecutive Director
Jun. 2023Portland, Oregon Metropolitan AreaBringing visibility to the experience of chronic pain. Through a series of surveys and interviews, this project will highlight the experience of people who live with chronic pain. Part of this project is also creating a visual representation of the experience of chronic pain. See more at www.chronicpainproject.org - Key point of contact for board meetings. Setting agendas, running meetings and bringing on new board members
– Grant seeking, grant writing and grants management, including researching grant opportunities, developing proposals
– Project management and research operations such as organizing multiple project timelines and deliverables, documenting project decisions, maintaining project materials
– Oversee website and brand development making sure there is continuity in voice, look and feel of all physical and digital materials.
– Coordinating and overseeing volunteer staff, providing project direction and scope.
– Creating a CRM using Excel to manage art submissions, donors, potential and partners. – Research tasks such as preparing presentations and generating data reports for public and specialized audiences.
- Create and publish monthly newsletter on Substack for visibility into our mission and to create community through shared experiences. Tools: Google Forms, Claude AI, Substack, Zeffy
Hinge HealthSenior Manager, UX Research
Apr. 2021 - Apr. 2023Portland, Oregon, United StatesI joined Hinge to build a UX Research practice from the ground up. I built the team from 0-6 with UXRs who bring the voice of the customer, in acute or chronic pain, to our product development team. • Created and implemented the vision, direction and team working model. In 2022 the team ran and supported 70+ mixed methods studies driving product change. Hired, managed, and mentored 5 UXRs and 1 Research Ops role. • Managed all research operations including budget, hiring, participant and data privacy, vendor management, process standardization, and tool selection and usage.
• Designed and drove democratization program which supported researchers in providing guidance to non-researchers conducting low risk, low complexity research. Empowered 20 non-researchers to conduct research in the first 6 months. • Collaborated with matrixed partners to prioritize research projects and ensure success across channels (Engineering, Design, Product, Clinical, Marketing, and Commercial).
• Mentored Junior Researcher in onboarding study. Research insights drove 2/3 of users to sign up for the program in the same day when using their own phone and being provided a clear value proposition. • Championed and implemented WCAG training by LevelAccess for all RnD. Acted as program liaison to set parameters, find budget, identify a planning team and schedule programs for maximum attendance.
• Dscout, User Interviews, Asana, Qualtrics
DexcomUX Research Manager
Mar. 2020 - Apr. 2021Portland, Oregon, United StatesLead Design Research for software, hardware and overall experience projects. Mentor junior researchers, interns and manage multiple vendor partners to help the organization make the best choices to support our customers with diabetes. .
Co-chair of ABLE, Dexcom's ERG focusing on accessibility and inclusive design.
• Responsible for combining all user + business + technology needs to drive future portfolio recommendations to the business.
• Managed vendors who ran competitive analysis, journey mapping and qualitative research to inform our Type 2 and Pregnancy programs. • Initiated a program for accessible design by facilitating trainings for 50+ employees, guidelines and inclusive user testing.
• UserTesting, Figma, Trello. Qualtrics
DexcomSenior UX Researcher
Apr. 2018 - Mar. 2020Portland, Oregon AreaThis role allows me to continue to be curious, passionate, listen to customers, be their voice and connect the dots to create a more usable and desirable product for all existing and potential customers. • Initiated a survey of Dexcom customers to capture the percentage of customers with disabilities. This data was added to the existing demographic data to create a more complete picture of our members. • Partnered with an audio designer to create a soundscape so that blind users would have access to their glucose trends. • Piloted user testing to better understand the challenges of blind users when pairing their Dexcom applicator to the app. This resulted in increased contrast on text and better touchpoints on the physical product. • Conducted validation testing with users over age 70 on the receiver hardware. Key insights that impacted future product development included the confusion of a product with buttons in a mostly touchscreen world and a lack of understanding of the symbols on the device.
Janna Kimel ConsultingPrincipal Researcher
Jul. 2017 - Apr. 2018Portland, Oregon AreaI proposed, budgeted, designed, implemented, analyzed and presented qualitative research to design the best experiences for customers including Intel and Providence.
Intel via 52 Ltd.Senior User Experience Researcher - Wearable Technology
Aug. 2016 - Jul. 2017Portland, Oregon AreaUser research on headworn products and smart watches. Working with internal stakeholders and external vendors to create user friendly products for enterprise and consumer markets. Had the unique opportunity to shadow warehouse workers to better understand the process of picking and packing and inform the smart glass design.
Cambia Health SolutionsCustomer Experience + Insights Manager
Jun. 2014 - Aug. 2016Portland, Oregon AreaMy role was to influence enterprise level projects and senior leadership by using consumer-centric practices. I reviewed projects across the organization, providing priorities, budgets and resources as necessary. • Partnered with a product team to design new payment models for patients faced with large health care bills. Through in depth interviews, the team uncovered pain points for both providers and patients and proposed places to interrupt the current workflow to increase patient transparency and decrease unpaid accounts. • Evangelized for the Cambia end user, creating personas, journey maps, a persona room, trading cards and interactive exercises all in service of helping employees understand and empathize with our consumers. With a small CX team and limited resources, this “teach a man to fish…” solution helped to create CX advocates across the organization. • Managed the consumer experience for Cambia’s first mobile app providing insights and direction on communication preferences and in app functionality. • Acted on behalf of the consumer with projects across the organization. With a year's worth of projects, I analyzed and prioritized project needs, assigning resources appropriate to the consumer impact. (High, medium or low)
The Regence GroupSenior user experience researcher
Oct. 2011 - Jun. 2014Portland, ORAs part of the Analytics team, I rounded out the eBusiness and Strategy group, bringing the "why" of qualitative research to a team of quant geeks! Together, we learned to tell the full story from data to anecdotes to better understand the users of all of the company's digital assets. Our main focus was the Regence.com website and planning for a mobile app, Using tools from discovery and ethnography to focused usability testing, my work assisted the team in understanding the real people at the other end of the computer, bringing insights into our agile development process.
MicrosoftConsultant - Hardware Group
Aug. 2011 - Oct. 2011Redmond, WashingtonConducted qualitative research informing new peripherals including headsets, mice and keyboards. We discovered the split use cases between tablets for consumption and PCs for production. Used Ovo Studios to create quick turn videos to share findings with the design and development teams in the U.S. and China.
The Art Institute of PortlandSoft-goods design and Design Research Adjunct Faculty
Feb. 2009 - Aug. 2011Portland, Oregon AreaTaught courses in the Design Studies track in design research and soft-goods design. Taught students how to set up and practice design research. In soft-goods design, students were taught how to sew and the basis of fabric. They were given the challenge of creating a shelter out of sewn products to house people living in poverty or those who had survived a disaster.
third brainstudio, LLCPrincipal + Senior Design Researcher
Jan. 2008 - Aug. 2011Portland, OregonLed a consulting agency which provided experience research to technology and healthcare companies who were creating new products, services and software. We provided a range of research methodology from early contextual research to usability and validation work. By partnering with companies like Providence, Intel and other large and small health and hi tech companies, we were able to give visibility to the voice of the consumer. Deliverables included personas, videos, findings and recommendations from research.
IntelDigital Health Design/Research
Jun. 2005 - Dec. 2008Hillsboro, OregonPosition Intel as a leader in the healthcare industry by conducting health related design and user experience research to support seniors staying in their homes as long as possible. Projects included longitudinal research in support of designing a smart pillbox and designing and protoyping a lamp which allowed a parent and adult child to know one another are safe at home with ubiquitous computing. Our team created the Intel Health Guide, a first of its kind telehealth device for seniors. By talking with seniors and physicians, conducting contextual and usability research, we uncovered unmet use cases and better understood stakeholder needs.
Accessible Threads Design StudioPrincipal Apparel Designer, Researcher and Manufacturing
Jan. 1990 - Jun. 2005Accessible Threads began as a company designing apparel for people with special needs. Starting with individual alterations and growing to small run manufacturing, we were able to support hundreds of individuals in living more independently. With a background in sewn goods, this company grew into a consulting business working with other organizations as a consultant providing qualitative research for trends and use cases in addition to expertise with fabrics, manufacturing and design for soft-goods and apparel. Clients included Brookfield Zoo, IDEO, Chicago Children's Museum, Trek Bikes, and Baxter Pharmaceuticals.
Intch is a Professional Networking App for the Future of WorkSee more people like Janna on Intch
300k+ people
130+ countries
AI matching
Get Intch if you'd like to
1130484 people
21
CEO / Leadership Coach / Career Strategist / Instructional Designer / Curriculum Consultant @ Expanding Leaders
15
Project Manager, Consultant
15
Production Assistant
137650 people
16
Director, User Experience Design @ Cox Automotive Inc.
16
Outside Sales Manager @ Tyson Foods
16
Founder | Business Consultant | Leadership Speaker @ Maven Business Consultant Group