Every great experience starts with a great Story.
Hi, I’m Story Safford.
I build scalable UX Research & Strategy practices that embed user-centered thinking into company culture and operations.
I combine business acumen with data-driven storytelling to translate insights into actionable programs, optimized for scale and built to thrive in fast-moving environments.
Services
Senior researcher for teams who need a seasoned practitioner who's done this at scale and can hit the ground running on day one.
A comprehensive assessment of your current research operations with a detailed roadmap for improvement. Ideal for teams ready to scale.
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.
Ongoing guidance for leadership navigating AI integration, research democratization, or building customer-centric culture.
Case Studies
Biotech
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
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 what types of virtual visits warrant reimbursement parity with in-person care.
Digital Transformation
UX Research | Product Development
User testing, surveys, personas, frameworks, foundational insights and MVP requirements for a 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 to build community.
Integrated Marketing
UX Research | UX Strategy
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 led as VP Strategy XR. CLIO BRONZE WINNER!
North American Launch
Softbank Robotics
In my role as VP 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 B2C 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.
Wireframes & Prototypes
Offline-first application
Goal: Provide a more flexible experience for everyday tasks when internet connection isn’t possible. >>
Usability audit and redesign
Goal: Bring legacy web apps into the present day; eliminate redundancies and reduce hierarchies. >>
Web application toolkit
Goal: Synthesize multiple web applications into one seamless toolkit and reduce call center volume. >>
