Maria Alyssa Stiller
Summary
5 years+ of cross-functional experience leading product discovery, conducting mixed-method research and leading collaborative design sprint to shape intuitive and scalable solutions.
Overview
4
4
years of professional experience
Work History
UX Research Lead
Cengage Group / ed2go
02.2024 - Current
- Conducted discovery interviews across student disciplines, surfacing universal friction points and discipline-specific onboarding challenges. Translated findings into an interactive Figma learner journey map that built cross-team empathy and drove alignment on priorities, contributing to course completion growth from 79% to 85%.
- Service Blueprint & Automation - Led end-to-end internal mapping of the processes behind the student experience, culminating in a service blueprint that surfaced operational inefficiencies and opportunities for automation, contributing to 7% of eligible courses now running on automated activation.
- Workshops & North Star - Facilitated cross-functional workshops using the student journey and service blueprint as a shared lens, aligning a disparate team of engineers, content, sales and student services around a unified future-state vision, securing organizational buy-in and funding that defined a full year of product priorities.
- Shopping Funnel Optimization - Conducted heuristic evaluations and buyer journey interviews to identify critical decision gaps in the course enrollment funnel, pinpointing vulnerable drop-off steps for hesitant enrollers. Research recommendations led to a Calendly integration providing a lower-commitment enrollment step, resulting in a 43% increase in 'Learn More' form submissions.
- Mixed Method Experiments & Insight Advocacy - Leveraged A/B testing, usability testing, Figma Make prototyping and heatmap analysis to redesign the course syllabus section, defending the feature against deprioritization and improving page engagement by 23%.
- AI Student Assistant - Conducted usability research revealing low discoverability and mental model misalignment among older learners. Insights drove a multi-layered introduction strategy alongside a modernized visual design language, shifting perception from tech support tool to learning companion and driving engagement from 11% to 40%.
UX Researcher
Cengage Group / MindTap
10.2022 - 02.2024
- Mapped instructor workflows and jobs-to-be-done to develop personas for Higher Ed students and instructors, contributing to a strategic shift in how Cengage approached partnerships with Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, Canvas).
- Conducted tree testing and reviewed support cases to develop to optimize navigation of a FAQ/support widget inside the Cengage Instructor Center.
- Improved adoption page usability and engagement through moderated user testing, average time to adoption dropped from 5 minutes to 53 seconds.
Associate UX Researcher
HPE
03.2022 - 10.2022
- Developed an interactive research repository in Dovetail, backed by internal discovery and usability testing with stakeholders so they could access past studies and request research intuitively.
- Collaborated with designers and engineers to test a design system of atomic design components backed by accessible design testing.
- Developed and facilitated a monthly inclusive design workshop series for internal stakeholders, drawing on WCAG, WHO, and Microsoft inclusive design frameworks. Led hands-on screen reader simulation exercises to build empathy and accessibility awareness across the organization.
UX Research Guest Instructor
Cardinal Hayes High School
Bronx, NY
11.2025 - 12.2025
- Co-developed and taught a 3-week UX Research curriculum for high school students, covering UX methods for user-centered design (personas, userflows, wireframing). Curriculum culminated in students building their own app prototypes in Figma that solved real-world problems.
Education
B.A. - Cognitive Psychology & Behavioral Neuroscience Concentration
Barnard College, Columbia University
06.2012
UX/UI Design Bootcamp - undefined
Flatiron School of Tech
06.2020
UX Design & Strategy for Emerging Technologies - undefined
NYU Tandon School of Engineering RLab
11.2019
Skills
- Dovetail
- Optimal Workshop
- UserTesting
- UserZoom
- Qualtrics
- DScout
- Recollective
- User Interviews
- Miro
- Mural
- FigJam
- Figma
- Google Analytics
- Amplitude
- Mouseflow
- Google Slides
- Keynote
- PowerPoint
- Claudeai
- ChatGPT
- NotebookLM
- Slack
- Teams
- Subject Matter Expert
- Heuristic Analysis
- Jobs-to-be-done Analysis
- Service Blueprints
- Persona Development
- Journey Mapping
- Low-fidelity Prototypes
- Co-participatory Design Workshops
- Card Sorting
- A/B Testing
- Benchmarking
- Unmoderated Usability Testing
- Moderated Usability Testing
- Surveys
- Tree Testing
- Workshop facilitation
- Stakeholder Alignment
- Storytelling
- Creative Communication
- Strategic Roadmap
- Business Opportunity Identification
Tools And Software
Dovetail, Optimal Workshop, UserTesting, UserZoom, Qualtrics, dScout, Recollective, User Interviews, Miro, Mural, FigJam, Figma (Design & Make), Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mouseflow, Google Slides, Keynote, PowerPoint, Claude.ai, ChatGPT, NotebookLM, Slack, Teams
Research Skills Methods Deliverables
Subject Matter Expert and User Interviews, Heuristic Analysis, Jobs-to-be-done Analysis, Service Blueprints, Persona Development, Journey Mapping, Low-fidelity Prototypes, Co-participatory Design Workshops, Card Sorting, A/B Testing, Benchmarking, Unmoderated and Moderated Usability Testing, Surveys, Tree Testing, Workshop facilitation, Stakeholder Alignment, Storytelling and Presenting, Creative Communication, Strategic Roadmap and Business Opportunity Identification
Community And Teaching
Cardinal Hayes High School, Bronx, NY, UX Research Guest Instructor, 11/01/25, 12/01/25, Co-developed and taught a 3-week UX Research curriculum for high school students, covering UX methods for user-centered design (personas, userflows, wireframing). Curriculum culminated in students building their own app prototypes in Figma that solved real-world problems.
Timeline
UX Research Guest Instructor
Cardinal Hayes High School
11.2025 - 12.2025
UX Research Lead
Cengage Group / ed2go
02.2024 - Current
UX Researcher
Cengage Group / MindTap
10.2022 - 02.2024
Associate UX Researcher
HPE
03.2022 - 10.2022
B.A. - Cognitive Psychology & Behavioral Neuroscience Concentration
Barnard College, Columbia University
UX/UI Design Bootcamp - undefined
Flatiron School of Tech
UX Design & Strategy for Emerging Technologies - undefined
NYU Tandon School of Engineering RLab