Keith
Villanueva

UX Leader &
Professional Empathizer

"When the cost of an answer is plummeting, the question becomes the most valuable asset."
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Keith Villanueva
About
Currently UX Manager @ The National Fire Protection Association
Experience 8+ Years
Education Middlebury College
General Assembly UX/UI
Background 5-Star Service
French Literature
Philosophy

With 8+ years navigating complex, high-stakes product environments, I've learned that the user research and ideation are often the easy part. The real challenge is knowing what to leave on the cutting room floor, and making that case to twelve people who each have a different perspective.

The room where competing priorities collide and someone has to translate the language of users into the language of business, engineering, and stakeholders who all have different definitions of "done." That's where I live.

Currently at the National Fire Protection Association, where I lead UX strategy across a major platform overhaul serving professionals whose work carries real-world stakes. The work requires seeing the forest and the trees simultaneously: advocating for the best user experience at each step so that both the user and the business can accomplish their goals.

I am fluent in the language of users, business, engineering, and AI. I specialize in the hardest part: getting people with competing goals to build the right thing together.

Methods & Tools

The Toolbox

for use in Usability Assessment

Heat Mapping & Screen Recording

To capture user behavior "in the wild," I use Hotjar heat mapping to learn about how users interact with a client's site in its current state. Users here are not inclined to read marketing material — instead they find the pricing calculator and test out different combinations to produce different costs.

Heat map 1 Heat map 2 Heat map 3

for use in Research & Strategy

Personas: Research Distilled + Strategy Displayed

Always based off extensive user research through moderated and unmoderated user interviews, tests, and surveys, personas combine the user's perspective with recommendations for how and where the client strategically fits. Because users change over time, it is sometimes helpful to flesh out several stages of the same persona. The persona on the right leveraged survey data from multiple age groups to track changes and find opportunities over the lifetime of a wealth management prospect.

Sample persona document Wealth management persona age split data

for use in Facilitation & Alignment

Stakeholder Workshops

There's a moment in every project where the work ramps up just as you think you're out of the woods - not in the research, not in the wireframes, but in the room with a constellation of stakeholders. I lean on the same empathy that powers my user interviews to bring business interests together to achieve a singular goal with their users.

Stakeholder workshop notes and stickies
Selected Work

The Problems
Worth Solving

Full case studies available to explore — each one a window into the research, the decisions, and the work.

01
User Research Usability Testing Prototyping

Gen Z FinTech App

Doni Inc. · 2017

UX research and iterative design for a fintech app helping Gen Z users fundraise from their networks for personal goals. Three rounds of usability testing — from paper prototype to high-fidelity — validated a set of new features designed to increase engagement and return rate.

Heuristic evaluation across 10 Nielsen criteria Survey of 23 Gen Z users 3 rounds of usability testing User-validated Home Screen, Friends & Video features
View Case Study →
02
User Research Competitive Analysis Contextual Inquiry

Restaurant POS Systems

Independent Research · 2017

Applied UX research methodology to the restaurant POS landscape. Competitive analysis, surveys, user interviews, and on-site contextual inquiry at a 5-star resort surfaced the gap between how systems are built and how staff actually use them under pressure.

Competitive analysis of 4 POS systems Survey of 23 restaurant staff Contextual inquiry at Wequassett Resort Key insight: speed and click-reduction above all else
View Case Study →
Capabilities

What I Bring

Research & Design

  • User Interviews
  • Usability Testing
  • Survey Design
  • Card Sorting
  • Journey Mapping
  • Persona Development
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Information Architecture
  • Wireframing
  • Prototyping

Leadership

  • Workshop Facilitation
  • Stakeholder Alignment
  • Project Management
  • Dev Handoff
  • Team Coaching
  • Roadmap Prioritization
  • Cross-functional Collaboration

Tools

  • Figma
  • Sketch
  • Adobe Suite
  • Claude · Cursor
  • Hotjar
  • UserTesting
  • Google Analytics
  • Salesforce
  • Eye Tracking
Contact

Let's Talk

The best work begins with a good conversation. Whether you're building something complex, navigating a constellation of stakeholders, or just want to think through a problem together — I'd welcome the chance to talk about what you're working on and where I could contribute.

ckeithvillanueva@gmail.com