NICOLAS DE SOUZA · UX RESEARCHER
Connecting users, business, and technology through design.
3 years of experience in insurance and healthcare, turning complex journeys into product and service decisions.
- UX Research
- Service Design
- Product Analytics

About me
My focus is on transforming complex journeys into experiences that people can navigate on their own. At Seguros Unimed, I learned to work and innovate in a highly regulated environment. I restructured the company's beta tester program from scratch, conducted workshops and research with customers, employees, and business teams. Always tracking metrics to know if what we delivered actually changed anything.
I got here along a crooked path, and it helps me every day: I spent two and a half years as a mechanical assembler on the Mercedes-Benz production line before moving into communications and then into UX. Anyone who has worked inside a real operational process understands, in practice, why a badly designed flow is not just an annoyance on a screen. It is rework, it is a queue, it is someone at the end of the line fixing it by hand.
Cases

- UX Research
- ResearchOPS
Beta Tester Program
Built Seguros Unimed's beta tester program, enabling fast validation of hypotheses, prototypes, and research with real users.
- −50%time to insight
- +2,000active participants
- +15studies enabled

- UX Research
- Service Design
Longevity 60+ Project
A study with Seguros Unimed's senior members and their caregivers, to understand the care ecosystem.
- +550survey responses
- 12in-depth interviews
- 2audiences mapped

- UX Research
- Service Design
Cancellation Journey and Churn
Mapped and redesigned the digital cancellation flow, balancing regulatory requirements, customer clarity, and retention strategy.
- New journeyend to end
- Prototypeclickable
- ANS and SUSEPcompliance addressed
Recognition & Education
Awards & Publications
- 2025Award
Best ENADE performance
Highest ENADE score among the students of my university
- 2025Award
Finalist: Prêmio Amigos do Mercado
Best Intern category (Brazil)
- 2024Award
Winning project: Ideias de Valor
Seguros Unimed's internal innovation program
- 2019Publication
Academic paper in a journal by USP and University of Porto
Paper developed as a high school final project
Education
- 2026 to presentESPMPostgraduate degree in Business and Experience Design
- 2022 to 2025FAPCOMBachelor's degree in Advertising
- 2025Design CircuitUX Design program
How I research
Step 1: Frame before asking
I start with the decision that is stuck, not with the technique. If nobody can say which choice the study will unlock, the study is not ready to start.
Step 2: Qual and quant correct each other
Interviews and usability tests to understand the why; GA4 and Hotjar to size the problem. One data source alone misleads; the two together rarely do.
Step 3: Test with people who actually use it
Moderated and unmoderated tests, with continuous recruiting through the beta tester program, cutting the time between question and answer from weeks to days.
Step 4: Deliver decisions, not reports
The output is not the document: it is the team changing course. I track the metric after launch to close the loop and confirm the reading was right.
Stack & Tools
Research & Validation
- In-depth interviews
- Moderated usability testing
- Unmoderated testing
- Quantitative research
- SurveyMonkey
- Beta tester program
- Participant recruiting and screening
AI applied to the work
- Building agents
- Automating and streamlining research processes
- Support for qualitative data synthesis
Synthesis & Modeling
- Journey mapping
- AS-IS and TO-BE mapping
- Personas
- Service blueprint
- Benchmarking and competitive analysis
- Insight prioritization matrix
Product Analytics & Data
- Google Analytics 4
- Hotjar
- Funnel analysis
- Churn analysis
- Data-driven design
Design & Prototyping
- Figma
- Clickable prototyping
- Flow documentation
Accessibility
- WCAG 2.1
- Contrast and keyboard navigation reviews
- Accessibility criteria in requirements
Regulated context
- ANS and SUSEP requirements
- Working alongside legal and compliance
- Health, pension, and dental products
Process
- Discovery and Delivery
- Agile methods
- Workshop facilitation
- Double Diamond
Languages
- Portuguese (native)
- English
- Spanish
Let's talk
Open to conversations about research, products, and services.
nicolasdesouza.sza@gmail.com