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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
Nicolas de Souza, UX Researcher

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.

3 yearsworking in UX Research across insurance and healthcare
+2,000active beta testers in the base I built
B2C and B2Bclients, brokers, companies, and providers

Cases

Cover: Beta Tester Program
  • 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
Learn more
Cover: Longevity 60+ Project
  • 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
Learn more
Cover: Cancellation Journey and Churn
  • 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
Learn more

Recognition & Education

Awards & Publications

  1. 2025Award

    Best ENADE performance

    Highest ENADE score among the students of my university

  2. 2025Award

    Finalist: Prêmio Amigos do Mercado

    Best Intern category (Brazil)

  3. 2024Award

    Winning project: Ideias de Valor

    Seguros Unimed's internal innovation program

  4. 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