Laura Richardson is a multi-disciplinary design leader who loves the work.
Product, service, experience design and development. Design and business strategy. Research and insights.
Masters in Computer Science | Human Technology Interaction
Tech Forward, Growth Focused, and Hands-On
Business Development; Project Planning and Execution; Product Design and Development; KPI and Business Metrics Enablement; Mixed Methods Customer and User Research Design, Planning, and Execution; Insights and Innovation Reporting; Value Strategy; Growth and Competitive Opportunity Identification; Behavior Archetype, Persona, and Voice of the Customer Creation; Customer Journeys and Orchestration; Mixed Reality (physical/digital, AI, AR, VR) Scenario Envisioning; Innovation Pipeline Creation and Management; Value Driven Product and Experience Auditing; New Interaction Model Creation; Detailed Product Design; Value Resonance and Usability Testing Recommendations; Workshop Design and Facilitation; Teaching and Training (innovation).
Increase tax calculator funnel conversion of 6M tax users through new interaction models as well as data and AI considerations
Financial Services | Tax Preparation
Hands-On Work: Kickoff workshop creation, facilitation, and reporting; internal and external research audit; competitive audit; customer journey audit and creation; infield research; qualitative research; stakeholder interviews (including product development, data, and AI owners); KPI and metrics tracking; business and design strategy; new interaction model creation and product design; AI considerations; creative direction; value resonance testing; feature prioritization for product engineering teams and future business unit alignment.
Released Product (Fall 2025): https://www.hrblock.com/tax-calculator/
AI-enabled digital transformation vision across internal tools, partner offerings, and CX
Industrial | HVAC
Hands-On Work: Infield research, secondary research, competitive research; articulation and conceptualization of deployable AI solutions that offer demonstrable value to the company, partners, and customers; creative direction; product design; client partner support; BD.
Technology | Artificial Intelligence
Humanizing Artificial Intelligence for Business and Consumer Value
Hands-On Work: Co-wrote Value Optimizing CX in the Age of AI Report, which leveraged expertise on human experience values, business value, kansei (emotion) engineering, and AI (since 2016).
Download PDF (Fall 2024): Value Optimizing CX in the Age of AI
Real Estate | Rental and Leasing
AI-enabled mixed reality self-guided rental property tour CX
Sound On: Contains audio (Human-AI interaction)
Note: Ideas of “tour mode”, AI listening transparency, AI enabled voice conversation, and building up a chat with requested documents leading to conclusion of AR personalized moment and the beginning of the application process.
Hands-On Work: Infield research, secondary research, insights translated to product features, business and design strategy, product and scenario envisioning, product design, creative direction; client partner support; BD.
Create a digital product for a physical company to improve overall growth through KPIs
Consumer Products | Electronics
Above: real product screenshot from Apple app on personal phone (2026)
Hands-On Work: Co-creation workshop to define product experience and feature set across marketing, product, and engineering teams; research and strategy of the product (app) The Realm within the business and its opportunities to help in competitive differentiation as well as growth KPIs (new customer acquisition, product sales, brand loyalty, data insights, CLV, etc.); qualitative user research to inform app feature prioritization; onboarding and personalization conceptual screens to inform initial requirements for development team; ongoing design inputs and recommendations in the agile process as the product was built by a third party and features changed based on tech stack capability.
Business and experience strategy in AI-enabled mixed reality scenario for business development = 1M contract and skipping RFP process
Consumer Products | Cabinets
Timeframe: (BD) 11 days from research to vision scenario; skipped RFP process entirely and signed within three days of the client presentation.
Hands-On Work: (BD) Primary infield and secondary research; customer journey audit; ideal customer journey creation; mixed reality envisioning; technology partner; creative direction; product design; client partner and business strategy collaboration; value pools and size of the prize; business development; (Actual project) project planning; creative direction across parallel work streams; engineering team partner; client partnership; qualitative research and reporting.
AI-enabled CSR of the future strategy to unify organizational efforts and inform data and technology requirements
Financial Services | Insurance
Hands-On Work: Stakeholder alignment; Research design, planning, and execution; existing research audit; stakeholder interviews (including data, and technology); CSR training; new interaction model creation across three screens (call intake, client profile, “working the call” - choose your own adventure model); data types definition (e.g. insights, life events); integration of knowledge management platform; CSR performance metrics; KPI and business metrics enablement; scenario walkthroughs; creative direction; product design.
Custom GPT as innovation exploration leads to “me” as prompt and brand as corpus
Technology | Applied AI
Hands-On Work: “Technology as paintbrush” exploration for applied AI; customGPT training (image and word) on a brand’s body of knowledge; AI interaction conceptualization, and scenario design leading to connected commerce; client partnership; BD play.
Figma Prototype: concept walkthrough
Consumer Products | Healthcare
AI-enabled mixed reality, value-driven experience strategy to increase KPIs across CX
Hands-On Work: Primary and secondary research; competitive research; customer journey audit; value strategy; ideal journey experience scenario walkthrough; conceptualization and design of potential CLV (customer lifetime value) opportunities; creative direction; product design.
Consumer Products | Beauty
AI-enabled value pool opportunities to increase CLV and other KPIs
Hands-On Work: In-store and secondary research; competitive research; customer journey audit; technology mapping; connected commerce trends identified; conceptualization and design of potential CLV (customer lifetime value) opportunities; collaboration with client partners and management consulting team to determine value pools; size of the prize analysis; BD.
Technology | Development Environment
User research, and interaction model creation to support dev environment design
Date: 2019 [including because it shows strategic understanding of AI over time]
Note: Thinci became Blaize
Hands-On Work: Research creation, facilitation, and reporting; cognitive walkthrough of proposed development environment; value resonance and usability research informing iterative development; new interaction model creation; feature prioritization.
Service, experience, and product design across physical and digital from first touch to conversion
Healthcare | Hyperwellness
Hands-On Work: Co-creation workshop to define project; business development and project proposal collaboration; kickoff workshop creation and facilitation; creative direction for design team; client partnership; infield research to inform mental model and customer journey audit; existing research audit; competitive audit; brand audit; qualitative research; ideal journey creation; third party recommendations for sound design; scenario walkthrough; value strategy and signature moment conversion moments defined; service design playbook and journey map created — including front stage, and backstage moments to activate across the customer journey; value resonance research; research reporting and recommendations; final playbook readout; recommended prioritization.
Business strategy, experience strategy, and innovation management to improve the cost of plane turning
Travel | Airline
Hands-On Work: Kickoff workshop creation and facilitation, stakeholder interviews, infield research; audit of existing innovation efforts; audit of available plane turning data; plane turning journey articulation; new concept ideation to test and learn; innovation pipeline creation; innovation process articulation for organizational change.
AI and data enabled business strategy playbook toward a unified platform across fleet, people, and jobsites
Industrial | Equipment Rental
Hands-On Work: Kickoff workshop creation and facilitation; stakeholder interviews; infield research; audit of existing innovation efforts; business strategy report; KPI enablement; data strategy; technology architecture; innovation framework; roadmap to realization; value strategy; scenario envisioning to assist with organizational buy-in and change; partner recommendations; CMO support.
Technology | AI-Enabled Financial Services
AI and data enabled scenario development for an AIML platform to showcase its technical capabilities
Date: 2016 [including because it shows strategic understanding of AI over time]
ROI: 300% THREE YEAR GROWTH; sold to Tecnotree in 2022
Hands-On Work: Kickoff workshop creation and facilitation; stakeholder interviews; ongoing workshops to transfer knowledge to design team; conceptual development of agnostic solutions that could be tweaked for industry (e.g. fin services, healthcare) such as Cyrano (shown “listening” in primary screen).
Training | Workshop Creation
Workshop training creation, workshop toolkit, and cross-studio deployment
Hands-On Work: Audit of 50 prior workshops and secondary/best in class workshops; new eight-phased process framework created; workshop creation kit created including workshop training presentation; workshop creation canvas, client briefs to design against, and 100 method cards.