User Behavioristics, Inc. and founder, Heather Desurvire has years of experience helping clients create better, more successful products. We utilize the latest industry techniques and customize our approach to meet your specific needs. The result: is our clients obtain the tools and knowledge required to develop products that deliver an optimal experience for every customer!
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What our clients are saying
Heather ran focus groups and usability testing for a PSP game that I produced at Buena Vista/Disney Games. Her methodology helped us get to the nitty gritty of what wasn't working in the game"
- Cliff Kamida, Producer Disney/Buena Vista Games
"I know my team enjoyed working with Heather and felt that she brought a lot of value to the process. The feedback on the new site has been fantastic. Thanks for your hard work."
- Susan Lotwin, Director at Transamerica
"Heather is undoubtedly the best usability analyst that I have had the opportunity to work with. She has an instinctual ability to patiently work with clients in complex business situations to build consensus around the need for testing, catalyze the development of a testable prototype, a smart test plan, and deliver a concise report with actionable recommendations.
In a laboratory setting, her sense of humor and warm demeanor put users and clients alike at ease, enabling the most productive participation possible from both groups. While she is a veteran in the field, she is refreshingly un-wonky for someone with her experience, and continues to innovate with her work around playability. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to work with her again"
- Jeff Teicher, Producer & UX Designer formerly CMGI
"Genuine innovation is a double edged sword. On the one hand, we developed a completely new interface for playing strategy games on a console. On the other hand, no-one in the world knew how to use it. Consequently, we asked User Behavioristics to help us teach our 'potential fans' how to play StormRise.
Heather educated us in the principles of usability and accessibility, worked with us to redesign the early levels of our game, and then tested the effectiveness of our efforts. Heathers' knowledge and professionalism helped us through the mine field of gameplay innovation."
- George Fidler, General Manager, Creative Assembly Australia
Heather educated us in the principles of usability and accessibility, worked with us to redesign the early levels of our game, and then tested the effectiveness of our efforts. Heathers' knowledge and professionalism helped us through the mine field of gameplay innovation."
"Heather brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her projects. She is truly an expert. Working with her brought a level of expertise, process and discipline that quickly garnered valuable insights and recommendations. Following her lead, our teams were able to quickly act and implement creative solutions. Her passion, knowledge and enthusiasm coupled with her people skills are huge assets."
-Elton X. Graham, VP Ecommerce Kellwood Company
"Our work with Heather and User Behavioristics really helped us to identify points of friction being experienced by potential players of our game. Having that knowledge allowed us to truly focus our last few months of development and reach a level of usability, playability and polish that we would never have achieved otherwise ."
- Dallas Dickinson, Sr Producer Sony Online Entertainment
"It is also very challenging to gauge the difficulty levels when you have been creating and playing a game for over a year. I can honestly say that Tak [1,2,3 IP of THQ/Disney] would have been a different game without the influence of the usability testing that User Behavioristics provided."
- Rachel DiPaola, Exec Producer Disney & former Sr Project Manager THQ
"Heather set up our playability testing for a huge SEGA property, and the process and results were stellar, opening the eyes of both executives and developers on how to better make games. Her academic background combined with excellent people skills and a real passion for the work are an asset for anyone who would make next-generation games."
- Marty Caplan, Producer Sega
"Heather provided usability testing services for Harcourt Mifflin Harcourt. Her process and approach were flexible to meet our changing needs and timelines. the outcome of the testing has provided excellent insight into other products HMH develops as well. I really enjoyed working with Heather both for her personable manner and her expert guidance in user centered design"
- Barb McDonald, Learning Design Manager Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
"I found the usability/playability testing from User Behavioristics a very valuable tool in helping us identify critical gameplay issues for the Tak franchise. The information gathered allowed us to successfully re-design levels and mechanics to match our target demographic."
- Stephen Jarrett, Creative Director, THQ & DIsney
"Heather did a usability study for a project I led. Her work was superb. Most valuable were her insights into how people feel about and relate to our product. How does it change their day? What emotions does it evoke and why? We drew on her results not only to improve our usability, but to renew and refine our entire product development. Our sale lead mentioned how much he learned from Heather's work, as well...As someone on the team remarked, hiring her was one of the best decisions we made. i look forward to working with her again.
- Jonathan Grief, Principal at Grier Forensics
"Heather and I worked on a project for business related software. She is completely knowledgeable about user research methods and techniques. When it comes to domain knowledge she is a "quick study". She is both fast and diligent -'expert work done on a tight time scale' would be a good summary.
This particular project did not provide a good opportunity for creativity, but I have seen other examples of her work that show great innovation. I would whole heartedly endorse Heather. We have tried to recruit her for a full time position.
- Dennis Wixon, Research Director Microsoft
"In our first year of business, Fandango needed to redesign our website, which was 100% of our business and revenue source, while balancing multiple variables and making the user experience absolute priority. We interviewed several usability consultants, but Heather's proposal and interview blew everyone away and the team chose her in a unanimous vote. Both our technical and product management teams were thrilled with Heather's approach, expertise, project management skills, people skills and especially the way the 3 long days of focus groups were managed. The entire process could not have been smoother and Fandango still uses the interface designed from Heather's recommendations more than 10 years later.
- Melissa Trachtenberg, Director Product Development Fandago, current Owner Nycinsiderguide.com
"Heather is a true expert and professional in the field of usability and playability. I hired Heather to conduct a test for us with tween girls and their parents to determine the optimal registration process for a virtual world for girls. Heather asked the right questions of me, the client, kept her energy up through a very long day of testing, and delivered a fantastic and insightful report on time. I hope to work with Heather in the future as she added excellent value to our project."
-Jeanene Steinberg, Sr Product Manager Electronic Arts"The Skate 3 team utilized Heather to help test and refine the "Skate School' feature of the game - an important feature that was critical for teaching the game basics to a new user. Her up-front planning, detail-oriented test plan, effective real-time testing and thorough summary report helped us to shape and focus the feature into one that was improved many times over from its original vision. Her knowledge in the field of usability is invaluable - she would be a valuable asset to game teams looking to improve their player experience."
- Jason DeLong, former Producer Electronic Arts, current Executive Producer Zynga
"The insights gained by the detailed interviews and analysis coordinated and conducted by Heather at User Behavioristics truly helped us hone in on the most important aspects of bringing a new approach to our user interface design. First impressions are notoriously difficult to capture and Heather's work was invaluable in contextualizing those impressions."
-Louis Castle, VP President of Creative Development, Electronic Arts
"I have worked with Heather at multiple companies over my 20 year career in the video game business. I am always so impressed with her deep knowledge of the PSYCHOLOGY and SCIENCE behind user experience and exploration. Heather's insights and methodologies go far beyond what you would typically expect from a focus group or individual user experience research. She supplies detailed results and intelligent perspectives and recommendations. Heather is smart, personable, and efficient. I would be thrilled to work with her again in any capacity."
- Rachel DiPaola, Executive Producer at several game companies"Heather did an excellent job helping our game improve its usability and playability. She is not only an expert in her field, she is also extremely personable, understands her clients needs very well, and is wiling to adjust to reach the most optimal outcome for the client."
- Tina Yildirim, Business Mastermind InvivoPlay
"Heather is a top expert in usability and playability. We've worked together on large usability, heuristic evaluation and task analysis reports for Palm. It's always great to work with Heather. Her deep knowledge of research, analysis, evaluation and testing build the strong foundation needed for highly successful products."
- Louisa Sugar, Copywriter for Interaction Design and UI
"Heather is a true expert in her field and her experience and insights in the world of gaming helped give our research project a much needed head start."
-Ali Vassigh, Director of User Experience at EVA Automation"While at Lucasarts, we hired Heather on a number of usability projects. Professional, knowledgeable, and comprehensive on one side, fun, personable and a wonderful human being on the other. Heather always gave us what we needed, she's easy to work with, and given the opportunity, I'd work with her again!"
- Glenn Chin, Consumer Insights Lucasarts, now Kixeye
"The usability and playability feedback we received from User Behavioristics was invaluable in contributing to Full Spectrum Warrior's development. Heather's analysis played an integral function in helping us identify and address critical gameplay issues that otherwise would have gone unnoticed."
- Greg Donovan, Project Director THQ