Research Partner

Lisa Ratner

Senior UX researcher in safety-critical transportation and accessibility

San Francisco Bay Area

“I integrate AI tools wherever possible and practice discernment.”

At Sprig

Lisa hosts Sprig's gatherings for research and insights leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing a perspective shaped by highly regulated, safety-critical products.

What Lisa brings to the table

Research where safety is on the line.

At Zoox, she aligns Product, Design, Engineering, Safety, Legal and Policy, spotting high-risk interaction failures early to improve safety and inform the roadmap.

Large-scale MaxDiff at Zoox.

She led large-scale MaxDiff desirability research and moved journey measurement from high-touch studies toward scalable, automated measurement.

Accessibility built into the product.

She founded Zoox's Accessibility & Inclusivity Committee and created Lyft's Accessibility Task Force, embedding inclusive guidelines into hardware and software design.

An award-winning civic project.

As a Code for America fellow, she helped build a business portal for the City of Long Beach that won the 2017 American Planning Association LA Award for Innovative Use of Technology.

Focus areas

Safety-critical research
Accessibility and inclusion
MaxDiff and large-scale surveys
Journey measurement
Analytics dashboards
AI in research workflows

Education

Press & awards

Background

Lisa is a senior UX researcher with deep experience in transportation, working on highly regulated, safety-critical and accessibility projects at Zoox, Lyft and Ford. She partners closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Engineering, Safety, Legal and Policy to navigate complex constraints and bring higher confidence to decisions.

Her work spans accessibility studies, large-scale surveys including MaxDiff, and analytics dashboards that pair data with real-world context. She specializes in the needs of people with disabilities, seniors, minors, caretakers and non-English speakers, and brings AI tools into her research workflow.

Career

2020 to present
Zoox
Sr. User Experience Researcher
2018 to 2020
Lyft
User Experience Researcher
2016 to 2018
Ford Motor Company
User Experience Researcher, Greenfield Labs
2016
Code for America
UX Design & Research Fellow

Earlier: RideScout, General Assembly

Join the conversation

Sprig hosts dinners, summits and virtual sessions for research and insights leaders in cities across North America.

Find an event near you