Portfolio · 2026
Margaret
Borowczyk,
Ph.D.
UX Researcher & Service Designer · Arlington, VA
Linguist turned researcher. I work in high-stakes, regulated spaces - government services, financial systems - where the gap between how institutions communicate and how people actually experience that communication has real costs. My research connects what veterans, small business owners, and everyday users actually experience to the decisions that shape the systems they're navigating.
Research that moved
the roadmap
Scaling a federal developer platform by surfacing what engineers actually needed
VA's internal developer platform was built on an assumption: templatizing DevOps processes would enable self-service adoption. But adoption was stalling. Research across six teams revealed the real blockers.
Understanding why Credit Karma users abandoned TurboTax — and what rebuilt their trust
Credit Karma and TurboTax partnered for the first time on a joint tax filing experience. A full-season mixed-methods program revealed exactly where users dropped off and why — and every major finding shipped.
I'm a PhD-trained UX Researcher and Service Designer with 9+ years of experience leading mixed-methods research across government, financial technology, and civic tech. My academic background is in applied linguistics — which shapes everything about how I work: I pay close attention to how people describe their own experiences, where language breaks down, and what's being left unsaid.
I focus on problems at the intersection of infrastructure and human experience — internal tools that teams depend on, services that need to work for everyone, workflows that quietly create risk when they fail. I'm particularly drawn to trauma-informed research and inclusive design practices that don't extract from the communities they study.
I've built AI-assisted research workflows that scale qualitative insight, facilitated cross-functional alignment workshops with government and engineering stakeholders, and mentored design teams in research practice. I believe the best research doesn't end with a deck — it ends with a decision.
Let's talk.
Open to senior UX Researcher and Service Designer roles in government, civic tech, and mission-driven organizations — as well as consulting and research education partnerships. Best reached by email.