Recent iterative evaluation · 2026
Making image upload feel simple
Five rounds with 250 participants measured performance, usability and attitudes, giving the team objective evidence to guide each iteration.
99%final task successView case study
RichardStelmach
UX leader working across user research, product design, accessibility and systems thinking.
More than 20 years across digital products and ecommerce. I help teams use evidence to make clearer decisions, improve the design and understand what changed.
Selected impact
Evidence connected to outcomes.
To understand what is really happening, I compare what people do, what they say and what the numbers show. Bringing evidence together helps reduce false positives and supports better-informed decisions.
- Task success
- 99%
- Final image-upload prototype study
- Conversion rate
- +7%
- Confirmed uplift from the initial holiday-search release
- Reduction in detectable accessibility issues
- 98.46%
- Destination Guides automated accessibility scan
- Bookings associated with map use
- 244
- Associated with destination-map use in one measured month
Selected work
Research that shaped the work.
For data privacy, I’ve included high-level summaries of each problem, my contribution and the outcome. Full case studies are password-protected; you can request access through LinkedIn.
Strategic discovery and experimentation
Adding flexibility without damaging clarity
Research showed where customers needed flexibility—and where adding it could make a commercially important journey harder.
+7%conversion-rate upliftView case study
Evaluative depth and architecture
Choosing an architecture before building it
Research with more than 800 users compared competing app structures before the team committed to building one.
100%correct product searchView case study
End-to-end research, design and delivery
Turning a map into a booking path
Research and interaction design turned an inspirational map into a clear route to book—and made its use measurable.
244user-level bookingsView case study
How I work
Leadership grounded in practical experience.
I bring evidence, standards, pragmatism and leadership experience, informed by more than 20 years of hands-on work across research, design and accessibility. My current role focuses mainly on leadership, setting standards and enabling teams, while independent projects help me continue developing my practical skills.
Evidence before opinion
I choose methods around the decision, then compare evidence from different sources to see whether a pattern holds up. This gives teams a firmer basis for action and reduces the risk of false positives.
Accessibility by default
I build accessibility into the work through clear requirements, enablement, reusable standards, audits and remediation—not as a compliance check at the end.
Traceable decisions
I have run hundreds of remote unmoderated usability and quantitative studies across web and app. I document the evidence clearly, connect it to design decisions and evaluate what changed—without claiming more than the research can support.
Independent open-source work
Accessible Design System
A machine-readable system connecting semantic tokens, component contracts, accessibility rules and Figma implementation—built to make accessible decisions reusable by people and AI.
View the system on GitHubA connected practice
Design, research, accessibility and leadership—working together.
Across more than 20 years, my experience has spanned product design, remote unmoderated and quantitative research, CRO, accessibility and UX leadership across complex digital products. My accessibility work includes defining requirements, leading enablement and remediation, auditing web and app experiences, and building accessible design systems. My LinkedIn profile has a fuller overview of my experience and current role.
View my LinkedIn profile