Taylor Bras

Taylor Bras is a UX Researcher and Designer at Salt River Project (SRP), a community-focused water and power utility serving the Phoenix metropolitan area. Her work centers on understanding customer needs and using research to improve digital products and experiences, including customer-facing services that help residents manage their energy accounts and access information about energy efficiency programs.

Taylor’s professional background combines UX research, UX design, human systems engineering, interaction design, front-end development, and UX strategy. Before focusing on UX research, she worked as a UX designer across industries including healthcare, technology, insurance, and sustainability. This design experience gives her a practical understanding of how research findings can translate into product and experience decisions.

At SRP, Taylor conducts research to help teams better understand customers and improve the experiences they have with the utility’s digital products and services. Her work includes both qualitative and quantitative approaches, allowing her to combine behavioral insights with structured data to identify customer needs, evaluate experiences, and support evidence-based product decisions. Her recent work has included research focused on customer experiences during service interruptions and other customer-facing initiatives.

Taylor has continued to expand her research toolkit through professional training. She completed the Burke Institute’s Moderator Training Essentials seminar in 2025 and Designing Effective Surveys seminar in 2025, strengthening her skills in qualitative moderation, survey design, question wording, sampling, research planning, and analysis. She also holds certifications in Qualtrics Platform Essentials and Qualtrics XM Fundamentals.

Her academic background is particularly multidisciplinary. Taylor studied at Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, completing both undergraduate and graduate studies between 2018 and 2023. Her coursework included Human-Computer Interaction, Human Systems Engineering, Qualitative Research Methods, Statistics of Human Systems Research, Usability and User Experience, Information Design, Interaction Design, and Design Accessibility and Inclusive Digital Learning. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 cumulative GPA.

Taylor’s earlier UX design experience also includes work with inclusive digital features and collaboration with Scrum teams. A former colleague described her ability to combine empathy for users with practical product development and highlighted her contributions to an inclusive feature while she was working as a UX designer.

Beyond her day-to-day research work, Taylor is active in the UX community and has participated in conversations about the transition from UX education into professional practice, stakeholder relationships, and building influence as a UX researcher. She has also spoken with students about UX career paths and the day-to-day work involved in UX research, design, data science, and related fields.

Taylor brings together research, design, technical knowledge, and customer experience to help organizations understand their users and create better digital experiences. Her combination of formal UX education, hands-on design experience, mixed-methods research, and work in a customer-focused utility environment gives her a broad perspective on user-centered product development.