Meet Reroot

Samantha Zucker (she/her)

Sam is a design researcher and strategist based in Pittsburgh, PA, and the founder of Reroot Research.

She’s a creative problem-solver and a system-level thinker with the unique ability to see the big picture and meet the challenges with practical methods. As an avid puzzler, she loves working through a thorny challenge to find elegant solutions. And as a nature lover and linguistics nerd, you can be sure there will be wild metaphors in your future.

  • Like all good interdisciplinary folks, Sam’s career has spanned many roles and industries. She began working at the LMS help desk in college and moved into tech start-ups as a UX designer. (Ask her about the dynamics of scorekeeping basketball games for a shocking pivot). In 2014, she cofounded an internal innovation lab for ECMC in DC focused on building product solutions to the financial aid crisis. Between 2017 and now, she has built her consulting practice, which has become Reroot. She has SME in financial aid and higher education work and has worked in workforce development, health insurance, employee benefits, mental health services, and government subsidies, and more.

  • Sam attended Carnegie Mellon University, where she designed her major through the BXA interdisciplinary program. She studied conceptual art, communication design, and sociolinguistics – a trifecta of ways to understand how humans communicate and what happens when you shift it. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

  • I’ve been personally acquiring too many hobbies since I was little. I’m an avid audiobook reader, an artist (mostly ink, pencil, and watercolor, but I’ll dabble in anything), a jigsaw fiend, a traveler, an herbalist, and a tarot reader. I co-work with my Jack Russell Terrier, Murphy and will happily share photos.

The name Reroot captures our approach to user research. We’re all about helping our clients reground and reconnect with what matters: the users at the core of their products, services, and mission.

We’ve found that returning to that core via research helps reroute organizations through actionable insights to guide the way forward.

But we’re not just about finding our way back to the basics - we’re also focused on creating real impact. Reroot’s approach to user research is grounded in empathy, equity, and social impact, and we're committed to using our insights to create meaningful change. So whether you're feeling lost or just need a little help getting back on track, Reroot Research is here to help you find your way and create solutions that actually make a difference.

Reroot’s Process

Our process is informed by extensive experience and a focus on understanding when and why to use each method. Each client engagement is uniquely tailored and codesigned to fit your needs and resources.

What’s the typical process?

We start by working together to put words to the problem at hand. We’ll ask you questions to get at the heart of the challenge and offer a few broad approaches. You’ll receive rough cost estimates, and we’ll chat about how to get the most with the resources you have. Once we’ve agreed on a direction, we’ll work collaboratively on a project proposal.

This process generally takes one to two months from our initial conversation to the start of the project, though we can move faster.

Next, all projects go through the following phases, depending on your needs:

  1. Background research, including staff interviews

  2. Recruiting

  3. Qualitative “User” interviews

  4. Synthesis

  5. Optional: prototyping + additional interviews to test the prototypes

  6. Deliver findings and recommendations

The final report will include recommendations at multiple levels, from small fixes and language tweaks to strategic directions and cultural insights, which your team can integrate in whichever ways they need.

When does research make the most sense?

Research can happen at any point in the process - from the more open and discovery-based to evaluating an existing product. We start by figuring out where you are on the journey and what will be most helpful to you in this current moment, given your resources. If you’re feeling stuck, either because you have too many options or not enough, research can help ground your steps forward.

What do you call this research?

Our approach to design research pulls from multiple frameworks, including Human-Centered Design, the Double Diamond, Equity-based Community-Centered Design, and more. It is always adapting and growing. We believe it’s important to understand why we use any given process and to question and iterate on the process.

How does this fit into other disciplines?

Sam’s experience in-house at small start-ups means she can do a little bit of everything.

She’s not product design experts, but her recommendations tend to be more grounded in product architecture and specific design criteria than most researchers.

She’s not a data expert, but she’s built our google analytics for my teams and used data within my research if available.

She’s not a copywriter, but she believe language is the most critical (and often overlooked!) element of any design and will provide key language insights.

An Equitable Approach to Research

Our approach to design research pulls from multiple frameworks, including Human-Centered Design, the Double Diamond, and Equity-based Community-Centered Design. Equity is about actionable changes, not just talk. Feel free to ask me about the concrete shifts in my process created to address equity and power dynamics, for the better of the people involved and the research insights. This is a constant evolution.

Concrete ways we increase equity:

  • Collaborative recruiting, combined with years-tested policies, ensures we hear from people who are often overlooked due to time constraints and access.

  • A focus on understanding the historical factors that brought us to this point.

  • All participants are treated as valued experts for their lived experience and are paid.

  • Power dynamics are acknowledged and mitigated as much as possible, providing for participant autonomy.

  • Where possible, co-creation with participants via low-fidelity prototypes they can adapt and shift.

  • Where possible, participants are invited into synthesis to provide expertise.

  • Additional “reframing” phase before ideation to ensure the onus of a solution is on the stakeholders with the power to change it, not the users.

Operating Principles

  • Our goal is to get you exactly what you need—the research and findings—without wasting time (and therefore your money!) on fancy and elaborate deliverables. We optimize our work together for the results that matter without the frills that cost you extra.

  • The backbone of our work is an emphasis on ethics and equity in the design process. Reroot elevates the voices of people who need to be heard and translates them into findings that fit into your language and approach. We move forward by inviting people in, not isolating them. This includes exploring and discussing the power dynamics at play and the historical context of what has and has not been considered and evaluated previously.

  • Many of the systems we work with (health care, for example!) are complex—but that doesn’t mean people have to struggle through them. We love to make complex problems and systems approachable and easy to understand.

  • While Reroot has expertise in the research process, we’re not experts in your field. We understand the importance of learning the intricacies of the system you work within to be successful on our project. To do so, we ask strategic questions to fill in our gaps and turn to your expertise to fill in others. This allows us to jump into new sectors and systems quickly and with ease and see the larger system you operate within

About the Website

Dan McGorry created the Reroot Research brand, and Sara Weinreb wrote much of the copy.
Feel free to ask for an intro!

Land Acknowledgements

Reroot Research is operated in what is now Western Pennsylvania. Many people have had the honor of calling this beautiful region home for almost 20,000 years. The Adena, Hopewell, Lenape, Shanee, and Seneca have lived and built here before facing forcible removal.