First Insights

Our team of consultants is focused on three guiding principles during every engagement:

We Listen and Promote a Constructive Dialogue – Unbiased research and marketing advice must begin with an open mind. Understanding how to meet your needs involves learning all we can about your high level objectives.
We Attend to the Details – Our team offers transparency and knows that our attention to the smallest of details drives a successful project.
We Deliver Actionable Results – We know that your project direction, budget and reputation is on the line when you use an outside supplier and we only consider the job done when all stakeholders are satisfied.

Bios

Lon Taylor – Principal

For the past fifteen years Lon Taylor has cultivated his usability, marketing and advertising skills by achieving measurable results for Fortune 500 firms and successful start-up’s. Having filled a variety of roles as a usability moderator, senior project manager, director of marketing, and occasional information architect, he offers clients a straightforward approach to helping them meet their objectives.

The experience of working across a variety of industries - banking, insurance, travel, pharmaceuticals, automotive, technology and packaged goods - gives Lon a unique perspective when new challenges arise. The diverse nature of the projects Lon completed during his years at Blue Marble and Novo (part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s 4th largest advertising and media firm) demonstrated his ability to lead multi-disciplined teams and think creatively.

Before the emergence of the Internet, Lon supervised the production of B to B catalogs, consumer direct marketing initiatives, CD-ROM’s and touch screen kiosks at Digital Interactive and Marketlog Inc.

An active participant in the New York New Media community, Lon was co-founder of the New York Research SIG and currently serves on the board of the Chicago IxDA. He's also a member of the Usability Professionals Association, and has co-chaired Guerilla Marketing and Viral Marketing conferences for the Institute for International Research.

Lon has published usability related articles in Quirk’s Market Research Magazine, The Journal of Intranet Strategy & Management, and MarketingProfs.com. He holds a B.S. in Social Education from Boston University.

Julie Rabin – Senior Usability Specialist

Julie has over twelve years of qualitative and quantitative market research expertise. Before establishing a consultative role with First Insights, she was the Research Supervisor at Novo/Semaphore Partners, an interactive services firm and division of the Publicis Group. During her three years there Julie was responsible for conducting usability testing, heuristic analyses, online surveys, online focus groups, and on-site field studies. Her experience includes conducting multiple projects for Cadillac, General Mills, Orbitz, Phillip Morris, MetLife, Chase, Continental and GM Goodwrench.

Prior to Semaphore Partners, Julie was Marketing Manger/Research Analyst at Conde Nast, Hearst and Wenner Media conducting market research for magazines publishers such as GQ, Redbook, Rolling Stone and Golf Digest.

Julie holds a B.S. in English from SUNY Oswego

Domenica de Fazio – Senior User Experience Strategist

Domenica is a consummate Internet professional with more than 13 years of experience managing and participating on teams for countless web properties across a wide range of industries such as retail, finance, healthcare, telecom, and media.

She began her career in project management at an HMO where among other employee efficiency programs, she launched one of the first corporate Intranets. She took her passion for customer service and operations management and left to pursue an account management career working up to the level of Client Partner for the GE account while at (now defunct) iXL, Inc., where she oversaw the work of multiple web project teams in the US and Europe.

Domenica, who took a particular interest in web strategy and usability, then became the Director of Project Management and Information Architecture at theknot.com where she led a team of project managers to implement content navigation and special feature projects for which she also devised the front-end architecture through her dual role.

Later while at Henry Schein Inc., a Fortune 500 global medical supply distribution company, Domenica continued her work in Information Architecture and Business Analysis and then launched a customer experience practice group where she met with hundreds of employees and customers to understand their needs and translate them into strategic and tactical implementation plans for internal and external websites. Among the projects she managed was the development of a SharePoint based Intranet to serve the companies 12,000 worldwide employees. Through her work, Domenica became the trusted source for 'voice of the customer' information and regularly presented to the Web Implementation Committee as well as the Executive Committee.

Domenica has completed information architecture projects, usability testing and focus groups research for firm such as Portolio.com, Nike, Verizon Wireless, Nickelodeon, HBO, and John Wiley and Sons to name a few.

Domenica was the Top Operations Management student of her class at the Boston University School of Management where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.