Principal UX Researcher & Product Strategist
Yann Riche
I turn ambiguous product questions into research-backed strategy — the kind that reshapes roadmaps, not just decks. PhD, 15+ years across Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce.
“Yann is a world-class UXR leader who was part of the core team that drove how we evaluated and understood Google Docs users... he was integral to the foundation of our product vision and strategy.”
Dennis Hu, Former Head of Product for Google Docs
Selected case studies
View all work →
Productivity software · Google Docs
Building the document type taxonomy that now grounds all of Google Docs strategy
10 shipped Docs features grounded in this work; adopted by Meet and Gmail for their own strategy
Productivity software · Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive
Coordinating a 4-product research program for Workspace's first visual refresh in 8 years
~1 billion users impacted; highly successful launch, reviewed at VP level
Conversational AI · Meta AI
Rebuilding AI evaluation around the conversation, not just the turn
New conversation-level rubric + methodology adopted to inform the 1–3 year roadmap
Foundational & strategic research
Turning vague product intuition into concrete, quantified frameworks teams actually use.
AI evaluation methodology
Rubric design, human/machine eval specs, and AI-assisted qualitative coding at scale.
Research program design
Building the systems — ResearchOps, enablement programs — that make research repeatable.
Cross-functional influence
Getting leadership aligned on evidence, from PM sprints to VP-level readouts.
Hardware / human factors
First-of-its-kind benchmarking methods for physical products with no prior art.
Mentorship & team leadership
Leading researchers and contractors; mentoring UXR, UXD, and PM career growth.