Hello , I’m Rich Ridlen, welcome.
By day, I’m a highly-experienced user researcher whose career has primarily focused on entertainment tech, and that mostly in video games.
By night, I’m a story writer, cook, dad, husband, and horror and tattoo enthusiast.
I live in San Francisco.
YouTube
My career has mainly centered around entertainment tech and I’ve built and scaled foundational UXR teams at Meta | Oculus and Electronic Arts.
EA: My first spin here was focused on market research and lots of surveys. My passion being UXR, I attempted to start a UXR effort, but to no avail
A few years later they hired me back to bring a UXR org to fruition. I designed and built two labs, developed research protocols, grew out a recruiting/ops team, etc. While there, I worked on dozens of titles, with most of them I was with the team from the beginning.
Dynata: Lots of surveys: design, programming, and fielding. Great people there.
YouTube: Sole researcher on both YouTube Music and YouTube VR and launched them both. Cut me teeth on crazy insight evangelization there. The VR and games experiences, led me to the next gig
Oculus | Meta: I again had the opportunity to build out a games UXR org. It went from just me to 2 FTEs and 4 contractors. 100% remote which enabled nationwide recruiting and global studio reach. We helped improve dozens of titles.
And here’s a little more about me.
I’ve been working in tech for over 20 years, with most of my career centered on video games, music, and VR. Along the way, I’ve also spent time in market and brand research, giving me a broader perspective on user behavior and positioning.
I’m a mixed-methods researcher with a strong qualitative foundation. On that front, I’ve led nearly every methodology I’ve encountered—from in-depth interviews to large-scale field studies. Yet, I’m always still learning.
On the quantitative side, I write clear, targeted surveys, run basic statistical analyses, and collaborate effectively with data scientists to uncover the insights that matter.
You can check out my LinkedIn for more details.
“Rich drove material, measurable, quality improvements on many successful titles. Dev teams enjoyed working with him, and valued his input as did XFN partners.
“In working with Rich on large third-party titles, he was a key asset in the success of our publishing program.”
— Chirs Jurney, Director of Oculus Publishing
Currently, I’m doing contract work in the mobile games space and pro bono UXR for small game studios who need the research, but can’t afford it.
“Rich created the User Research org at EA [and] his work running the user research and breaking down the feedback in a way that the dev teams could action on and improve the games, was invaluable to the company. I'm confident the Dead Space franchise was delivered at a higher quality because of Rich.”
— Zach Mumbach, Lead Designer | Founder at The Wandering Band
I’m a big fan of longitudinals, both in work and in my life. I’ve conducted one week, four week, and thirty-six week longitudinal studies and have leveled up over the last ten-plus years that I’ve been designing and running them.
I’m more than happy to chat about them and give you any templates that I have. You can also check out the Dead by Daylight longitudinal I did for fun and my thoughts and experience with them in my work examples.
"Rich played an important role in supporting the usability of the Dead Space franchise. He maintained regular communication with the leads and provided clear, impactful reports throughout each game’s development.”
— Steve Papoutsis , CEO of Striking Distance Studios
Personally, I cook, make boardgames, write stories, ride rollercoasters, play video games, shoot and edit videos, watch movies (sci-fi and horror forever), play with my dogs and cat, and explore my city. But mainly, I just like to hang out with my wife and kid doing all of the above.
If you’d like to connect about contract or full time work, or anything else, please get in touch.
