User research & foresight / Toronto

Don't lose people to problems you can’t see.

Talk through your problem → See the outcomes

I'm Neecha Klee. Studio Klee is a research practice for organisations whose work only counts when it truly meets people's needs. I find where yours is missing them, why it happens there, and what the evidence says to do next. Every engagement is built for its question and given the depth a real answer takes.

Based in Toronto
Across Canada and remote

The advantage belongs to whoever listened first

Understanding people properly, and early, shows up directly in what an organisation earns and how long it stays ahead.

What listening returns
2×

the revenue growth of their peers, at organisations that put the people they serve at the centre of how they operate.

What looking ahead returns
33%

higher profitability, and 200% higher market capitalisation growth, at firms prepared for what was coming. Eighty-three companies, tracked over seven years.

The opportunity

The organisations that pull ahead are the ones who went and found out first.

Sources / McKinsey research on customer-centric growth; Rohrbeck and Etingue Kum, Corporate Foresight and its Impact on Firm Performance, 2018.

Both numbers come from organisations that went and found out what people needed, early enough to do something about it.

Four critical decisions I was commissioned to answer

Each arrived from a client who could not settle the question from the inside. Open any one to see what happened.

01
Retail franchiseTorontoMarket viability

Is there a real market for a guided jewellery-making studio in this part of Toronto?

An investor was ready to commit capital to a franchise, with no evidence that this part of Toronto held enough of an audience for it.

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Project outcome

The studio opened, took on investment, and is thriving in the new location. The research found a defensible position in Toronto's experiential retail market and a business model that held up against it.

How I got there

I ran a horizon scan of experiential shopping, creative workshops and adjacent leisure experiences, which surfaced the shift toward participation-based retail and toward learning as leisure.

Then I sampled comparable services in person, watching where friction showed up and what shaped how people valued the experience while they were inside it. I tested the proposed business model and financial assumptions against both, and returned a prioritised where-to-play recommendation.

Methods

Horizon scanningObservational field researchCompetitive analysis Business model analysisFinancial viability review
02
Nonprofit care providerSystems & operations

How can internal systems keep pace with changing care needs?

Client needs were changing faster than the internal structure could absorb, and frontline staff were covering the gap by hand.

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Project outcome

The phased plan was carried into a formal execution strategy. The recommendation was to streamline the processes that had become cumbersome and put the case data to work in the dashboard.

How I got there

I ran stakeholder research across frontline staff, coordinators and leadership so the analysis reflected how the system operated in practice.

I mapped how roles, responsibilities and processes interacted under changing demand, then applied a foresight lens to how rising complexity in client needs would keep affecting performance over time.

Methods

Stakeholder interviewsSystems analysisProcess mapping Foresight analysisImplementation planning
03
Economic development agencyFive-year strategy

How does a five-year strategy become a better client experience?

A five-year plan was heading for sign-off while entrepreneurs were quietly dropping out somewhere in the service journey.

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Project outcome

A current-state and future-state analysis of the client journey, with the pain points scoped for implementation. Root-cause analysis separated surface-level complaints from the operational constraints producing them, and the implementation plan was carried into the next phase of the five-year strategy.

How I got there

I interviewed entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders to capture how services were accessed and experienced in practice, including the points where the journey broke down.

I built a journey map connecting individual experiences into a system-wide view, then applied a foresight lens to how entrepreneurial expectations would shift over the plan's five-year horizon, particularly around speed, accessibility and integrated support.

Methods

Stakeholder interviewsJourney mappingService auditing Root-cause analysisForesight analysisStrategic alignment
04
Social-impact filmAudience & funding

Can a social-impact film build a real audience and a fundable case?

A film with a cause behind it, no evidence an audience existed for it, and funders asking questions the team could not answer.

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Project outcome

The work became a pitch deck that has carried the project into funding conversations across a range of organisations. The research found a deep appetite for mission-driven cinema and a thirst for original storytelling in a shifting landscape, with room for a $25M project to move in it.

How I got there

I ran a horizon scan across film, social-impact media, animal welfare and cultural storytelling to identify emerging narratives, funding patterns and shifts in what audiences expect from purpose-driven content.

I reviewed the proposed investment allocation to clarify how funding would carry production, distribution and impact activity, then analysed how audiences sustain engagement with advocacy storytelling beyond a single release.

Methods

Horizon scanningMarket researchLandscape analysis Audience insight synthesisInvestment allocation review Foresight analysisSocial-impact strategy
What I do

One engagement. The decision you're weighing, answered.

You bring the question. I go and find out, then hand back an evidenced answer and recommendations you can act on. Scope is built around the question.

User research and market foresight

Two questions, answered together. What do the people you serve want from you? And what is shifting around them that will change it? A forecast is only as good as its read on people, so the two halves run together.

The work is built for your question and nothing else. I stay with it from framing through to findings, and bring in specialists when the problem calls for them. You get the cause, and recommendations your team can act on straight away.

How the world shifts

Markets move because moods do. I track what a culture has started to want and quietly stopped tolerating, then separate that from noise.

  • Horizon scanning and signal collection
  • Cultural and social trend analysis
  • Trend impact and uncertainty mapping
  • Scenario development and backcasting
  • Systems and causal loop analysis

How people really engage

Touchpoint by touchpoint, what people really do. The friction is rarely where the org chart suggests.

  • Ethnographic and observational studies
  • Semi-structured and contextual interviews
  • Behavioural and cultural analysis
  • Journey mapping across touchpoints
  • Root-cause and thematic analysis

What the evidence says

Findings turned into a decision, with the tradeoffs named and the reasoning left visible so your team can argue with it.

  • Synthesis and pattern analysis
  • Prioritised where-to-play recommendations
  • Workshop facilitation
  • Findings written for the decision at hand
In every engagement

What you get, whatever the question

  • The right question, framed first. We agree what the decision hinges on before any budget goes against it.
  • Evidence from the people you serve. Real interviews and real observation with the people your work is for.
  • Findings your whole organisation can act on. Written so a frontline worker and a CFO reach the same conclusion.

Every engagement is scoped to its own question, so the work drives the price. Start with a call and you will leave with a sharper version of the question, free.

Book a free call →

The answer is usually already in the room

Organisations arrive with a problem that has grown complicated in the retelling. The answer is almost always simpler and more elegant than the room expects, and it is usually already sitting with the people the work is for.

The instinct is to add something. A chatbot, an AI layer, another platform licence. The research usually points the other way. What people needed was already possible, and it was being hidden by a process nobody had questioned. That answer costs less, lands sooner, and leaves people happier with what they got.

I have spent close to a decade turning what I hear into simple, turnkey roadmap solutions. That comes from listening deeply, and for long enough that the pattern surfaces on its own.

A Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation gave that listening a direction. What gets observed becomes projections and pathways, so the work points somewhere. It also keeps me on the human pulse, in a field that reaches for the data first.

Service failures are never neutral. Somebody waits longer, gives up, or goes without. That is the part I am in this to fix.