Social media shapes everything from mental health to political violence, but research cannot keep up. Accelerating critical research by building shared infrastructure that gives researchers worldwide the clean data, standardized tools, and collaborative power they need to inform policy at the speed of change.
Role: UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher, Product Manager. Team: Director of Engineering, Program Manager, Data Scientist, UI Developer. Timeline: April 2024 to October 2025. Stack: Figma, Miro, Monday, Databricks, SQL, Jira, Atlassian Product Discovery.
The information environment, including social media, news, and online discourse, has far-reaching impacts on mental health, political violence, and societal decision-making. Yet research is not keeping pace with the scale of challenges or speed of changes, leaving policymakers without reliable evidence to guide critical decisions. This platform was designed to serve 400+ organizations across 250+ global communities.
Worked alongside a Director of Engineering, Program Manager, Data Scientist, and UI Developer to design and build the platform from scratch. As the sole designer and product manager, led the full design process from discovery through delivery while coordinating with engineering on technical feasibility.
Combined UX design, UX research, and product management into a single integrated role. This approach eliminated handoff delays between design and product decisions, enabling faster iteration cycles and more cohesive product thinking. Led user research, defined product strategy, designed interfaces, and managed the development backlog.
Conducted extensive user research across the global research community to understand workflows, pain points, and unmet needs. Research methods included stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, competitive analysis, and data analysis. Synthesized findings into personas, journey maps, and opportunity frameworks that guided the product strategy.
Designed data visualization dashboards, research tools, collaboration features, and content management interfaces. Conducted usability testing with researchers to validate design decisions. Iterated through multiple rounds of testing to refine the platform experience. Reduced research timelines from years to weeks through better tooling and shared infrastructure.
Building a research platform? A designer bridges complex data and intuitive UX.