Financial compliance officers at major institutions review enormous volumes of trading activity to detect manipulation. Existing tools were slow, generated overwhelming numbers of false positives, and imposed no consistent workflow. Compliance teams were spending more time managing the tools than catching actual problems.

Generative and evaluative research with compliance officers mapped their existing workflows and mental models from the ground up. The key finding wasn't a preference for a specific UI pattern. It was that no officer worked the same way, and any product that assumed otherwise would fail. Monitor configurations, company standards, years of habit. The research had to surface not just what they needed, but what would get out of their way.

Surveyor 2.0 gave compliance officers full market order data visualization with unique representations for 20 distinct event types. A visual interface modeled on an email inbox made event review feel familiar. Each flagged event paired with a natural-language story panel explaining exactly why the exception was generated. The layout adapted to multi-monitor configurations based on the most common preferences uncovered in research. False positive review volume reduced by 10 to 100x.

Young adult cancer patients occupied an uncomfortable in-between space: too young to relate to older patients, too sick to maintain normal relationships. They were isolated, overwhelmed with clinical information delivered in formats designed for adults twice their age, and largely invisible within a system not built for them.

51 interviews with patients, oncologists, caregivers, social workers, nurses, and educators. Secondary research across seven domains: psychology of adolescent cancer, existing apps, literature review, blogs. Three core needs emerged from synthesis: Normalization (treated as a person first), Connection (trust-based, private), and Information (accurate, age-appropriate, well-timed).

Rather than building another broad health platform, the strategy committed to serving a small, specific population with extraordinary depth. MAYA, a 10-feature mobile application, prioritized curated content, privacy controls, and peer connection over volume. Built, deployed, and continues to serve the teen and young adult community at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

A major financial data platform was transitioning from an internal analyst tool to a client-facing product. Analysts struggled to formulate precise research questions, the platform was rich with data but hard to navigate without knowing exactly what to look for, and the business needed to protect proprietary data while building enough transparency to earn user trust.

Through interviews with subject-matter experts, four themes emerged: Education (better questions without being pedantic), Exploration (surface what users don't know they need), Staying Informed (proactive alerting on meaningful data changes), and Trust (balancing transparency with IP protection). Each became a validated product concept direction.

Two primary concepts developed and validated: a Concierge model guiding analysts toward better questions through non-judgmental real-time suggestion, and a Facilitated Exploration model connecting analysts to unexpected relevant data through a visual network map. Both grounded in mapped workflow realities, not assumed behavior.

Working with a major Indian conglomerate entering the healthcare market, I co-led a five-person team conducting 9 contextual interviews, 7 of them in-home, across students, doctors, professionals, and married individuals throughout Mumbai. The team first visited two radically different hospital systems to understand the landscape before any interviewing began.

Selected to design and lead a workshop at Interaction17, the global IxDA conference in New York City. The session gave 15 practitioners a framework for contextual research (See / Probe / Experience), hands-on NYC fieldwork, and a take-home reference booklet to apply in their own organizations. The goal was not just teaching methods, but instilling a disposition: before you design, go there.