Applied Research
Industry research on authority, evidence, credibility, and reliance in product contexts where people must make consequential decisions without complete certainty.
I bring a research lens on authority, evidence, credibility, and reliance to product contexts where users, customers, and organizations must act with incomplete information. My industry work spans AI-generated content, marketplaces, search, automotive retail, job-seeker decision support, internal tools, and 0→1 research infrastructure.
This is not a public portfolio of case studies. Detailed process decks live in interview settings. Publicly, I organize this work by the kinds of ambiguity I help teams resolve.
AI-generated content, evidence, and reliance
I help teams understand when AI-authored content becomes usable, when users require proof or provenance, and what kinds of claims exceed the authority users are willing to grant to generated summaries.
Experience includes human evaluation of AI-generated vehicle summaries in a high-stakes automotive purchase journey.
What this demonstrates: this work treats AI-generated content as an authority and evidence problem, not just a UI or content-quality problem.
Experience includes human evaluation of AI-generated vehicle summaries in a high-stakes automotive purchase journey.
What this demonstrates: this work treats AI-generated content as an authority and evidence problem, not just a UI or content-quality problem.
Trust and confidence in high-consideration decisions
I study how people decide what to rely on when incentives are uneven and interfaces must make credibility legible, including how shoppers and sellers interpret offers, data-sharing requests, and signals of legitimacy.
Experience includes automotive retail, job search, seller/buyer trust, price interpretation, offer credibility, and decision support in high-consideration journeys.
What this demonstrates: this work helps teams identify which signals users treat as credible, which claims require substantiation, and where uncertainty blocks action.
Experience includes automotive retail, job search, seller/buyer trust, price interpretation, offer credibility, and decision support in high-consideration journeys.
What this demonstrates: this work helps teams identify which signals users treat as credible, which claims require substantiation, and where uncertainty blocks action.
Visual credibility and merchandising quality
I study how photography, image consistency, editing, and condition cues shape perceived transparency and willingness to keep evaluating an offer.
Experience includes vehicle merchandising standards and how visual presentation affects trust in a high-consideration purchase journey.
What this demonstrates: this work treats visual presentation as an evidence problem, not a design-polish afterthought.
Experience includes vehicle merchandising standards and how visual presentation affects trust in a high-consideration purchase journey.
What this demonstrates: this work treats visual presentation as an evidence problem, not a design-polish afterthought.
Search, discovery, and content interpretation
I study how people use search, filters, ranking, recommendations, and content cues to decide which results deserve attention, comparison, or action.
Experience includes job search relevance, ranking quality, and product surfaces where users must make sense of many imperfect options, plus how customers use AI-assisted explanations to interpret complex purchase options.
What this demonstrates: this work connects search and discovery to judgment, not only whether users can find something, but how they decide what is worth trusting, comparing, or pursuing.
Experience includes job search relevance, ranking quality, and product surfaces where users must make sense of many imperfect options, plus how customers use AI-assisted explanations to interpret complex purchase options.
What this demonstrates: this work connects search and discovery to judgment, not only whether users can find something, but how they decide what is worth trusting, comparing, or pursuing.
Research infrastructure and operating systems
I build research programs that help teams create shared interpretive infrastructure before ambiguity hardens into roadmap commitments.
Experience includes building 0→1 research functions, study templates, intake norms, reusable reporting formats, and research roadmaps so research has institutional memory and product visibility.
What this demonstrates: this work gives organizations a clearer language for users, markets, evidence, and product decisions before teams overfit to anecdotes or internal assumptions.
Experience includes building 0→1 research functions, study templates, intake norms, reusable reporting formats, and research roadmaps so research has institutional memory and product visibility.
What this demonstrates: this work gives organizations a clearer language for users, markets, evidence, and product decisions before teams overfit to anecdotes or internal assumptions.
Product bets and concept risk
I help teams understand whether an interaction model fits the user's actual decision context before they over-invest in build.
Experience includes early concept evaluation, interaction model testing, product pivots, and identifying when novelty, speed, or automation conflicts with user intent.
What this demonstrates: this work reduces wasted build by clarifying whether a product idea matches the user's actual situation, incentives, and threshold for reliance.
Experience includes early concept evaluation, interaction model testing, product pivots, and identifying when novelty, speed, or automation conflicts with user intent.
What this demonstrates: this work reduces wasted build by clarifying whether a product idea matches the user's actual situation, incentives, and threshold for reliance.
Crisis information and platform-mediated expertise
I study how publics assess credibility, expertise, and accountability when creators, institutions, platforms, algorithms, and real-time risk collide.
Experience includes doctoral research on severe weather livestreams, weatherfluencers, livestream chat, public sensemaking, platform-native crisis information, and audience-constituted authority.
What this demonstrates: this work provides a theory of how authority becomes usable when formal credentials and institutional accountability do not fully settle who should be relied upon. See Research for the full argument.
Experience includes doctoral research on severe weather livestreams, weatherfluencers, livestream chat, public sensemaking, platform-native crisis information, and audience-constituted authority.
What this demonstrates: this work provides a theory of how authority becomes usable when formal credentials and institutional accountability do not fully settle who should be relied upon. See Research for the full argument.
Interested in how any of this was built, tested, or measured? I keep detailed process decks for interviews and direct conversations. Get in touch →