Duration: Jun 2023 - May 2024 (12 months) | San Francisco, CA
Impact: 40% faster product decision cycles | Created 3 reusable behavioral frameworks | Built Research Bytes communication system
The Challenge
When Social Media Logic Meets Professional Anxiety
ATLAS was a decade-old business intelligence platform serving 400+ Audi America car dealerships—a strategic case study for IXIS Digital's enterprise ambitions. As a young, ambitious company working to scale their proven platform, IXIS faced a classic innovation challenge: despite incorporating "social features" (chat, insight posting), engagement remained nearly zero.
Leadership's initial hypothesis? We need MORE social media mechanics: notifications, gamification, performance dashboards.
Joining as their first dedicated UX researcher, I discovered something different: Professional data sharing operates under fundamentally different psychological dynamics than social platforms. The pressure to appear smart, the fear of looking confused, the absence of psychological safety—these weren't technology problems. They were human problems masquerading as feature requests.
Current disconnected resources vs. proposed integrated system vision
The Insight
From "Insights" to Questions, Concerns, and Thoughts
Through weekly semi-structured interviews with data analysts, a pattern emerged: people weren't refusing to share because the platform lacked features. They were paralyzed by performance anxiety.
"Sharing 'insights' meant I had to sound brilliant. What if I'm wrong? What if my analysis is obvious? I'd rather say nothing."
The platform reinforced a toxic dynamic: only share if you're certain, only speak if you're smart. This is the opposite of how learning organizations function.
My intervention: The Questions, Concerns, and Thoughts (QCT) Model
Three deliberately low-stakes entry points for participation:
Questions = "I don't understand this, can anyone help?"
Concerns = "Something feels off here, what am I missing?"
Thoughts = "Here's a half-formed idea, what do you think?"
This wasn't just a UI change. It was a psychological safety intervention grounded in behavioral science: lower the stakes of participation, normalize uncertainty, reward collaborative thinking over individual brilliance.
The Bright Side vs. Dark Side Framework
To help stakeholders understand the deeper implications, I developed a conceptual framework showing how stakeholder engagement activities exist on a spectrum:
Bright Side (Constructive)
Pragmatic: Context-dependent problem-solving, organizational development
Strategic: Financial performance, risk management, knowledge creation, reputation building
Intentional: False claims, destruction of commitment, harmful strategies, misleading behavior
Framework mapping stakeholder engagement from constructive to destructive patterns
This framework helped the team recognize that simply copying social media engagement tactics risked pushing the platform toward "dark side" patterns—where performance pressure creates false claims and destroys authentic collaboration.
The Method
Provotyping to Challenge Hidden Assumptions
I used my doctoral methodology—provotyping—to surface stakeholder assumptions that would never emerge in traditional requirements gathering. Early, deliberately rough prototypes forced conversations about:
What does "engagement" actually mean in a professional context?
Are we measuring activity or insight quality?
Whose behavior are we trying to change, and why?
These provocations revealed valuable insights about the organization: IXIS was a young, fast-moving company navigating a natural tension between innovation and established practices. The team brought together diverse backgrounds—from PhD-level design thinking to decade-tenured operational expertise. This created a rich, sometimes challenging dynamic where different perspectives on "moving fast" coexisted.
My goal was to introduce a research-driven approach that brought complexity to the surface early, when addressing it is most cost-effective. In a startup environment, this meant adapting academic rigor to business velocity—not always easy, but essential for sustainable innovation.
Collaborative workshop mapping actual workflows vs. idealized assumptions
The System
Research Bytes: Beyond Reports to Engagement Infrastructure
To address ATLAS's low internal engagement, I created Research Bytes—a weekly "dosage of research insights and inquiries" distributed through the company intranet and Slack. This wasn't traditional research reporting. It was a strategic communication system designed to challenge assumptions and start conversations.
Research Bytes: Weekly dosage of research insights and inquiries
Three research philosophies converge in design research strategies
Structured Format for Accessibility
Each Research Byte included:
Research Category (which of the three circles)
Insight (the key finding, written as user mental model)
Description (context and implications)
Sample of Research Content (original participant quotes)
Research Database Link (for deep dives)
High-Level Visualization (making data scannable)
Initial Ideas to Trigger Discussion (actionable next steps)
Example Research Byte: Car dealers anxious about data aggregation across channels
Engagement Mechanism
Posted weekly to Atlas Newsfeed
Shared in Slack channels (#product_strat, #general)
Discussed in biweekly UXR Zoom meetings
Encouraged comments: "Do you agree? Initial ideas? Want more research? Want to help?"
"Sometimes, the best insight is not the one that validates your idea; it is the one that challenges your assumptions and provides an alternative point of view that makes you feel uncomfortable."
I presented findings biweekly to C-level executives, then translated decisions into 2-week agile development cycles with engineers. This required constant code-switching: academic rigor for my research, business impact for executives, implementation clarity for developers.
The Vision
Beyond Features to Engagement Ecosystems
My work extended far beyond the QCT model. I was designing an integrated engagement system including:
1. Atlas Engagement Model
Six design principles embedding social responsibility into organizational behavior
2. Communication Management Features
Guided workflows for:
Advice Process: Seeking input before decisions
Consent Process: Ensuring stakeholder alignment
Consensus Building: Facilitating group agreements
3. Guided Workflows for Data Creation & Socialization
Structured pathways reducing friction in professional knowledge sharing
4. Persona Psychological Profiles
Mapping the psychological dimensions of different user types to personalize onboarding: three primary personas (Jeremy/GM, Eric/Internet Manager, Jennifer/MRC) each mapped across mindsets, motivations, anxieties, excitement triggers, and goals.
Three primary user personas mapped across mindsets, motivations, anxieties, excitement, and goals
The Reality
Rapid Learning in a High-Velocity Startup Environment
Working at IXIS as their first dedicated UX researcher gave me unprecedented access to C-level strategic decisions and direct impact on product direction—a rare opportunity in larger organizations. The company's youth and agility meant I could experiment with research methodologies and communication strategies that would take years to pilot in established companies.
What I Accomplished in 12 Months:
✅
Introduced QCT model shifting engagement paradigm from performance to psychological safety
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Created Research Bytes system establishing new standard for research communication
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Designed automated reports feature reducing analyst workload
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Built comprehensive onboarding research with three persona psychological profiles
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Developed Bright/Dark Side framework for stakeholder engagement ethics
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Facilitated ethical design conversations at C-level
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Achieved 40% faster product decision cycles through research-driven alignment
The Unfinished Work:
My work visa limited my time to 12 months, and several comprehensive systems were still in design phase at my departure:
Full MRC (Market Representation Consultant) workflow integration
Complete onboarding system deployment
Long-term engagement ecosystem implementation
Guided communication protocol rollout
The constraint of time taught me critical lessons about prioritization, impact velocity, and designing research systems that can sustain beyond the researcher.
The Learning
Designing Research Systems for Velocity and Impact
Looking back, this experience taught me that startup research requires different methodologies than enterprise research. I wasn't solving second-order optimization problems—I was establishing first-order research infrastructure while the product was still finding product-market fit.
What Worked:
Research Bytes as infrastructure - Creating a reusable communication system, not one-off reports
Visual storytelling - Making complexity accessible to non-researchers through design
Early-stage provocation - Forcing important conversations before they become expensive
Cross-functional fluency - Speaking business language, design language, and engineering language
Frameworks over features - Building thinking tools (QCT, Bright/Dark Side) that outlast specific implementations
What I Learned:
Velocity requires sacrifice - In 12 months, I had to choose: perfect comprehensive research, or rapid iterative insights. I chose velocity.
Small companies aren't easier - They're just different. Limited resources mean every research initiative must justify itself immediately.
Documentation is survival - When you leave, your frameworks must be self-explanatory. Research Bytes and visual frameworks became the knowledge transfer mechanism.
Impact compounds slowly - The QCT model might take years to show full effect. Psychological safety can't be rushed.
My Adaptation Strategies:
Research Bytes (bypassing formal reporting bottlenecks)
Multi-channel communication (Slack + Atlas + Zoom for maximum reach)
Reflections
When Research Becomes Strategic Infrastructure
This was my first experience building research practice from scratch in a startup environment, and it fundamentally changed how I think about UX research's role in organizations.
The power of constraints: Having only 12 months due to visa limitations forced me to prioritize ruthlessly. Every research initiative had to either:
Create immediate business value
Build reusable infrastructure
Change how people think about users
This constraint made me a better, more strategic researcher.
The value of youth: Working in a young company meant I could experiment without legacy baggage. Research Bytes, provotyping methodology, the Bright/Dark Side framework—these emerged because I had freedom to try new approaches. Some worked brilliantly. Others needed iteration. All taught me something.
If I were to do this again, I would:
Start with quick wins - Prove research value with immediate impact before proposing comprehensive systems
Document obsessively from day one - Every framework, every methodology, every insight should be self-explanatory for whoever comes next
Build allies strategically - Identify champions early and invest in those relationships
Design for handoff - Assume you won't be there to implement, so make everything transferable
What I'm most proud of:
Not the features that shipped or didn't ship, but the thinking tools I left behind:
QCT model as a lens for psychological safety
Bright/Dark Side framework for stakeholder engagement ethics
Research Bytes as a template for accessible research communication
Persona psychological profiles that humanized user segments
These frameworks don't disappear when the researcher leaves. They become part of how the organization thinks.
Methods & Frameworks
Tools and Approaches
Research Approaches
Semi-structured InterviewsProvotypingCollaborative WhiteboardingPersona DevelopmentMental Model MappingBehavioral Science FrameworksVisual Storytelling
