Mirror Profile: Designing for Algorithmic Transparency
Problem Statement
Social media increasingly shapes how people encounter news, culture, and perspectives, yet personalized feeds can reinforce narrowing streams of content linked to social comparison, misinformation, polarization, and poorer well-being. Because these environments are continuously shaped by users’ behavior, two people can experience entirely different versions of the same platform, with little perspective on the media environment forming around them.
Making these patterns visible can turn an invisible system into something users can reflect on, helping them understand their own media environment, recognize recurring themes or viewpoints, question what is capturing their attention, and make more intentional choices about what they engage with.
Conceptual Model
I mapped how individual interactions can accumulate into exposure patterns, and how those patterns may shape what feels familiar, important, or normal over time.
Preliminary Research
Research shows users may understand social media's effects in general without recognizing how their own feed and behavior shape their experience.
People are more likely to recognize social media's negative effects on others than on themselves, and the way users engage matters, with passive users reporting lower self-worth and social trust more often than active
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Competitive analysis
Existing products reveal isolated metrics or moments, but rarely help users see the recurring creators, topics, ads, and exposure patterns shaping their feed over time.
User Research
I conducted six interviews and four card-sorting studies with ten participants to understand how people find meaning in their digital content.
Product Development
The Algorithmic Mirror shows users what patterns in their attention may reveal about their interests, moods, and perspectives, and how the system may use those signals to personalize their feed over time. By zooming out of the feed, users can see what the content they consume adds up to as a whole, giving them greater awareness of their media environment and greater agency to adjust their preferences.
Prototype & Feasibility
I designed a Figma prototype to show how the Algorithmic Mirror could work within a social media platform. Since I didn’t have access to backend data, I explored what we could learn from the feed itself, building a proof of concept that analyzed screen recordings, extracted individual posts, and identified recurring content patterns.
Natural User Interface -Gesture Design for Media Plaform
Problem Statement
The objective was to develop gesture-based controls that could afford users greater control over their in-home entertainment experience while multitasking. I chose to apply this concept to YouTube, as users often play videos or podcasts in the background while they're cleaning, cooking, or completing tasks around the house. A gesture-based interface would allow them to interact with the platform from a distance, without needing to touch or repeatedly return to their device.
Goals
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Research natural gestures and their meaning
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Develop an intuitive gestural language
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Design an onboarding experience that teaches users the gestural system
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Refine interactions through user feedback
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Prototype the concept using “smoke and mirrors” techniques
Research
I began by observing storytime podcasters to understand how recurring gestures supported their storytelling. I documented the context in which each movement appeared and what it seemed to communicate, then looked for patterns in their direction, form, and implied meaning.
These observations helped me identify which gestures could translate most naturally into media controls.
Concept Design
For the past few years, long-form podcasts have continued to grow in popularity, and people often stream them while multitasking rather than sitting down to watch for hours at a time. This shift in behavior highlights a growing need for more advanced interaction models that adapt to evolving user behaviors and expectations.
Gestural Language Development and User Testing
User testing with students revealed that related actions, such as Previous and Next or Fast Forward and Rewind, were easier to understand when they shared the same movement. This led me to create mirrored gesture pairs to improve clarity, learnability, and consistency across the system.
Interface Design and Onboarding
During onboarding, animated hand movements introduced users to the gestural language by showing how each movement mapped to an action, while visual feedback confirmed when the system recognized a gesture.
Final Prototype
To communicate how the gestural system would work in a real-world setting, I created a “smoke and mirrors” prototype. I filmed each gesture against a green screen, animated the interface, screen-recorded it in Figma, and composited the footage in After Effects.
SOL - A Scalable Student Support Network for High Schools
Problem Statement
CDC data highlights persistent mental health challenges among adolescents, with 40% of U.S. high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023. Students face a range of social, personal, and financial pressures that can contribute to this distress, yet support structures at home and school are not always equipped to address them. This leaves students with limited pathways to navigate these circumstances and access support before problems escalate and affect their well-being and success at school.
Design Research
The objective was to explore the problem from three perspectives: students’ experiences, the support schools provided, and how outside organizations worked with them.
The interviews revealed a disconnect between the support students needed and their ability to access it. Three barriers consistently contributed to this gap.
Students were often left to manage challenges on their own while also carrying the responsibility of finding and accessing the right support.
Competitive Analysis
Consumer apps mainly help individuals manage routines, while therapy platforms rely on care access outside of school. School-based organizations demonstrated the value of integrating mental health expertise into schools, revealing an opportunity to connect care, advocacy, and school support through one accessible entry point for students.
Solution Statement
SOL creates a connected support system between students, third-party social workers, and schools. Regular check-in surveys and anonymous reporting give students multiple ways to seek support and provide feedback, while social workers translate individual needs into appropriate resources and action. Survey data also gives schools visibility into broader trends, helping them identify support gaps, plan resources, and understand differences in student experience across schools.
Concept Development
The application gives students a private, accessible pathway to support, connects students with the systems around them, helping them understand their needs, navigate available resources, and advocate for support so challenges at home or in their personal lives don't become barriers to participating and succeeding at school.
We tested the concept with 16 college students and refined it based on their feedback.
Childrens Museeum - Brand & Experience Design
Problem Statement:
The Children’s Museum of Denver offers meaningful in-person and web-based experiences, but currently lacks a mobile app to support on-the-go engagement.
Solution:
Design a competitive mobile experience that gives families and caregivers an easy and engaging way to explore
exhibits, plan visits, and stay connected
Key deliverables:
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Create a style tile to capture visual identity through collection of fonts, colors, interface elements and textures
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Design custom icons aligned with the brand identity
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Design key screens & workflows mobile application
Role: UI Designer
Time: 5 Weeks
Tools: Figma
