My main contributions have been directing two longitudinal studies with external users to determine launch readiness and leading all research related to the Reminders feature, the ability to create to-do’s. This work lead to several product changes and feature prioritization prior to product launch.

How do teams use Google Apps at work? I managed all research related to Collaboration Apps, including Google Sites and Google Groups and new products under development across consumer and enterprise users as well as mobile and desktop platforms. I conducted several field studies for business customers to understand how teams used Google Apps to get things done. This research directly impacted product strategies, including new ideas for future products.

Across three laboratory studies, I explored the impact of network visualizations on collaborative problem solving. I created the experimental materials and study design, analyzed the data and presented this work several many conferences. These studies suggested that visualization tools can prompt collaborations to be more systematic but this depends on collaborators using the visualization, finding relevant patterns, and ultimately using these findings to direct their analysis process. This work was part of my PhD dissertation.

This research identified institutional environment factors that influence successful research collaborations, specifically collaborations that span multiple institutions and cross multiple disciplines. I interviewed 55 researchers at top academic institutions and analyzed the data via grounded theory. This research was sponsored by NSF and has impacted NSF research funding practices.

I designed, conducted, and analyzed a series of interviews and observations of business analysts at a large, global company to understand the role of technology for business analysts. Findings suggested a need for better integration between a variety of tools, enhanced search capabilities of desktop and online resources, and mechanisms to leverage existing institutional knowledge.

I worked on a team of 3 graduate students to design an experimental recipe website that explored design elements to persuade people to make choices that support environmental sustainability. I lead the research activities, including a contextual inquiry and a 2-part study to understand if the website impacted user behaviors.