Research on planning and decision-making

I design tasks where strategy shows up in behavior, then measure what participants actually do, not just what they report. My research centers on a few themes that reveal how individuals navigate everyday sequential decisions: how plans are made and carried out, which behaviors are automatic versus deliberate, how perceptual cues shape choices, and when cognitive effort is invested or offloaded onto an external tool or action, like using a calculator instead of doing mental math. In UX research, these themes show up as questions like whether users will rely on notifications or saved carts, which workflows feel intuitive and which take time to learn, and how visual design guides attention and decisions.

Comparing adults with young children or other primates helps reveal which behaviors emerge early in development or occur automatically, and which are shaped by experience. My dissertation explored the experience side, examining financial decision-making in 236 youth. Math ability was the strongest predictor of sound decisions, and real-world experience also played a role. I brought the same lens to my Market Movers usability study, comparing novice and experienced users to see which parts of the app felt intuitive and which had to be learned.