Uber Drivers User Research

Founder · Ongoing 22nd

My practice · Private Research & Strategic Advisory

Research and strategic advisory for founders focused on building ahead of the curve.

The world is moving to the 22nd century. Are you building for it?

For the founders who know that by the time something shows up in a report, you're already late. Primary research, real conversations, original synthesis — so you can focus on building what matters.

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Social Media Lead · Ongoing

Together by Design

Zürich · Berlin (+ online)

Content strategy, Reddit & LinkedIn presence, and in-person outreach across Berlin for an organization helping people build real communities.

Together by Design distills lessons from real communities and shares them with people trying to build their own.

I develop and execute the content strategy across platforms, build the organization's presence on Reddit and LinkedIn, and run in-person outreach in community spaces across Berlin.

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UX Research · Google / YouTube

Shop with YouTube Search

Social commerce · Purchase intent · Search behavior

Reached VP and SVP level · Directly contributed to Shopping becoming a top YouTube priority · Opened the strategic case for global e-commerce partnerships

Users searching for specific products on YouTube weren't browsing — they were ready to buy. They wanted product details, pricing, and a clear path to purchase.

It was a different intent signal than YouTube had been built around, and the behavioral shift was already in motion.

Recognizing it opened up an opportunity for YouTube to pursue partnerships with major e-commerce platforms globally, and integrate end-to-end checkout flows for organic purchases.

UX Research · Google / YouTube

Shopping on YouTube Shorts

Social commerce · Short-form video · Product strategy

Flywheel model reached SVP of Engineering · Rewrote the product roadmap for Shopping · Influenced launches across YouTube Ads, Google Shopping & Google Labs

The first Gen Z researcher at Google to publish on social commerce. I didn't just study the generation — I am the generation.

Short-form video had already changed how people discover products. What wasn't understood yet was what happened next — how the path from inspiration to purchase worked in real shopping journeys.

I developed a flywheel model for shopping behavior built from observed real-user feedback over time. The framework reached the SVP of Engineering and rewrote the product roadmap to better serve user needs.

Brand Strategy · Consulting

Airstream

Gen Z · Brand perception · Cultural strategy

Report presented to senior leadership · Informed brand direction, collaboration, and activation opportunities

Airstream wanted to understand how their brand was landing with a generation they hadn't fully reached yet.

I recruited and profiled a range of Gen Z creatives — artists, influencers, photographers, models, founders — and produced a cultural report capturing how this audience saw the brand, what they expected from it, and what about its legacy had their attention.

The output was a strategic brief: actionable ideas for how Airstream could show up authentically for a wider, younger audience while honoring what makes the brand iconic.

Field Research · New York

Starbucks Mobile Concept Store

UX · Personas · Educational framework

App improvements shipped nationally · Customer education framework developed · Research supported the opening of 30+ mobile-first stores across the US

Starbucks was piloting a concept store built around an ambitious premise: being mobile-first, with nearly all orders placed ahead of time through the app.

Being embedded in that experiment from the ground up was an opportunity to understand how customers and technology meet at the point of service, and how people adapt to technology in everyday life.

As a trainer embedded in the store, I ran field research that shaped how the concept came to life. The framework and findings went on to support the opening of 30+ mobile-first stores across the US.

Ethnographic Research

The Gig Economy in COVID-19

Ethnography · Community behavior · Product strategy

Established digital ethnography as a core research method · Findings framed as strategic recommendations for gig economy platforms

Crisis doesn't create new behaviors — it accelerates the ones already under the surface.

What emerged was remarkable. Drivers had built the infrastructure they needed themselves: online communities where they shared resources, told their stories, exchanged ideas for growing their businesses, and kept each other safe.

Uber wasn't meeting drivers where they were, so they found each other in that gap.

I am a UX researcher and strategic advisor based in Berlin. Connection has been my through-line since I was 11, when I built a social network site for my classmates. That thread has taken me from New York to Berlin, through Google and YouTube, to founding my own practice chasing the place where culture and technology meet. Where it breaks down, where it's about to happen, and what it takes to build it.

My work sits at the intersection of consumer behavior, emerging technology, and culture, with a particular focus on what's shifting in Gen Z behavior and transatlantic markets.

I have spent my career in the gap between what's happening in culture and when it shows up in reports. At Google and YouTube, I surfaced signals from the corners of the internet before they became mainstream trends. On the ground in New York, Paris, and Berlin, I move between worlds — founders and operators, artists and creators — and translate what I find into intelligence you can build on.

Technology exists to connect us. I find where the potential is ahead of the product — in the spaces where culture and behavior shift before the data catches up — and build the bridge to drive real business impact.

My practice the22nd is the formalization of work I've done and loved for a long time. Built on a new path in Berlin, for founders building theirs. I also work with organizations I believe in, including Together by Design, where I work on content strategy for community builders.

Have you ever taken a really memorable Uber trip? Maybe the driver shared interesting life stories, drove a cool car, or in my favorite experience, had an unlimited supply of every candy imaginable in repurposed hanging shoe organizers and called himself the 'Cuse Candyman.

Regardless of what specifically made your Uber ride so memorable, your driver was the *driving force* behind it. In 2019, inspired by the 'Cuse Candyman, I decided to independently pursue a research project about Uber drivers, to learn how drivers added personal touches to the rider experience. I sought to understand how drivers augmented the spaces within their ride-sharing vehicles, and what affordances of the Uber Driver platform led drivers to make these decisions.
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A few short months later, the pandemic hit, and the use of transportation hit record lows worldwide. Online Driver communities quickly became hubs for exchanging information, support, and resources among drivers. Uber Drivers from all over the world were coming together online to help each other stay safe.

💡 Naturally, my focus shifted to understanding how Uber drivers augmented their environments during times of crisis.

Uber Driver User Research

My project took on three major parts: an exploratory phase to learn more about mixed realities, developing research questions and conducting field research via online driver communities, and lastly, putting it altogether by making connections and organizing my findings in a written report.

To strengthen my knowledge of mixed realities (XR), I turned to colleagues from across Syracuse University that knew much more about XR than me. With the help of my advisor and mentor, Dr. Murali Venkatesh, I organized a research focus group that met every other week for a few months to discuss VR, AR, and XR, and how they could be applied to different work environments. Through exploring Unreal software, tinkering with headsets, visiting cutting-edge VR labs, conducting literary reviews, and lots of nerding out about innovative VR technologies, my baseline was established.

Getting started

With a solid understanding of how AR, VR, and XR apply to different work settings, including Uber ride shares, it was time to go deeper into developing my research questions and conducting field studies. I wanted to see in the wild how Uber drivers were interacting with the spaces within their cars, and how their passengers interacted in response.

I considered conducting interviews and developing surveys with Qualtrics, to speak with drivers directly about their personal experiences augmenting their surroundings. Ultimately, I decided on exploring online communities for Uber drivers - specifically, UberPeople.net and the r/uberdrivers subreddit community on Reddit.

Then, a global pandemic hit. Uber rides dropped drastically, almost overnight.

I decided to take my work in a new direction and study how drivers augmented their vehicles to protect themselves and their passengers from getting sick. I focused on proxemics: the study of how people orient their spaces to allow distance between themselves and others. Conversations online surrounding Uber driving became focused on proxemics and the augmentation of vehicles to allow for separation between the drivers and their passengers.

Online communities for Uber drivers became incredible resources filled with regulation updates, tips and tricks for installing better ventilation and plexiglass dividers, and offers for supplies and funds to those who needed it.

Drivers came together to help each other and share their stories. Some had the luxury of a second income and could stop driving temporarily; most had to find new ways to keep going, to provide for their families while keeping them safe.

It was so interesting to see how these forums served as safe spaces for Uber drivers, while also providing outsiders with an in-depth look at the complexities of being a gig worker during a time of crisis.

Uber drivers? There's a community for that.

Through my ethnographic study of observing the conversations held in the selected Uber driver communities, I was able to learn a lot about how drivers *really* felt to be working in their current conditions.

By observing from the outside instead of directly collecting information through surveys or interviews, I feel I was able to learn a lot about what drivers think about augmenting their spaces, and how they actively do it. I got to see the conversations drivers have with their colleagues regarding augmentation. I was able to learn about other factors, like air circulation through car heating systems, that I likely would not have considered on my own.

It changed my research questions by providing me with a more holistic view of the challenges drivers face, rather than what I would assume they face. Ethnography proved to be an extremely valuable user research method for me, and I plan on using it more in the future.

Ethnography: from the outside looking in....

1. Jack Kelly. 2020. Proposed Hazard Pay Law for Gig-Workers is Part of the New Battle Between Workers and Big Companies. Forbes.com.
2. Peter Gall Krogh, Marianne Graves Petersen, Kenton O'Hara, Jens Emil Gronbaek.
2017. Sensitizing Concepts for Socio-spatial Literacy in HCI.
3. Lev Manovich. 2006. The poetics of augmented space. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA.
4. Vikas Mehta. 2020. The new proxemics: COVID-19, social distancing, and sociable space. Journal of Urban Design.
5. Donald A. Schon. 1983. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books, New York, NY.
6. Thad Sitton. 1980. Inside School Spaces: Rethinking the Hidden Dimension. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA.

Reading list

Researcher,strategist,gap finder,dot connector.

Researcher,
strategist,
gap finder,
dot connector.