Andrew Petersen
UX Research • HCI @ UC Santa Cruz
UX Researcher who turns messy human behavior into clear product decisions.
M.S. Human-Computer Interaction at UC Santa Cruz, with a Psychology background. I like fast, rigorous research, and I’m happiest when insights ship.
Methods: Interviews • Lit review • Competitive analysis • Synthesis
What I’m optimizing for
- • Low cognitive load, high clarity
- • Fast feedback loops with real users
- • Research artifacts teams actually use
- • Simple, shippable UI
Portfolio
4 items
UX Research
ID Bridge
UX Researcher • Oct 2025. Designed a mobile app to help unhoused individuals secure and manage identification documents; built a research-backed strategy using validated academic sources.
UX Research
Target Drive Up
Course project. Conducted literature review, competitive analysis, Reddit analysis, auto-ethnography, and interviews, then proposed a design solution to improve internal drive-up workflows.
Design
DIS Design Competition
In progress. Preparing a submission for the DIS 2026 Student Design Competition.
UI Design
once
Designed a future-facing social app where users can post only once per month to keep connections meaningful; explored patterns from Instagram and BeReal and shipped a UI concept.