Get to know ✨ Mei ✨
Get to know ✨ Mei ✨
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UX Researcher
UX Researcher
Currently working for Google (via Akraya), focusing on accessibility and internationalization.
They / Them Pronouns | 柯梅 (ke1mei2) | Name Pronunciation: m-AY k-UH
They / Them Pronouns | 柯梅 (ke1mei2) | Name Pronunciation: m-AY k-UH
Mei has spent their past 6 years in research across the gaming industry, military intelligence, and government analysis. Their expertise includes leading end-to-end research projects and providing actionable insights through mixed methods data analysis across multiple levels of stakeholders. Their mission is to nurture empathy and understanding by deeply listening, honoring, and connecting with other different from themselves.
In their free time, Mei plays DnD, works on their art, and enjoys reading trashy romance novels. Their favorite game of all time is Minecraft, and they have an orange tabby cat named Cardi B.
Researcher, public speaker, and storyteller.
Researcher, public speaker, and storyteller.
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Feedback from Stakeholders
Feedback from Stakeholders
"[Mei] was an absolute superstar! [Their] UXR skills, accessibility expertise, moderation, and clear communication in the share out were all so impressive. [They] nailed balancing details for a mixed audience, making it incredibly effective."
"In my first project [at Riot] doing in-depth interviews with players, Mei was critical to our project's success. Not only are they an experienced interviewer, but they also helped me organize and put together material to mentor other researchers in interviewing."
UX Research
UX Research
Mei's UX research expertise includes leading end-to-end research projects and providing actionable insights through mixed methods data analysis across multiple levels of stakeholders.
Please note that most of Mei's work is under NDA and therefore cannot be shared publicly. If you want to request access to a case study, please email them.
Soft Skills
Soft Skills
Cross-discipline Coordination
Deriving Actionable Insights
Stakeholder Presentation
Best Practice Documentation
Vendor Management
Project Management
Live Operation Games Research
Qual Skills
Qual Skills
Survey Design
One-on-One User Interviews
Focus Groups
Usability Testing
Concept Testing
Playtesting
A/B Testing
Journey Maps
Ethnography
Personas
Quant Skills
Quant Skills
Statistical Data Analysis
Survey Assessment
Usability Testing
Benchmarking
Playtesting
Technical Skills
Technical Skills
Qualtrics
Excel
Stata
Parsec
Figma
Shopping on Search
Shopping on Search
Mei led the design, execution, analysis, and presentation of a usability study that spanned 2 months and focused on 7 upper-motor impaired users. Their mixed-methods approach surfaced 3 high-impact fixes that, when addressed, would boost task completion rate from 40% to 90%.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Accessibility testing
Usability testing
Semi-structured interviewing
OKR Benchmarking
Creating a Maverick
Creating a Maverick
Mei led the design, coordination, analysis, and presentation of a character design research project that spanned 7 months and hosted over 80 total participants. Their mixed methods research, in combination with solution-focused reporting, gave the development team the information they needed to change their direction and continue to improve usability for players before release.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Managing difficult stakeholders
Translating developer goals to players
Project viability shot calls
How to Test a Champion
How to Test a Champion
Mei led the design, coordination, analysis, and presentation of a 2 part character design study that spanned 2 months and hosted over 25 participants. Their mixed methods research, in combination with solution-focused reporting, gave the Champion’s team the information they needed to confirm their direction lock and continue to improve usability for players before release.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Moderating / Facilitating
Observing and Note Taking
Usability benchmarking
Survey design
Rune Recommender
Rune Recommender
Mei co-modersated, analyzed, and prepared the presentation of results for a usability test that spanned 1 month and hosted 7 participants. Their exploratory interviewing and draft interface usability testing gave the design team the information they needed to address player usability issues and optimize product flow before release.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Usability testing
Moderating / Facilitating
Semi-structured interviewing
LGBTQ+ Survey Design
LGBTQ+ Survey Design
Mei reconstructed UCSD’s Graduate Well-Being survey to remove offensive material and better communicate with the underserved LGBTQ+ population it was originally meant to reach. Using journey maps, survey design, and primary source research, they were able to transform UCSD’s survey design and influence future research for the graduate program.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Personas
Journey / Empathy mapping
Usability benchmarking
Survey design
Games Accessibility Guide
Games Accessibility Guide
Mei led the research, coordination, and analysis of accessibility standards in gaming. Their 2 years of qualitative research, in combination with 5 in-depth expert interviews, produced a guide with concrete goals and metrics for developers to strive for when improving their games accessibility.
This document is free for anyone to use. Please share it with your team and others in your field!
Key Skills
Key Skills
Legal analysis
Benchmarking
In-depth interviews
Cross-discipline coordination
Best practice documentation
Intelligence Analysis
Intelligence Analysis
Mei's educational expertise focused on government and military intelligence analysis, providing actionable insights through open-source intelligence analysis for executive level stakeholders.
Please note that most of Mei's previous intelligence work is still under security clearance and therefore cannot be shared publicly. If you want to learn about their work, please email them.
Soft Skills
Soft Skills
Cross-discipline Coordination
Deriving Actionable Insights
Stakeholder Presentation
Project Management
Community Engagement
Qual Skills
Qual Skills
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)
Threat Assessment
Trade Route Analysis
Disease Surveillance
Quant Skills
Quant Skills
Data Mining
Statistical Data Analysis
The Twilight War that Never Happened
The Twilight War that Never Happened
China and Russia are Getting Bolder
Military intelligence briefings are often presented to executive level leadership as succinct one-page reports consisting of a summary, background context, and 3 potential recommendations. This particular study delves into the collaborative maneuvers executed by China and Russia over contested Japanese territory in August 2020. Leveraging threat assessment techniques, Mei conducted a comprehensive review of open-source intelligence to inform leadership about the most effective course of action in response to such provocations.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Deriving Actionable Insights
Stakeholder Presentation
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
Threat Assessment
Statistical Data Analysis
Picture by Elena Lacey; GETTY IMAGES.
It Only Takes 3 People to Create a Tiger
It Only Takes 3 People to Create a Tiger
China and Censorship in the Age of COVID-19
Mei's graduate thesis was an in-depth investigation of China's censorship strategies during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a combination open-source and social media intelligence, alongside on-the-ground disease surveillance methodologies, Mei provided a real-time reconstruction of the dissemination of COVID-19 information in China during the spring of 2020. Systematically analyzing changes in the censorship landscape over time, Mei then lays out the impact of COVID-19 on China's future censorship policies.
Key Skills
Key Skills
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)
Data Mining
Disease Surveillance
Deriving Actionable Insights
Public Speaking
Public Speaking
Mei has a history of organizing, moderating, and presenting on topics such as gender and the queer experience for events of up to 400+ participants simultaneously. Their events focus on educating participants on how to be inclusive and welcoming towards queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming members of their community.
Interview with Debbie Levitt
Interview with Debbie Levitt
Debbie Levitt invited Mei to provide their perspective on the user experience as a queer and trans person and explore how UX can do better to make our designs and research inclusive of everyone in our user bases. Her book, Customers Know You Suck, contains excepts of that interview.
December 2022
December 2022
Healing Session:
Healing Session:
Patagonia LGBTQ+ Group
Patagonia LGBTQ+ Group
The Patagonia LGBTQ+ Community requested Mei facilitate a healing session to help the internal queer community process the Colorado Springs shooting in Club Q in late November 2022. Mei gathered together research on leading a group therapy grieving space and held an hour-long online session with over 60 community members.
November 2022
November 2022
Interview with Havana
Interview with Havana
Make It Happen with Havana is a podcast on creativity, productivity, and career by comic artist, illustrator, content creator, and UX Designer Havana Nguyen. In this episode, Mei and Havana discussed gender identity and why it's important to explore your gender and expression no matter who you are.
March 2022
March 2022
Pride Month Series
Pride Month Series
SuperFriendly is a specialist group that helps you make better digital products with design systems. Over the months of June and July, Mei gave in-network presentations on queerness, connecting inclusion to design, and building diverse relationships with intentionality.
June - July 2021
June - July 2021
UX and LGBTQIA+ Inclusion
UX and LGBTQIA+ Inclusion
LTUX ATL is celebrating Pride Month in June with a panel discussion on how we can make products and teams more inclusive of gender and sexual minorities. Listen to LGBTQ UXers speak on the topic and dig in deep on how we as designers can break our work free from heteronormativity.
June 2021
June 2021
Concentric Conference
Concentric Conference
Mei organized a four hour section about intersectional diversity for Delta CX's international Concentric Conference. Their section included a presentation on the basics of gender and sexuality, a panel on race, an introduction to neurodiversity and mental health, and finally an open discussion on intersectional diversity. Videos of their presentations are available on the Delta CX YouTube.
May 2021
May 2021
LGBTQ + UX
LGBTQ + UX
Mei was a featured speaker for Students of UX (SOUX) on inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in the UX field. The presentation discussed the basics of gender and queer identity, and broke down how diversity can be recognized and represented in UX systems. In total, over 50 members of the SOUX community came to the virtual event and following Q&A.
October 2020
October 2020
Gender Identity Dialogue
Gender Identity Dialogue
After a controversial discussion on gender inclusion in Mei's graduate program, Mei stepped up to the plate to educate the Global Policy School (GPS) community on the intersection of gender issues and transgender identity. They organized and presented their gender identity dialogue to over 40 students, faculty, and staff of UC San Diego.
May 2020
May 2020
Pride & Policy Panel
Pride & Policy Panel
With the Global Policy School’s QuIRPS team, Mei helped to organize and facilitate UC San Diego's Pride and Policy event, which brought leaders from all different levels of government together to discuss their experience as queer people in policy fields. As a moderator, Mei lead the discussion with the panelists as well as coordinating questions from audience, which contained over 70 students, faculty, and staff members.
November 2019
November 2019
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