Xiaoyan (Shelley) Li

UX Researcher

PhD in Information Science

@ Cornell University

I have worked as a mixed-methods UX researcher in academia and industry since 2019. I take great pride in my ability to translate stakeholder needs into research questions, and user needs into actionable insights, guided by values of rigor, efficiency and creativity.

As an instructor of UX Design & Research courses at Cornell University, I had a rewarding experience mentoring junior UX researchers and project teams. During my Ph.D. in Information Science (HCI) at Cornell University, I worked at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience and Communication.

Mixed-methods UX researcher with 6 years of experience designing end-to-end UX studies. Expert in transforming stakeholder needs into original, actionable insights through interviews, field observations, surveys, statistical analysis and usability testing.

My work focused on understanding the user experience of emerging technologies, creating tech products & proving their effectiveness, as well as innovating the design of future platforms.

As an instructor of UX research courses at Cornell, I had a rewarding experience mentoring students and junior researchers on a variety of HCI and UX projects. In my spare time, I enjoy running and being close to nature.

UX Projects

This section presents selected UX research projects that I have designed, conducted, and led from incubation to insight delivery, across academia and industry.  All of them have led to tech prototypes and/or design innovations, talks in major conferences, as well as research publications.

Facilitating Informal Communication with BlendZoom

  • Created and tested a tech prototype, based on insights from user interviews.

Improving Non-Native Speakers’ Participation with an Automatic Agent

  • AI agent increased participation of Non-Native speakers by 40% of all words spoken;

  • Insights led to influential talk in ACM conference, news coverage and podcast.

Understanding User Needs and Innovating Hybrid Meeting Technologies

  • Field studies & interviews led to scalable framework with actionable design implications.

  • Six years of experience designing end-to-end UX studies using a variety of methods including:

    • user interviews, field observations, contextual inquiry, surveys, experiments, statistical analysis and usability studies.

  • Taught UX research courses at Cornell University, mentored junior UX researchers and research teams.

  • Excel at cross-functional collaboration under tight timelines.

  • Passionate about creative and efficient problem-solving based on user insights.

Strengths

  • UX Researcher @ Cornell (2019-2024): conducting user research on ermerging technologies, creating tech products, proving their effectiveness and innovating future designs;

  • UX Researcher @ Center for Community Engagement (2022): streamlined workflow, research results directly provided to grant directors to improve development of future grants, all ranging from $500K to $1M;

  • UX Researcher @ NTT, Japan (2019): conversational AI agent design, quantitative experiment and user interviews (improved participation by 40%).

Work History