UX Research & Product Strategy

I turn rigorous user research into actionable product decisions.

HCI PhD and Product Leader. I bridge the gap between what users need, what the data says, and what the business can ship: designing studies that don't just produce reports, they produce roadmaps.
0+ Years of experience
0+ Studies led
0+ Papers published

About

Toronto, ON · 5+ years in product
As an HCI PhD with over five years of experience bridging theoretical models and practical application, I specialize in design thinking and translating complex behavioral data into scalable product strategies for AI and spatial computing systems. My approach combines mixed-methods research with commercial pragmatism to de-risk innovation and validate market fit from discovery through high-fidelity prototyping. My expertise lies in extracting high-value signals from behavioral data even in early-stage or data-scarce environments.

Research

Qualitative & Quantitative Research, In-depth Interview, Focus Groups, User Survey, Ethnographic Studies, Co-design Workshop, Statistical Analysis, Thematic Analysis.

Strategy

Contextual Inquiry, Competitive Analysis, Opportunity Recognition, Requirement Elicitation, Journey Mapping, Personas, User Stories, Rapid Prototyping, Usability Evaluation, Stakeholder Management.

AI Enablement

Prompt Engineering, Harness Engineering, RAG Pipelines, Agentic Workflows, MCP Integration, Agent Skills, Multimedia Generative AI, Data Synthesis, Predictive Modeling, Automated Insights.

Perspectives

05 essays
AI & Business 10 min read

Bleeding Edges: Sometimes You Don't Lose Anything When You Move Slow

The AI engineering pipelines you're racing to build are being absorbed by the models themselves. Sometimes moving slow costs you nothing.

Argument
AI & Business 10 min read

My Agent Talked Me Out of My Business Idea.

When I started consulting, my agent argued me out of every flagship-sized idea I had. It was right. That changed how I work.

Opinion
Local AI 10 min read

Open-weight models aren't toys anymore

DeepSeek V4 Flash and Kimi K3 nearly match the closed frontier, and small open models run on a laptop. It's time to stop renting your AI by default.

Opinion
AI & Business 10 min read

You Don't Need an AI Agent (Yet)

Most 'we need AI' requests dissolve the moment you ask why. Start small, buy before you build.

Practice
AI in design 9 min read

Weave Agents Into Design

Three routes for agents in design, one toolkit — and a ceiling worth knowing about.

Practice

Selected work

03 case studies
Human AI Interaction
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Adoption for Gesture Interaction

How non-verbal behavior signals enhanced multimodal AI interaction

A dual-phase Wizard-of-Oz study triangulated with semi-structured interviews and surveys to map user behavior in multimodal LLM interactions. Findings directly informed the design space for rapid feature iteration and shaped the future product roadmap.

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Content Research & Strategy 01

Building connections and engagement with cameras

Identifing emerging patterns and friction points for VR streaming, translating qualitative insights into actionable design considerations and feature requirements to drive future development.

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Product Discovery & Strategy 02

Migrating 2D to VR storytelling for professional settings

Exploring the potential of enabling non-technical users to create AI-assisted VR presentations, validating adoption requirements across finance, education, and design domains.

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Publications

05 papers
Stories for I, They and You: Exploring In-situ Virtual Camera Setups for Live Streaming in Virtual Reality
Liwei Wu, Zachary McKendrick, Jian Zhao Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2026CHI '26
XCam: Mixed-Initiative Virtual Cinematography for Live Production of Virtual Reality Experiences
Michael Nebeling, Liwei Wu, Hanuma Teja Maddali Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2025CHI '25
Body Language for VUIs: Exploring Gestures to Enhance Interactions with Voice User Interfaces
Liwei Wu, Ben Lafreniere, Tovi Grossman, Thomas White, Stephanie Santosa Designing Interactive Systems, 2024DIS '24
Planar or Spatial: Exploring Design Aspects and Challenges for Presentations in Virtual Reality with No-coding Interface
Liwei Wu, Yilin Zhang, Justin Leung, Jingyi Gao, April Li, Jian Zhao Interactive Surfaces and Spaces, 2024ISS '24
Interactions across Displays and Space: A Study of Virtual Reality Streaming Practices on Twitch
Liwei Wu, Qing Liu, Jian Zhao, Edward Lank Interactive Surfaces and Spaces, 2023ISS '23