Marina Cascaes Cardoso

I have a Ph.D. in Information Studies at the iSchool, an interdisciplinary school at the University of Maryland, where Human-computer Interaction and UX are strong research fields. My research concentrated on designing efficient user onboarding for newcomers in a crowdsourcing context. My dissertation title is Beyond Motivation: User Onboarding Design in Citizen Science: A Path to Grow Engagement and Participation. During my doctoral research, together with Prof. Jenny Preece, Ph.D. Dean Emerita from the UMD iSchool, we have focused on building a model that clarifies and defines attributes and elements of the first-time user experience.User retention is especially relevant for platforms that strive to conquer new members/customers. My research shows that one way of onboarding new users necessarily goes through deeply understanding their needs, motivations, and expectations towards the app or service. Therefore, the product design must address specific user attributes and other relevant aspects of the interaction. I've transitioned to UX and specialized in it after 15+ years of experience working across different industries in different design areas, mainly graphic design, visual identity, and iconography work. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)