Product Designer & UX Researcher
Founding Product Designer at SideKix. Twenty years of behavioral research before that — a PhD in cognitive psychology, a decade as principal investigator, and published work on how people make judgments under uncertainty.
Steven A. Berg, PhD
Steven A. Berg, PhD
Product Designer & UX Researcher
Founding Product Designer at SideKix. Twenty years of behavioral research before that — a PhD in cognitive psychology, a decade as principal investigator, and published work on how people make judgments under uncertainty.
Product Designer & UX Researcher
Founding Product Designer at SideKix. Twenty years of behavioral research before that — a PhD in cognitive psychology, a decade as principal investigator, and published work on how people make judgments under uncertainty.
HOW I GOT HERE
I joined SideKix HQ, Inc. as a product design intern in March 2026. By June, I was its founding product designer, responsible for the design language system (tokens, components, iconography, type scale, color palette, and motion) of an AI-powered SaaS platform. Since then, I’ve led a design pod of up to five junior designers, defined interaction patterns and component specs alongside engineering, and audited the mobile app against WCAG 2.1 AA. My research presentations to executives shaped the roadmap on membership pricing, learning modules, and onboarding.
The design craft is recent, but the research is not.
For over eight years at The Pennsylvania State University, I served as an assistant teaching professor and laboratory director. As principal investigator, I conducted controlled experiments on how people perceive, interpret, and act on information (3–5 research assistants and ~200 participants per semester). Separately, I directed research operations for the department’s participant pool: recruitment & scheduling for 35+ assistants and ~500 participants per semester, with data governance and confidentiality protocols throughout. I also taught, advised, and mentored more than 2,500 Penn State students. Advising is the part that transfers: recurring one-to-one guidance, being accountable for other people’s work, and performing the role over many years. That’s why leading a design pod and running critiques feels like familiar territory. Before that, two years as an assistant professor at Arkansas Tech conducting mixed-methods experimental research.
Prior to my time as a professor, I conducted graduate-level laboratory studies at the University at Buffalo beginning in 2006, and ran the lab itself from 2009 — training and supervising its research assistants. I became a researcher through a master’s, a doctorate, and the years of learning to develop a scientific investigation that survives contact with real participants. Designing protocols, recruiting participants, performing analyses, defending the conclusions to people who act on them, and running the team that conducted all of it — that’s user research by a different name.
HOW I GOT HERE
I joined SideKix HQ, Inc. as a product design intern in March 2026. By June, I was its founding product designer, responsible for the design language system (tokens, components, iconography, type scale, color palette, and motion) of an AI-powered SaaS platform. Since then, I’ve led a design pod of up to five junior designers, defined interaction patterns and component specs alongside engineering, and audited the mobile app against WCAG 2.1 AA. My research presentations to executives shaped the roadmap on membership pricing, learning modules, and onboarding.
The design craft is recent, but the research is not.
For over eight years at The Pennsylvania State University, I served as an assistant teaching professor and laboratory director. As principal investigator, I conducted controlled experiments on how people perceive, interpret, and act on information (3–5 research assistants and ~200 participants per semester). Separately, I directed research operations for the department’s participant pool: recruitment & scheduling for 35+ assistants and ~500 participants per semester, with data governance and confidentiality protocols throughout. I also taught, advised, and mentored more than 2,500 Penn State students. Advising is the part that transfers: recurring one-to-one guidance, being accountable for other people’s work, and performing the role over many years. That’s why leading a design pod and running critiques feels like familiar territory. Before that, two years as an assistant professor at Arkansas Tech conducting mixed-methods experimental research.
Prior to my time as a professor, I conducted graduate-level laboratory studies at the University at Buffalo beginning in 2006, and ran the lab itself from 2009 — training and supervising its research assistants. I became a researcher through a master’s, a doctorate, and the years of learning to develop a scientific investigation that survives contact with real participants. Designing protocols, recruiting participants, performing analyses, defending the conclusions to people who act on them, and running the team that conducted all of it — that’s user research by a different name.
HOW I GOT HERE
I joined SideKix HQ, Inc. as a product design intern in March 2026. By June, I was its founding product designer, responsible for the design language system (tokens, components, iconography, type scale, color palette, and motion) of an AI-powered SaaS platform. Since then, I’ve led a design pod of up to five junior designers, defined interaction patterns and component specs alongside engineering, and audited the mobile app against WCAG 2.1 AA. My research presentations to executives shaped the roadmap on membership pricing, learning modules, and onboarding.
The design craft is recent, but the research is not.
For over eight years at The Pennsylvania State University, I served as an assistant teaching professor and laboratory director. As principal investigator, I conducted controlled experiments on how people perceive, interpret, and act on information (3–5 research assistants and ~200 participants per semester). Separately, I directed research operations for the department’s participant pool: recruitment & scheduling for 35+ assistants and ~500 participants per semester, with data governance and confidentiality protocols throughout. I also taught, advised, and mentored more than 2,500 Penn State students. Advising is the part that transfers: recurring one-to-one guidance, being accountable for other people’s work, and performing the role over many years. That’s why leading a design pod and running critiques feels like familiar territory. Before that, two years as an assistant professor at Arkansas Tech conducting mixed-methods experimental research.
Prior to my time as a professor, I conducted graduate-level laboratory studies at the University at Buffalo beginning in 2006, and ran the lab itself from 2009 — training and supervising its research assistants. I became a researcher through a master’s, a doctorate, and the years of learning to develop a scientific investigation that survives contact with real participants. Designing protocols, recruiting participants, performing analyses, defending the conclusions to people who act on them, and running the team that conducted all of it — that’s user research by a different name.
PRODUCT DESIGN MEETS BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
My research covers two mechanisms that permeate most of product design:
Judgment under uncertainty — My published work shows that uncertain people fail to disregard anchor information even when instructed to ignore it. That unfolds everywhere a product shapes a decision before the person notices making one, such as price anchoring, default pre-selections, and form field priming.
Word recognition — My doctorate is in cognitive psychology, concentrated in psycholinguistics: how people perceive and recognize words, and how someone’s existing vocabulary competes against new input. Scanning an interface is that task. A nav bar isn’t read, it’s recognized. Every complex product imposes a lexicon (workspace, board, object, epic). Users have to acquire it while their existing vocabulary vies for recognition — the same mechanistic competition, in a different setting. That’s labeling, information architecture, and onboarding.
Between them: what a user is likely to do, and what a user understands well enough to do it.
PRODUCT DESIGN MEETS BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
My research covers two mechanisms that permeate most of product design:
Judgment under uncertainty — My published work shows that uncertain people fail to disregard anchor information even when instructed to ignore it. That unfolds everywhere a product shapes a decision before the person notices making one, such as price anchoring, default pre-selections, and form field priming.
Word recognition — My doctorate is in cognitive psychology, concentrated in psycholinguistics: how people perceive and recognize words, and how someone’s existing vocabulary competes against new input. Scanning an interface is that task. A nav bar isn’t read, it’s recognized. Every complex product imposes a lexicon (workspace, board, object, epic). Users have to acquire it while their existing vocabulary vies for recognition — the same mechanistic competition, in a different setting. That’s labeling, information architecture, and onboarding.
Between them: what a user is likely to do, and what a user understands well enough to do it.
PRODUCT DESIGN MEETS BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
My research covers two mechanisms that permeate most of product design:
Judgment under uncertainty — My published work shows that uncertain people fail to disregard anchor information even when instructed to ignore it. That unfolds everywhere a product shapes a decision before the person notices making one, such as price anchoring, default pre-selections, and form field priming.
Word recognition — My doctorate is in cognitive psychology, concentrated in psycholinguistics: how people perceive and recognize words, and how someone’s existing vocabulary competes against new input. Scanning an interface is that task. A nav bar isn’t read, it’s recognized. Every complex product imposes a lexicon (workspace, board, object, epic). Users have to acquire it while their existing vocabulary vies for recognition — the same mechanistic competition, in a different setting. That’s labeling, information architecture, and onboarding.
Between them: what a user is likely to do, and what a user understands well enough to do it.
I hold a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University at Buffalo. In 2026, I completed Google’s UX Design Professional Certificate (because moving a research career into design practice deserved formal grounding in the craft, not just the assumption it would transfer).
What I’m seeking: complex SaaS and AI products where comprehension is the hard problem. Onboarding, defaults, information architecture, and the moments when someone has to commit to a decision with incomplete information. My published work examines why instructing someone to ignore information doesn’t prevent it from influencing their reasoning and decision-making behavior. I’ve moved from documenting that signal to designing around it.
Google UX Design Professional Certificate, 2026
(verify — https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/professional-cert/MBN0NAW4TZC2)
AI-Powered Design & Creative Tools Specialization, Coursera 2026
(verify — https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/specialization/KCIOLCUMU8AX)
I hold a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University at Buffalo. In 2026, I completed Google’s UX Design Professional Certificate (because moving a research career into design practice deserved formal grounding in the craft, not just the assumption it would transfer).
What I’m seeking: complex SaaS and AI products where comprehension is the hard problem. Onboarding, defaults, information architecture, and the moments when someone has to commit to a decision with incomplete information. My published work examines why instructing someone to ignore information doesn’t prevent it from influencing their reasoning and decision-making behavior. I’ve moved from documenting that signal to designing around it.
