Anna Knutson, PhD | UXR

How do people communicate and connect in digital spaces?

This question has fueled my research across multiple industries. Whether I’m conducting a deep exploration of cross-platform social media behaviors, redesigning the emoji menu for the most popular phone keyboard in the world, or launching a consumer “groups” feature leveraging B2B infrastructure, I’m driven to understand how technology mediates communication and connection.

My domain expertise is grounded in both academic and industry experience. As a tenure-track English professor, one of the most competitive positions in academia, I published research on digital communication for 3 years before transitioning to tech. My scholarly work included a two-year longitudinal qualitative study exploring how undergraduates managed communication and identity across social media platforms, surfacing patterns around audience awareness, behavioral compartmentalization, and cross-platform transfer that remain directly relevant to how I think about digital products today. I have brought that same depth of inquiry to tech, where I’ve spent the last 4 years embedded in product teams at Google, Meta, and Microsoft.

Below, I outline the core tenets of my research approach.

1. Methodological rigor

My qualitative research expertise was forged through PhD training and sharpened across 4 years in product teams. I’m skilled across the full research arc; I take pride in my ability to scope efficient and relevant studies, build participant rapport, conduct deep qualitative analysis, and translate findings into compelling, actionable stories for product and business audiences.

2. Product knowledge and cross-functional collaboration

I don’t just study users; I study contexts. When joining a new team, I invest in understanding the product space, the business goals, and my cross-functional partners. That contextual grounding is what makes my research relevant and actionable, not just rigorous.

3. Digital communication domain expertise

Across academia and industry, I’ve researched how people communicate and connect through messaging, social media, video chat, group features, and expressive content (e.g., emoji, GIFs, stickers). Through this work, I’ve developed deep expertise in how users navigate AI, the complex considerations around information architecture in communication tools, and how young people communicate across an ever-changing set of platforms.