Hello, I'm Sai 👋
UX Researcher | PhD Candidate | Gamer & Designer
Let's bake some amazing customer experiences! I am a 4th Year PhD Candidate at UCSC and a 🧑🍳 MasterChef UX Researcher. I serve Michelin 🌟 insights using my seasoned blend of Qualitative and Quantitative research skills. My previous UX collaborations include Xbox (Microsoft), Facebook (Meta), Invento Robotics, and academic institutions such as GaTech, IISc, NYU, and Drexel. My work has been published in reputed conferences like CHI, CHI PLAY, CSCW, and FDG.
UXR Case Studies
Shloka - Culture for Climate Action
An ethnographic and co-design study to design a video game for climate action, inspired by cultural elements and stories.
Coming Soon 🚧Religious Inclusivity in Videogames
Using digital ethnography and statistical methods to analyze Reddit threads on religious stakeholders and gamers' opinions regarding videogames.
Read MoreVisualization Systems for Player Reflection
A Design-Based Research Approach (interviews, playtesting, co-design) to develop a visualization system encouraging reflection and learning in Serious Games.
Read MoreAstraVerse
Through co-design and visual ethnography, presenting a design space inspired by religion for creating new video game characters.
Read MoreThe Future of Facebook Home (Meta)
Generative research during my Meta internship to develop ideas for the future of Facebook Home.
Read MoreMove (Invento Robotics)
My first internship experience, taking on multiple roles (developer to UXR) to streamline robot production at Invento Robotics.
Read MoreWork Experience
Microsoft (Xbox), Redmond, USA
UX Research Intern | June 2024 - September 2024
- Conducted 13 usability studies on parental controls in videogames.
- Initiated strategy for merging Microsoft's 6 parental control end-points into a single streamlined app.
- Established a taxonomy of mental models around parental controls for future design.
GUII Lab, UCSC
Research Intern | September 2021 - Present
- Conducted 10 User Interviews establishing a design framework for cultural elements in videogames (Published at CSCW'23, CHI'22, etc.).
- Conducted 3 large surveys, 10 player interviews, and used Statistical Methods for player taxonomy development.
- Conducted 2 diary studies & 2 Game Playtests studying videogames and stress (Published at FDG'23, CHI Play'22, etc.).
Meta, Menlo Park, USA
UX Research Intern | June 2022 - September 2022
- Conducted Generative Research for Facebook's Top of Home.
- Led 12 User Interviews discovering 4 major user expectations.
- Executed 18 Co-Design sessions validating design assumptions.
- Prototyped 21 new experiences identified from Co-Design sessions.
Invento Robotics, Bangalore, India
R&D Engineer | June 2020 - March 2021; May 2018 - June 2018
- Executed 17 user interviews identifying 6 critical bottlenecks in the robot lifecycle.
- Conducted card sorting for robotic fleet management portal IA.
- UX insights reduced robot deployment time by 12 hours & increased fleet health by 34%.
Academic Research Papers
| Title | Conference | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| A Topic Modeling Approach Towards Understanding the Discourse between Religion and Videogames on Reddit | ACM CHI PLAY 2024 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Johannes Pfau, Mansi Kasar, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Shloka: Developing Climate Change interventions through a lens of Religion and Videogames | ACM CHI PLAY 2024 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Yash Malegaonkar, Mário Escarce Junior, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| "Ah! I see'' - Facilitating Process Reflection in Gameplay through a Novel Spatio-Temporal Visualization System | ACM CHI 2024 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Erica Kleinman, Jennifer Villareale, Jichen Zhu, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Open Player Modeling - Using AI to help Reflection and Learning in Serious Games | ACM SAC 2024 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Jennifer Villareale, Jichen Zhu, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| An Instructor's Lens into the Role of AI in Teaching Experimental Research via Gamification | ACM SAC 2024 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Anna Amato, Giovanni M Troiano, Steven C Sutherland, Camillia Matuk, Edward Melcer, Elin Carstensdottir, Casper Harteveld, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Designing Religious Games for Climate Action | CSCW 2023 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Yash Malegaonkar, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Mining Player Behavior Patterns from Domain-Based Spatial Abstraction in Games | IEEE CoG 2023 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Johannes Pfau, Jennifer Villareale, Zhaoqing Teng, Jichen Zhu, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Parallel OPM A Visualization System for Analyzing Peers Board States for Gameplay Reflection | IEEE CoG 2023 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Jennifer Villareale, Boyd Fox, Jichen Zhu, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| A Visual Ethnographic Study at Cultural Spaces to Identify Character Creation Opportunities | FDG 2023 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Johannes Pfau, Jai Dodechani, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| AstraVerse: Establishing a Culturally Sensitive Framework for Integrating Elements from Mythological Backgrounds | IFIP-ICEC 2022 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Johannes Pfau, Reza Habibi, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Integrating the Player's Perspective in AI-Based Game Design: Designing Player-AI Interaction in AI-Based Games | FDG 2023 | Jennifer Villareale, Sai Siddartha Maram and Jichen Zhu |
| Under Pressure: A Multi-Modal Analysis of Induced Stressors in Games for Resilience | FDG 2023 | Reza Habibi, Johannes Pfau, Sai Siddartha Maram , Jiahong Li, Bjarke Larsen, Jason Xu, Atieh Kashani, Shweta Sisodiya, Jonattan Holmes, Zhaoqing Teng, Elin Carstensdottir and Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Player Segmentation with INSPECT: Revealing Systematic Behavior Differences within MMORPG and Educational Game Case Studies | CHI PLAY 2022 | Zhaoqing Teng, Johannes Pfau, Sai Siddartha Maram, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Gaming Beyond Mortal Boarders | ACM CHI 2022 (Workshop) | Sai Siddartha Maram, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| Gender, Cultures, and Communication | ACM CHI 2022 (Workshop) | Shweta Sisodiya, Sai Siddartha Maram, Magy Seif El-Nasr, Elin Carstensdottir |
| A Data-driven Design of AR Alternate Reality Games to Measure Resilience | HCII 2022 (Best Paper) | Rëza Habibi, Sai Siddartha Maram, Johannes Pfau, Jessica Wei, Shweta Sisodiya, Atieh Kashani, Elin Carstensdottir, Magy Seif El-Nasr |
| CricNet : Segment and Classify Cricket Events | ICML (Un-Workshop) | Sai Siddartha Maram, Shambhavi Mishra |
| Images to Signals, Signals to Highlights | IEEE GLOBECOM 2020 | Sai Siddartha Maram, Neeraj Kumar, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues, Sudeep Tanwar, Arjav Jain |
| Asking Graphs "How Did I Play?" Generating Graphs through Images Via Signals | ACM Multimedia (Workshop 2020) | Sai Siddartha Maram, Arjav Jain |
| Neural network and ROS based threat detection and patrolling assistance | IEEE ICACCP 2019 (Best Paper) | Sai Siddartha Maram, Tanuj Vishnoi, Sachin Pandey |