Let us use data and our design expertise to simplify your interface and help your customers reach their cognitive singularity!
Who are we?
Led by Satyugjit Virk, PhD we strive to give you the most powerful research and design insights to maximize engagement and revenue for your product. We come with a wealth of qualitative and quantitative research and HCI experience in academia, big tech companies and startups.
Satyugjit Virk has a PhD in Educational Psychology from Teachers College Columbia and a Post Doc in Educational Gaming from Vanderbilt University (see publications here). He has undergraduate degrees in cognitive science and neurobiology and a corporate and patent law degree as well.
He has worked as both a designer and researcher for top companies such as Meta and AWS and as a lead researcher in complex domains such as Generative A1, Virtual and Augmented Reality and at successful startups like Earnin, Feedzai and Interactable. His PhD and post doctoral work pushed the boundaries of how to visualize complex STEM subjects for kids using cognition based simulations and games. Design wise, he specializes in taking highly complex information involving multiple related representations (graphs, visuals, numeric tables) and finding ways to consolidate and visualize it seamlessly using interactive apps and virtual simulations. Research wise, he excels at both foundational qualitative research and usability and matching them with analytics and quantiative surveys.
He has successful pioneered AI UX, Qualitative and Quantitative research methods courses at top companies like Amazon and is excited to train your team (product managers, designers, engineers) in these methods to empower them to do their own research. He excels at teaching things in an easy way that gets at how to apply research methods in the most practical, time saving and highest impact way possible.
Dr. Virk works with a series of design, research and statistician associates to bring the best quality work depending on your project.
Bernadette A. Bohan brings over a decade of experience in UX research, strategy, and AI-integrated product development to Cognitive Efficiency Inc. With a master’s in education and a background spanning roles at top global companies, Google, Microsoft, Deloitte, and more, specializing in making complex systems usable, accessible, scable and impactful.
Bernadette is an expert UX and AI strategist and led qualitative and quantitative research initiatives across technical domains, including developer tools, various tech platforms, voice AI, and mobile apps. She is known for building high-functioning cross-functional teams, championing inclusive design practices, and translating behavioral insights into product decisions that drive adoption and retention.
A passionate educator at heart, Bernadette combines her training in educational psychology with hands-on experience to guide teams in using AI-enhanced tools for fast, rigorous research. At Cognitive Efficiency, she helps startups scale research operations, improve usability for technical users, and integrate human-centered methods into fast-paced product cycles.
OUR SERVICES
Competitor Analysis
Foundational needs analysis
early concept testing (Wireframes, sketches, Figma, coded prototypes)
Usability testing
Design system testing
Persona development
Visual design comparisons (A/B testing)
Participant recruitment (with help of partners)
Qualitative
Analytics (including gaming analytics)
Large n survey design
Competitor Analysis
CSAT design
Metrics design
Product/market fit surveys
Max Dif
Jobs to be Done
Persona validation and expansion
Regression modeling of customer behavior, social interactions with products, engagement and revenu
Quantitative
Learning design
Complex simulation design (chemsims.com, phys-sims.com)
Learning game design
Advanced heuristic design used cognitive science
Basic wireframe design based on design expertise and customer feedback
More advanced designs with help of associates (inquire within)
HCI
Early concept validation (esp. for VC’s and investors trying to evaluate the efficacy and shape founder ideas).
ROI calculations for the value of research
VC/Private Equity
Design workshops
Stakeholder alignment
KPI alignment
Creativity Consulting
Engineering scoping of potential UX updates and features
Team
Workshops on AI and UX/User Research (see Teachable course)
Workshops on qualitative research
Workshops on practical applications of quantitative research
Training
UNIQUE METHODOLOGY TO ENSURE SUCCESS
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
DESIGN WORKSHOPS
CONCEPT LEVEL MOCKUP STUDIES
QUANTITATIVE VALIDATION
CODED BETA RESEARCH
RELEASED PRODUCT RESEARCH
TRAINING TEAM
Amazon AWS
Foundational product market fit and usability research on Bedrock, flagship generative AI project.
Meta
Foundational and initial usability research on coded Horizon Worlds platform for metaverse.
Earnin
Mapped key jobs to be done and guardrail features for key financial cash advance product.
Feedzai
Created user journeys for both our key data science modeling product, Pulse and fraud analyst rules metrics products.
Schwab
Market validated stock bundles gifting product and created key personas.
Nexon
Validated features, tutorials and usability for Maple Story mobile port.
PAST CLIENTS
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
A fully visualized metaphorical representation of voltage changes in series and parallel circuits led to a significant increase in learning over partial and incomplete visualizations.
Analyzed popular and cognitive science based games to extract principles of integrating multiple representations for teaching complex topics in games, esp. science related games.
Adaptive increasing abstraction - Highlights value of adaptive self explanation prompts in learning from a science game.
Compared isolated and novel integrated animation of neural signal transmission. Highlights importance of combining information visually. Resulted in 400%+ increase in learning gains for integrated visual science teaching framework.
An interactive simulation with guiding exercises where glacial maps were linked to an interactive animation where users could swipe off chunks of glacial ice to see how water would rise at South Seaport Manhattan demonstrated significant gains in learning on short answer and drawing questions vs. a control who read the same information on a website (N=18).
SPECIALIZED INDUSTRIES
Education (including STEM education)
Gaming
Generative AI
Artificial Intelligence
Healthcare
Law
FinTech
Virtual Reality
Augmented Reality
Simulations
Healthcare