Priyal Shrivastava

Hi, I’m Priyal.

I study humans, machines, and their complicated relationship.

I’m a researcher who likes understanding both sides of the equation: how technology shapes people, and how people shape technology.

I use mixed-methods research to understand where technology works, where it falls short, and how we can make it better for people across cultures and backgrounds.

See my work More about me

Currently at Carnegie Mellon · Previously Microsoft, Razorpay & Meesho

Right now

Projects

Selected work

  1. Industry research
  2. New Sun Rising · 01 / 05Can an AI chatbot collect reliable data for nonprofit grant reports?
  3. Finding a role for AI at New Sun Rising
    • Co-design & think-aloud testing
    • AI strategy
    • Conversational data collection
    • Behavioral LLM evaluation
    Question
    Where could AI help NSR's nonprofit clients?
    Evidence
    Discovery and product research, with scenario-based evaluation of the grant assistant.
    Decision
    Use coded grant ranking and an AI assistant for collecting and interpreting program information. Clients review the suggestions.
  4. How can Copilot earn users’ trust?
    • Research synthesis
    • Literature review
    • Social listening
    Question
    What do people need before letting Copilot act for them?
    Evidence
    Findings from a year of Copilot studies.
    Decision
    Give people clear information and control before asking them to trust more automation.
  5. What makes people leave Outlook on mobile web?
    • Interviews
    • Survey
    • Thematic analysis
    Question
    Why do mobile-web users stay or leave?
    Evidence
    36 interviews and more than 300 survey responses from six types of users.
    Decision
    Improve how people move between their accounts and email apps.
  6. How can research keep improving a website right up to launch?
    • Pre-mortem
    • UX audit
    • Impression test
    • Perception test
    • Usability test
    • Preference test
    Question
    What would the redesigned homepage communicate before launch?
    Evidence
    Six kinds of research completed over six weeks.
    Decision
    Fix the main problems before the new site launched.
  7. Should Razorpay build a consumer rewards product?
    • Interviews
    • Focus groups
    • Participatory design
    • Survey
    Question
    Should Razorpay build a consumer rewards product?
    Evidence
    40+ interviews and a survey of more than 1,000 people.
    Decision
    Replace the original idea with the rewards model people preferred.
  8. Publications and features
  10. Playground
  11. Things I make for fun Small things I make for fun Prototypes, games, music, and other things I wanted to try.
    • Experiments
    • Games

About me

I make sense of messy human problems.

I started as a product designer, then moved into research because I wanted to understand the problem before designing a solution. Over the past four years, I’ve worked at Microsoft, Razorpay, and Meesho.

I plan and run interviews, surveys, usability studies, and workshops. I’ve worked with low-tech-literacy users, people across cultures and languages, and teams building trust in AI.

I’m currently completing a master’s in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon. My recent academic work looks at how AI changes people’s opinions, how errors in automatic captions affect speakers, and how people decide when to use AI.