Drake Durflinger
Work
Everything I’ve worked on, one room at a time.
Case studies
TreeTestAi.com · Live product · 2026
A free UX research platform, built by the students who needed it.
Research tools cost more than students could pay, so Kate Besel and I built a free one: card sorts, tree tests, usability tests, surveys and interviews in one place.
COSMOS.so redesign · 2026
Designers collected on Cosmos, then left to do the real work.
342 notes, three moments where the workflow leaked, and a vibe-coded redesign that took usability from 56 to 91.
Soteria · Red Dot 2026 · IDEA finalist
Deciding what not to show a firefighter.
An AR mask and command tablet. The research decided what the visor keeps quiet until it matters.
AMBL · 2026
A daily briefing, not a dashboard.
A smart shoe for people with Parkinson’s, and the research behind what it tells them.
ShopGoodwill.com · IA redesign · 2026
Thrifting without the frustration.
A redesign of shopgoodwill.com’s categories, from thirty top-level menus to seven, tested twice in the tool that became TreeTestAi.
More work
Duolingo · Heuristic evaluation · 2025
Fun and engaging, but not flawless.
A solo evaluation of Duolingo’s iPhone app: six issues against Nielsen’s ten heuristics, each rated by severity with a fix.
Research Ethics Playbook · 2025
Above all else, do no harm.
A 28-page playbook on ethical UX research with AI in the loop, ending in a checklist and consent template that ask about AI first.
Amazon checkout · Psychology + ethics · 2025
Persuasion, or manipulation?
Four psychological principles on one Subscribe & Save checkout, the ethical question each one raises, and how to keep the nudge honest.