Research

My research focuses on the relationship between digital infrastructure, design practice, and institutional resilience. I’m especially interested in how interfaces shape policy delivery, public trust, and civic capacity—and what happens when those systems are designed without accountability.

I call this broader framework Consequence Design: a way to interrogate how design decisions produce long-term effects, often beyond the scope or awareness of any single actor.

I’ve recently introduced the concept of Interaction Engineering to describe the applied systems work that often sits between service design, product strategy, and infrastructure delivery. While traditional UX has become flattened in many orgs, Interaction Engineering emphasizes structural clarity, interface coherence, and resilient flows across time, constraints, and teams.

My current research explores:

• How AI systems reshape civic experiences through opaque interfaces
• The erosion of institutional memory in digital service delivery
• Patterns of administrative friction and their role in democratic life
• Design artifacts that enable legibility, maintenance, and strategic clarity at scale

I’ve spoken about these topics at global venues including IxDA Oslo, UX Australia, Rosenfeld Media’s Civic Design Conference, and others. My writing has appeared in A List Apart, Public Sector Network, and more.

Current Interests

• Agent Experience (AX) and ambient computing in public services
• Interaction engineering frameworks for interface-level resilience
• Consequential design ethics in platform policy and urban systems
• Alternative governance models for civic technology ecosystems

Selected Talks & Writing

• "The Interface Is The Interview" — UX and hiring systems [blog.ronbronson.com]
• "Consequence Design" — Framework for post-platform design ethics
• "Designing for Agent Experience" — Talk on AX at IxDA Oslo