Designing for Trust: Building agentic workflows in publishing
This case study documents three connected decisions: why I replaced an off-the-shelf submission platform with something I designed, built and control, where I drew the line on AI involvement in editorial work, and how two production agents reduce the burden on editors without compromising what readers and contributors trust San Antonio Review to do. The most interesting design work here isn’t what I automated. It’s what I chose not to.
From Emotion to Embeddings: Architecting Semantic Retrieval for Editorial and Reader Discovery
I designed and deployed a full-stack semantic retrieval system for San Antonio Review that models emotional intent using structured metadata and vector search.
The system translates subjective reader queries into embeddings, retrieves semantically aligned poems from a vector database, and generates contextual literary recommendations grounded in verified catalog content.
Editors previously spent a lot of time relying on memory, browsing through published poetry, or relying on tradition search to curate packages for the site and new issues. They needed a richer way to find poetry that didn’t rely on tagging and keywords.
Readers found their way to poetry through social media and editorial curation. That’s fine for new content, but poetry doesn’t expire. We want readers to explore the back catalog and fall in love with new authors. To do that, they needed better ways to engage.
This system introduced emotionally nuanced retrieval without relying on manual tagging or surface keywords.
Dual-Screen Android Phone: Designing for a New Form Factor
I co-led the design of a dual-screen Android phone, from the system-level interaction framework to the core application suite.
A dual-screen phone doesn’t just double the screen real estate; it fundamentally changes the relationship between the user and their applications.
Every assumption baked into single-screen mobile interaction had to be reconsidered: How do apps launch? Where do they appear? What happens when you rotate the device? How do you move content between screens? How do you avoid overwhelming users with complexity while still delivering on the promise of two screens?
Mainframe 2.0: Redesigning Enterprise Database Administration & Monitoring
I led the interaction design for Mainframe 2.0, a reimagining of how database administrators work with mainframe systems. The project took what had been a fragmented landscape of command-line tools and siloed applications and unified it into a single, visual, collaborative workspace.
Mainframe database administration was facing a crisis, the workforce was aging out and the software itself was part of why the field couldn’t attract younger IT talent. The directive was to modernize the software so that wouldn’t be the barrier to entry for new people, while simultaneously not disrupting the workflows of DBAs who had been doing this for decades.
Designing a Smartwatch App for Serious Runners
I co-led the design for a complete running app experience for a fitness watch, including run setup, GPS acquisition, in-run interaction, post-run summary, and historical run management.
The fundamental constraints are different in ways that affect every design decision. The screen is small, targets are difficult to acquire, the user is moving, glanceability matters, and physical hard keys become a primary input method because sweaty fingers and bouncing wrists make touch finicky.
Runners are hungry for more data, not less. The challenge was delivering all of that without building an interface that demands focused attention.
VAQUITA DESIGN 