Muhammad Zaid Arif

• Proposed dissertation: investigating how friction in video game design influences player engagement and memory.
• Research direction connects HCI, game studies, player behavior, memory, persuasive design, and system-level evaluation.

• Supervisor: Dr. Sonia Chiasson.
• Completed and defended thesis using qualitative UX research to study children's perceptions of deceptive design patterns in video game interfaces.
• Teaching Assistant in the Department of Computer Science and Research Assistant in CHORUS, Carleton's Human Oriented Research in Usable Security lab.
• Coursework included HCI design and evaluation, user interface development, emerging interaction techniques, design research, usability evaluation, and human-centric security and privacy.

• Majors: Communication, Culture, Information & Technology; Technology, Coding & Society.
• Coursework included UX design, user research, prototyping, evaluation, understanding users, advanced web design, board game UX, interactive design, and social data analytics.
• Undergraduate thesis work explored incorporating the Bolton Special Collection into game studies pedagogy at UTM.

• Teach Python and JavaScript concepts to diverse age groups in small class settings, translating programming concepts into accessible learning experiences.
• Support curriculum development across skill levels, from absolute beginner material to applied data analysis concepts using libraries such as Pandas.
• Prepare students for coding and math competitions by combining technical instruction, confidence-building, and individualized feedback.

• Support students by translating complex technical and conceptual requirements into accessible guidance, debugging support, and usable learning pathways.
• Conduct research on fairness, player behavior, and game systems to inform design evaluation and systems-level decision-making.
• Authoring auto-ethnographic work on systems-level pedagogy and experiential learning.

• Supported Introduction to Computer Science I for approximately 500 students and Computing Society and Ethics for 40 fourth-year students.
• Graded quizzes, tests, exams, and essay-based assignments while maintaining consistent standards across large and small class contexts.
• Implemented and automated plagiarism detection using MOSS, conducted academic integrity investigations, and reviewed citation quality and AI-assisted submissions.

• Led planning for a sound design laboratory, including equipment inventory, speaker placement, acoustical practicality, and system compatibility.
• Used architectural blueprints and VR modeling to test configurations before physical installation.
• Coordinated between faculty, IT, and external vendors to align technical, logistical, and budgetary requirements.

• Contributed to website and application redesign for a local streaming platform across responsive web and mobile interfaces.
• Conducted UX testing, QA testing, and bug analysis to improve usability, platform stability, and interaction quality.
• Collaborated with marketing and product stakeholders to align design direction with engagement strategy and proposed gaming-oriented platform expansion ideas.

• Co-led Special Topics: Data Driven Sound Design, supporting students across sound recording, Audacity editing, and p5.js sound generation.
• Helped design the final course showcase as an immersive Unity 3D virtual exhibit.

• Collaborate on HCI research projects as a researcher, writer, and reviewer, with a focus on games, player behavior, learning, and system-level design questions.
• Conduct tutorials for introductory computer science courses with class sizes up to 40 students and support assessment design across programming concepts.
• Evaluate quizzes and assessments for large cohorts, connecting teaching practice with research interests in pedagogy, technical learning, and user understanding.

• Supported qualitative research in usable security, privacy, developer motivation, user behavior, and at-home DNA testing.
• Prepared transcripts and coded qualitative data using NVivo to surface privacy concerns, behavioral themes, and research insights.
• Contributed to peer-reviewed research on developer security knowledge and motivation, including literature review, synthesis, proofreading, and AI-related analysis support.

• Researched misinformation as a cybersecurity threat through literature review and expert interviews with industry professionals, government officials, academics, and security practitioners.
• Analyzed AI, blockchain, deepfakes, bot detection, regulation, and societal factors affecting misinformation risk and mitigation.
• Synthesized findings into a published Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership (HC2P) report with actionable recommendations for proactive, human-centered cybersecurity responses.

• Supported archival work for the Syd Bolton Collection, a major game collection of games, magazines, consoles, and related materials.
• Designed educational exhibit work on realism in first-person shooters, game history, weaponry, control methods, and casual versus competitive play.
• Presented related work at CGSA 2022 on using exhibits as pedagogical tools in game studies.

• Researched sonification techniques to translate COVID-19 and traffic data into sound-based representations.
• Used Python for data cleaning and p5.js for sound synthesis, connecting public health and urban data through audio.

Forthcoming in IDC 2026, Brighton, UK. Co-authored with Asra Sakeen Wani, Ananta Chowdhury, Sana Maqsood, and Sonia Chiasson.

Assal, H., Morkonda, S. G., Arif, M. Z., & Chiasson, S. Peer-reviewed research on developer security knowledge, workplace context, and motivation.

Poster and paper presentation with Sonia Chiasson and Sana Maqsood on tweens' perceptions and responses to deceptive design patterns in video games.

Published report examining misinformation as a cybersecurity threat to digital media, AI, deepfakes, public trust, and democratic processes.

Conference presentation on digital exhibits, game preservation, and exhibit-based pedagogy in game studies.

• Conducted scenario-based user interviews with 18 children to study perceptions and reactions to deceptive design patterns in video games.
• Used qualitative coding, thematic analysis, and research synthesis to translate children's reasoning into findings, UX implications, and ethical design recommendations.

• Designed and built a private experimental web product exploring planning, documentation, memory preservation, personal analytics, persuasive technology, and intentional living.
• Iterated through abandoned concepts including streaks, recovery systems, and a virtual garden before shifting toward photo documentation, ethical motivation, and daily recap videos.

• Conducted contextual inquiry interviews, focus groups, participatory design, usability testing, and task-based evaluation to identify navigation and information access problems on an academic homepage.
• Created information architecture models, wireframes, user flow artifacts, and prototype directions for an implementation-facing redesign adapted within University of Toronto constraints.

• Designed and developed a scoring and team-selection web application for CPA-style pool league workflows using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Reduced conflict around scoring and team selection by preserving match history, supporting rule logic, and randomly generating fairer teams from player lists.

Coursework and certificates include AI for Design Systems, Object-Oriented UI Design, Conversation Design for AI, Radical Participatory Design, Agile Methods for UX Design, and Accessibility: How to Design for All.

Developed practical foundations in Python, statistics, data analysis, machine learning, recommendation systems, and data-informed decision-making.

Completed coursework and projects in deep learning, neural networks, computer vision, and natural language processing.

Built foundations in web development, responsive design, visual design, photography, video editing, creative media, personas, empathy maps, and interactive media production.