Miguel Palau | Principal UX Research Strategist & Design Anthropologist

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE  ·  ANTHROPOLOGY OF DESIGN

“Before a product exists, it has already existed in desire.
The desire is the only form of existence that needs no time.”

CESARE PAVESE  ·  Il mestiere di vivere, 1952

SECTION I

Professional Profile

Miguel Palau is a Principal UX Research Strategist and Design Anthropologist with extensive research experience leading cross-cultural UX research for global digital products across LATAM, APAC, MENA, and Europe. He combines Psychological Anthropology and Human-Computer Interaction to guide product strategy through mixed-methods research and original theoretical frameworks.

He specializes in translating deep cultural and psychological insights into strategic product decisions — helping teams align product values, features, information architecture, and visual elements with the conscious and unconscious preferences of users in diverse global markets.

His work consistently exceeds standard UX methodologies. He develops and implements behavioral, cross-cultural, and AI-assisted research models that help organizations understand not only what users do, but why they behave as they do — and how they adopt or reject product interactions. These models operate longitudinally or tactically, directly supporting product designers, engineers, and C-level executives with decision-making frameworks that influence roadmaps, design systems, and business strategy.

SECTION II

Proprietary Frameworks

Dissonant Imagination (La Imaginación Disonante)

The Dissonant Imagination framework is a psycho-cultural model that studies the symbolic genesis of design at the intersection of psyche and culture. It enables early prediction of product acceptance, rejection, or retention by identifying symbolic dissonances and ensuring emotional, symbolic, and cultural coherence between design intent and user populations. Unlike surface-level localization (language, color, iconography), it addresses deeper logics: trust formation, risk perception in volatile economies, mythic and affective structures that shape how users relate to products as objects of desire.

The framework goes beyond usability and beyond HCD — it operates at the pre-rational, symbolic layer where real adoption decisions are made, before users can articulate why they accept or reject a design. Published via Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15559612) and registered under ORCID: 0009-0004-0608-5073.

“Human Centered Design requires an emotional, symbolic, and cultural frame that creates coherence between design and users — this alignment is the operative core of the Dissonant Imagination framework.”

MELS — Multi-Layer Experience Logic for Strategic UX

MELS is a decision-making framework that maps the multi-layer logic behind user experience: behavioral, relational, cultural, and systemic. It helps product and UX teams diagnose invisible friction, uncover deeper motivation patterns, and align design choices with business strategy — strengthening strategic clarity, reducing ambiguity in global environments, and improving cross-functional alignment in complex products.

Rapid Ethnography for Digital Product Development

A practitioner methodology for accelerating ethnographic insight generation in digital product contexts. Co-authored with Yilber Sisco (2016), cited as a methodological foundation in Jangwa Pana (DOI: 10.21676/16574923.3359) — a peer-reviewed Colombian anthropology journal. The methodology integrates ethnographic depth with the temporal constraints of agile product development cycles.

AI-Driven Quantitative Persona Modeling

A computational ethnography approach blending ethnographic thinking, cultural data mining, and machine learning to build data-driven personas from digital behavioral data. Developed using CRISP-DM and Naive Bayes classification, the model achieved 76% accuracy across 60 case studies, identifying latent psychological and cultural conditions — including Dissociative Absence patterns — as primary persona variables. Published as Etnominía de Datos (Data Ethnomining).

SECTION III

Professional Experience

His corporate career progression from ethnographer to Principal spans Tech, AgriTech, FMCG, and Financial Services at Colgate-Palmolive, PepsiCo, Yara International / GammaUX, and Mashreq Bank (UAE). Consulting engagements include Microsoft, Intel, Boeing, Nestlé, Pfizer, Mazda, and Coca-Cola across LATAM, APAC, MENA, and Europe.

He has operated within leading regional research and design firms including Pacific Ethnography (USA), Fjord/Insitum (Mexico), GfK (LATAM), Ipsos, and Gamma UX (Spain). He has contributed research to more than 60 products worldwide, driving double-digit growth in user acquisition (10–15%) across 50+ platforms and delivering board-level strategic recommendations.

Selected Achievement — TankMix / Yara International

As Senior UX Researcher for Yara International’s global AgriTech platform TankMix (50,000+ installs across Europe and Asia), Miguel led hybrid mixed-methods research that diagnosed structural UX failures in the original interface: high cognitive load, weak visual hierarchy, ambiguous navigation, and unclear mixability communication. His insights informed a major redesign delivering a 4-step behavioral task flow, improved search and contextual guidance, and cross-regional segmentation. Results: 90% improvement in UI clarity and task completion, validated through documented UI comparison between legacy and redesigned versions. The new app version launched in 2024.

Selected Achievement — Mashreq Bank, UAE

At Mashreq Corporate & Investment Banking Group, classified and prioritized the research scope across a portfolio of 50 digital products in UAE and MENAP — covering digital payment, retail banking, corporate investment, and wholesale — and operationalized the research agenda across 11 cross-functional product teams. Conceived and institutionalized the UX Research Roadmap presented to the VP of Design in QPM 2023 C-suite planning sessions, establishing the first structured research agenda across 21 digital products.

SECTION IV

Academic Background

Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. Doctoral coursework in Psychological Anthropology at Universidad Central de Venezuela under Dr. Samuel Hurtado Salazar, creator of the Matrisocialidad theory — one of the most influential frameworks in Venezuelan social anthropology. Complementary Master’s-level focus in Computer Sciences and Human-Computer Interaction under Dr. Vanessa Leguizamo, a recognized researcher specializing in software engineering and UX at UCV’s School of Computing. Additional studies at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando. Bilingual professional — Spanish and English.

Contributing founder of Anthropology of Design as a formal applied subdiscipline (2015) — an interdisciplinary field integrating structural anthropology, psychoanalysis, and HCI to study the symbolic genesis of products and their cultural adoption dynamics.

SECTION V

Publications, Citations & Peer Review

Peer reviewer for EPIC Conference Proceedings 2018–2019, published by Wiley/AnthroSource (ISSN: 1559-8918) — the leading international conference on ethnographic practice in industry, with a 20–30% paper acceptance rate. Reviewed cross-disciplinary submissions at the intersection of Design Anthropology, UX Research, and organizational ethnography. Profile: epicpeople.org/business-directory/7850/miguel-palau/

Selected Publications

Palau, M. (2025). La Imaginación Disonante. Contribuciones hacia la Antropología del Diseño. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15559612  ·  OSF: 10.17605/OSF.IO/4CKYS

Palau, M. (2025). Designing Across Cultures: A Hybrid UX Research Case for TankMix. Yara International / Miguel Palau. miguelpalau.blogspot.com

Palau, M. & Sisco, Y. (2016). Rapid Ethnography (REAP) for Mobile Augmented Reality Development. [Cited in: Rodríguez-Ortiz & Montoya-Trujillo, 2020, Jangwa Pana. DOI: 10.21676/16574923.3359]

Peer Review: EPIC Conference Proceedings 2018–2019. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. Wiley/AnthroSource. ISSN: 1559-8918.

SECTION VI

Academic Identifier Network

The following identifiers constitute a verified, cross-platform academic record linking all published work, peer review activity, and original frameworks under a single author profile indexed by Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and ORCID.

ORCID	0009-0004-0608-5073
Zenodo DOI	10.5281/zenodo.15559612
OSF DOI	10.17605/OSF.IO/4CKYS
Google Scholar	scholar.google.com/citations?user=Skpj6n8AAAAJ
ResearchGate	researchgate.net/profile/Miguel-Palau
Academia.edu	independentresearcher.academia.edu/MiguelPalau
LinkedIn	linkedin.com/in/miguelpalau
Blog & Cases	miguelpalau.blogspot.com
Portfolio	uxfol.io/2dfdaafd
EPIC Profile	epicpeople.org/business-directory/7850/miguel-palau/

© Miguel Palau – Todos los derechos reservados.

ORCID: 0009-0004-0608-5073  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15559612  ·  miguelpalau.blogspot.com

This biographical text was developed by the author.