The New York Times — Account & Payments Research

Subscribers were hitting friction across sign-in, billing, and plan changes. I led the research that mapped the real journey end-to-end, distilled it into a shared insights diagram, and authored the AI-ethics framework product teams used to greenlight new AI features.

Subscribers loved the journalism and tolerated the account experience. Sign-in, billing, and plan changes were quietly the top driver of support contacts and cancellations. At the same time, editorial product teams were prototyping AI features without a shared way to weigh reader trust against speed of shipping.

A mixed-methods program: 38 subscriber interviews, diary studies across three subscription tiers, a teardown of the account and payment flow on three platforms, and stakeholder sessions with editorial, product, legal, and policy.

1. 01

   The journey breaks at the seams between teams

   Sign-in, billing, and plan management are owned by different orgs. Subscribers experience one product; the seams between teams were where trust eroded — a redrawn end-to-end journey map made the handoffs visible for the first time.

2. 02

   Readers separate the masthead from the machinery

   Trust in the journalism did not transfer to trust in the account flow. Readers forgave a paywall but not a billing surprise. The insight reframed payment work as a brand problem, not a conversion problem.

3. 03

   AI features need an ethics rubric before a roadmap

   Teams were arguing about specific AI features when the real disagreement was about principles. Until there was a shared rubric — sourcing, transparency, reader consent, editorial review — the conversations went in circles.

The work produced three artifacts that outlived the engagement: a redrawn journey map, an anonymized research-insights diagram, and an AI-ethics framework. Each was designed to be used by teams I'd never meet.

• A redrawn end-to-end journey map

  Account, billing, and plan changes drawn as one continuous journey — with the org boundaries marked in. The map became the artifact leadership used to fund cross-team work, not a single team's roadmap.

• An anonymized insights diagram, not a slide deck

  Every insight tied to the moment in the journey where it lived, with severity and reach scored. Stripped of quotes and screens so it could be shared widely without breaking subscriber confidentiality.

• An AI-ethics framework for editorial product

  Five lenses — sourcing, transparency, reader consent, editorial review, and reversibility — with a lightweight scoring rubric and worked examples. Designed to be used in a 30-minute review, not a quarterly committee.

• Ran the framework against live prototypes

  Validated the rubric by walking three in-flight AI prototypes through it with their teams. Two shipped with changes; one was paused. That made the framework real.

This is a research case study — the deliverables are frameworks, not screens. The visuals below are representative redraws of the artifacts that shipped. A private walkthrough of the real journey map, insights diagram, and AI-ethics framework is available behind a password.

Flow 01

Account & payment journey map — representative

The end-to-end subscriber journey from first sign-in through plan change and cancellation, with org boundaries and friction points marked. Redrawn here in neutral notation; the real artifact carries the same structure on real surfaces.

Representative — redrawn frameworks and diagrams for confidentiality.

Flow 02

Research insights diagram — representative

Insights mapped to the moment in the journey where they surfaced, scored by severity and reach. Anonymized so it could be circulated to teams without exposing subscriber detail.

Representative — redrawn frameworks and diagrams for confidentiality.

Flow 03

AI-ethics framework — representative

Five lenses, a 1–5 rubric per lens, and three worked examples. The version shown here is the public-safe redraw; the live framework includes the proprietary examples and review workflow.

Representative — redrawn frameworks and diagrams for confidentiality.

A research engagement of this kind doesn't ship pixels — it ships decisions. The outcomes were qualitative, and they were what the org asked for.

The journey map became the shared reference for the cross-team program that followed. The AI-ethics framework was adopted by editorial product as the standard review for new AI features — three prototypes were evaluated against it during the engagement, with concrete changes shipped on two and a third paused for re-scoping. The insights diagram was circulated to leadership as the basis for the next year's account-experience investment.

Working inside an institution this old taught me to design artifacts for people who weren't in the room. The journey map and ethics framework outlived the engagement because they could be picked up by a new team without me explaining them. I'd start the framework work earlier next time — it shaped the research as much as the research shaped it.