Lo/Be Lab is a design-based research practice. We build digital platforms, facilitated workshops, and AI-driven conversation systems that give students and professionals the space to reflect before they decide. The work lives at the intersection of identity development, spatial computing, and career design — partnering with universities and institutions that believe personal development deserves more than a personality quiz and a ranked list.
What We Do
The practice

We design environments — digital, physical, and conversational — where people can slow down and think through who they are before deciding what to do next. Every project starts from the same premise: the tools most people get for self-reflection (assessments, ranked lists, thirty-minute advising appointments) are built for speed, not for depth.

We partner with universities, career centers, and institutional leaders who want something different. Programs that treat personal development as a design problem. Platforms that reward exploration over efficiency. Workshops that turn lived experience into usable self-knowledge.

Why Reflective Learning
The gap

Students make some of the most consequential decisions of their lives — choosing majors, careers, life directions — with almost no real support for thinking it through. The tools they get (personality quizzes, job boards, resume builders) treat identity as something you already know. You don't. Identity takes shape through reflection, conversation, and experience.

Most institutions default to speed: more content, more assessment, more choice. We design for the opposite — slow, deliberate environments where people can get their thinking out in the open, see what's actually there, and make decisions from self-knowledge instead of pressure.

How We Work
sensemaking environments
Digital platforms that give people room to think. Instead of ranked lists and search bars, students navigate career possibilities as spatial landscapes — walking through a world of options rather than scrolling past them.
identity + narrative tools
Facilitated workshops where people take apart their own experiences, sort them, and figure out what they add up to. Physical materials, digital tools, solo work and peer conversation — all designed to turn lived experience into something you can actually use.
conversation tools
Conversation systems that help people think out loud — with a facilitator, with peers, or with a well-designed prompt. The goal is always the same: help someone figure out what they think before they have to decide what to do.
Principles
Reflection first
Look inward before looking outward. Students who understand their own patterns make better decisions about what to do next.
Construction over assessment
People make meaning — they don't receive scores. Identity is something you build through reflection, not something a test measures for you.
Interpretation without prescription
Our tools show you what might be there — they don't tell you what it means. Students work through what they're seeing in conversation with peers and facilitators, not by reading a printout.
Evidence-based iteration
Every tool is a hypothesis. We deploy, observe, collect data, and redesign. Each academic term is a research cycle that produces the next version.
Locally adaptable
No two schools are the same. We build tools that can be reconfigured for different students, different departments, and different resources.
1. Featured
Narrative by Design
Career Narrative Workshop / Dartmouth College / Center for Career Design / 2024 – Present
context
A 90-minute workshop built around narrative compression. Students start with a messy paragraph about who they are, cut it to a sentence, then to a single word. Each cut forces a choice — what you keep tells you what actually matters.
objective
Teach students a method for figuring out what their story is — before they try to tell it. Not a resume template or an interview script, but a repeatable framework for making sense of experience.
approach
Compression exercises paired with card sorts for values, strengths, and skills. An AI layer compares self-perception with resume evidence. A companion web app (ccd-nbd.vercel.app) guides students through each phase.
Narrative Compression Process AI as Mirror — Self-Perception vs Evidence
Read the full case study →
2. Featured
Synapse
Spatial Career Exploration / 460 Occupations / 13 Dimensions
context
A career exploration tool that throws out the ranked list. Students answer 13 either/or questions about how they think and work, then explore 460 real occupations (from BLS and O*NET data) arranged in a spatial map where similar careers sit near each other.
objective
Let students wander through careers instead of scrolling past them. Show how occupations connect to each other — not just which ones score highest.
approach
Started as a traditional quiz with ranked results. Students ignored everything past the top five. Rebuilding the output as a spatial map changed behavior immediately — people explored more and discovered careers they'd never considered. Try it.
Binary question — Manifest vs Decipher Synapse results — career network and profile
Read the full case study →
10+
Years of Research
15
Tools & Interventions
20K+
Participants
10+
Countries
Current Research
What happens when you redesign career services as a place where students actually learn — about themselves, over time, through reflection and conversation?
Read more about our research →
Interested in working together? We're open to research partnerships, institutional collaborations, and pilot programs.
Get in touch →