About — Myra Manekia

Origin

South Africa is where I grew up. Difference there isn't an abstract category: it's the air we breathe. Multiple languages, cosmologies, and histories in close conversation. That is what formed me.

I went to Pomona College for cognitive science with a Human-Centered Design concentration. I wanted to understand difference through what unites us. The premise: cognition is the universal backbone of every mind, but it operates differently in each — refracted by lived experience, by language, by what we were taught to notice.

That's what I keep designing toward — the gap between what unites us and what makes us different.

How I work

On method. Design's most important work happens before the interface — at the level of what someone assumes, perceives, understands. Cognitive science is how I think through that explicitly.

On practice. I work AI-native. AI tools are across every stage of my process — research, prototyping, code I can't write yet, writing I want to argue with. Not a workflow choice. A thinking practice.

Thesis — Pomona College

How UI design elements affect fluency and memory for text-based content

My thesis explored how UI design's aesthetic complexity affects processing fluency and memory retention for text-based information. Aesthetic complexity in this study was defined as, and determined by, the manipulation of four UI variables: font size, font style, color palette, and layout. The findings were less binary than I expected.

Layout emerged as the most consistent variable affecting fluency and memory in my thesis. Specifically, an aesthetically simple and organized layout — structured according to Gestalt principles — promoted better processing and stronger recall. In contrast, font size, font style, and color palette effects depended on the visual context in which they appeared — they worked as a system, not in isolation.

My thesis explored how UI design's aesthetic complexity affects processing fluency and memory retention for text-based information.

Aesthetic complexity in this study was defined as,

and determined by, the manipulation of four UI variables:

font size, font style, color palette, and layout.

The findings were less binary than I

expected …

Layout emerged as the most consistent variable affecting fluency and memory in my thesis. Specifically, an aesthetically simple and organized layout — structured according to Gestalt principles — promoted better processing and stronger recall. In contrast, font size, font style, and color palette effects depended on the visual context in which they appeared — they worked as a system, not in isolation.

I came to design through the question of how minds work. I came to design through the question of how minds work.

How UI design elements affect fluency and memory for text-based content

I came to design through the question of how minds work.