Priyanshi Mehra

Yes. So my name is Priyanshi Mehra. I am based out of Noida. I have graduated in economics from Delhi University. I worked at KPMG as an analyst, after which I decided to switch my career into UI/UX. So I worked at Surulever as a UI designer for a long time before I decided to move to another company, which was Netex, where I did contract employment. And at Netex, I was the only designer working there. So I was also taking care of all the aspects of design, including design documentation, design system, developing user experiences, developing all the user interfaces, and interacting with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to understand technological limitations, business needs, as well as user needs. I have also worked on a visualization tool called Grafana where I utilized my knowledge of HTML and CSS to create dashboards for the clients. And, yeah, that's been mostly my journey over the years.

Yes. This is basically when we were working on a responsive design. So the requirement was to work on a responsive application, which was a classroom solution for a client. And the basic technical constraint we felt was that the time deadline was very small. Like, we were supposed to launch within a month. And so we needed to make sure that all the designs for all devices, cross-device, were supposed to be similar so that the development time would be less, followed by figuring out a design system that had the code base as well as had the Figma design file that I could utilize and the code base that the front-end developers could utilize to work on design in such a way. So yeah. That was one experience where we had to balance user experience with technical constraints. And I can say that the designs were highly appreciated and came out pretty good.

When starting a new UI design, my entire process would be something around where I am first setting a user flow at a place where I would also define the contents that each screen would have so that this gives a clear idea of what the user flow would be like, also the number of screens that would be required. After that, I basically go ahead with wireframing. Now, even before I enter UI design, my point is to actually decide on layouting, which the wireframing helps with, and then decide on the colors behind it, the colors and the typography. Now, if it's a software that I'm working on, then obviously, we have a design system at a place where we have the colors determined and followed by we also have the components as well as the typography defined. So, it's very easy to move from wireframing to design directly. However, if it's something where I'm working on, let's say, web design or something that's more smaller project, does not require a design system. My aim would be to after wireframing, actually determine the colors that would be used and the typography, and then dive into UI design. Before which, I would do an entire mood boarding where I'll find references, do a little bit of research as to what people are designing in similar interfaces, in interfaces that are of the similar domain. And, yeah, using all that information, then I'll dive into UI designing.

Design aligns with user needs. So, again, my major idea is always to interact a lot with the product manager. Because in my previous companies, my product manager used to have client interactions. So, my basic understanding would be to be able to see if they were using any software before, so that I know the experience they have had and the basics that. And using that as a basis, I work on new designs for their software. The second thing would be to understand if there is a new software that we're working on, what are the pain points that these clients are facing. So a lot of times, I would ask my product managers with a list of information to ask the clients, where I could get insights about the pain points they're facing or what content they're actually looking forward to in the user interface. And based on that, I'll actually start working on the designs.

Of user testing in UX design. So a lot of times, basically, the major understanding is that whatever I design, I'm not going to be the user for it. Right? So the user base is going to be very different and can be from a very technological background or geographical background. So their experience with the platform can be very different from what we anticipated it to be. So the whole point of user testing is to be able to see if the software is working properly and there are no bugs, second, if whatever we have created is actually something where users are able to understand or if they're feeling stuck somewhere. So how can we improve that experience? And third, would be part of A/B testing. So if sometimes I work on two types of designs and I'm confused, which would make more sense, the A/B testing would be the way to go, where users would be presented with the scene, and they can see which seems more convenient to them. And everything because, again, at the end of the day, the users are going to use our platform. We are just people creating it. So it's very important to understand this: that user testing is the ultimate goal. It's actually the most important aspect when you're creating something, because you need to understand whether the users are actually being helped by the software that you have created or not.

I've used analytics data in shaping design iterations by being able to see information like the pinpoint locations where people are getting stuck and improving that area further, also being able to see where all people are able to navigate very easily. Knowing that, we'll continue creating and this will be a part of our designs, to also understand why people are dropping off on a particular step and what we can do to improve it. The analytics data would be used to improve the designs in smaller increments, so we can create a much better experience for the users.

Had to overhaul a design system. What was your process and what challenge did you face? So a time when I had to overhaul a design system would be when I had to create a customized component of the tooltip. So, we were using an existing design system. And in the tooltip, it was like the tooltips are supposed to be something very specific. When you hover on a button, it just gives you some information about it. But here, what we actually required was that when you hover on it, you get an entire overview of a dashboard where you're getting the name of the dashboard and the various average inputs that they are giving. And yeah. So this was one component that we actually had to break away from. My process was basically to be able to use the tooltips, colors, basically, the design system's colors and everything that was in place, the typography in place, and create this component, and then add it as a part of the design system and inform the front-end team so that they could also update their code base for the same component. So there weren't many challenges I faced there. The only challenge was to actually be able to interact with the front-end team and ensure that we were on the same page regarding the component because that's the entire point. Like, we need to work in collaboration. So, yeah, that was one time that I had to overhaul the design system.

Testing and adding new product ideas before full development. So, what is the process for testing and validating new product ideas? So I would actually do the following: I would take the product ID, and I'd do a Google search to see if people have created something in the similar domain or in the similar work in the similar area. And I would try to see the problem that they are solving, and based on that, I would have discussions with cross-functional teams, including product managers, front-end developers, back-end developers, and be able to understand exactly what problem we are trying to solve. I would then ideate as much as we can as to what all problems that other platforms might not be solving that we can actually solve. So, that would be mostly my process around validating the new product ideas and before full development.

The solution you've implemented to address a complex user experience problem. So you should have implemented to address a complex user experience. So I think the one innovative solution that I would have implemented to address a very complex user problem would be to actually create a platform that has multiple modules, and each module has, were basically redirecting, so each module, well, they were separate entities, but they were interrelated to each other. So each of them relied on each other, but they were also usable as separate modules. So this was a complex problem to me, in that how would you actually allow the user to jump from one module to another so that they don't feel they're moving out of place, but they also know they're actually moving to a different module. So the whole point was to actually keep the layout as similar as possible, keep the design system similar, and be able to keep everything in the multiple modules as familiar as possible so that the users know they're still within our platform, it's just a different module. So I think designing it in a way that would ensure familiarity was a very interesting opportunity for me.

Leverage user personas in the design process. So I remember that there was this particular screen, a software application we were working on at Soluble, to create an HMI screen for people working on the shop floor. This actually led me to create an entire list of questions that I asked my product manager, who had interacted with the client and the people working on the floor. The questions were around their age group, their expertise, or how technologically sound they were, how long they work, how long they stand, and what screen size they use. Based on this, I created a user persona: people are between 30 and 40 years old, and they are technologically quite sound. However, it's a task they want to do as a secondary task because it's not their primary task, so the design needs to complement the client details rather than taking away from them. This was the user persona I used as part of creating the design.

Approach to responsive design and the tools I have used for testing responsiveness. So, the tools being basic, my approach to responsive design would be basically to determine a design system. If we don't have time to create the design system from scratch, I would find an open-source design system that has a very solid design file with all the required components, followed by a good code source code file as well, so that front-end developers can use it well. Secondly, it would be determining the colors. We would usually use the colors that a design system provides. Sometimes it can be that it faces brand requirements. We would change the colors within the design system. After that, I would basically layout. I would start laying out the design by creating wireframes to see how each and every screen would look in case the design was quick-fanned or not, and I use Figma. Since Figma has auto-layout, it's very convenient for me to create a design and set its conditions to fill a container and be able to see how the screen looks when the width of the frame is expanded, and how it looks when it's reduced. So that's how I would approach responsive designs. And the tools I've used are Figma and Expo, which is the tool that front-end developers tend to use for testing their application on their phone.