Vishakha Shah

Hello. Uh, so I have been in the product designing field for the last 2 years. Uh, I come from a marketing background. I've done my educations in marketing. I have done my MBA. Uh, I'm currently working with a firm, uh, which is based in Dubai. The name of the firm is Modis Capital. And I am responsible for creating, um, designs from scratch, uh, also wireframes, user flows, information architecture, conduct user interviews, and then work on the actual product. Uh, prior to Modis, I have worked with a firm known as Capita. Uh, for Capita, I was responsible to build, uh, entire back end system for the warehouse. I've worked on SaaS product for Capita. And other other than that, I have worked on a couple of freelance projects based in Pune, Jordan, and Dubai. I use Figma as my main tool, uh, but I am also well versed with Adobe XD and Sketch. And, recently, I have also done packaging design for a company which is based in Dubai, which was a pet firm. Uh, so I have had some kind of experience in branding as well. I have I have a 5 years of experience, including the digital marketing side and product design. And, um, I love to understand how things work, and I'm really, really passionate about making things life making lives better for people, which is why I chose product design as my

So the first thing, uh, when I am planning to start a new UI design, I try to understand the problem statement of my client, uh, what exactly is my client facing. That is something, uh, that is my topmost priority. The second thing is I would understand what can be done in terms of design, in terms of understanding the user, and, um, how to create a solution that works best for the client. So let's say, uh, I want to design something for, for a wholesaler based in Pune who wants to increase its sales. So the first thing that I would do is try to understand what the demographic of the client is, what kind of problems they are facing, what is it that they actually want to want to get in terms of ROI or in terms of, uh, in terms of the solution that they are looking for. After I have got all of this, I would kind of see if they have a brand established. Uh, for example, if they already have a logo, if they have certain colors, if they have a certain typography that they use with the brand. If not, then I would have to work on something that suits the brand the best. So if it is a fruit company, I think something like vibrant colors, you know, that uplift the mood of the users or the clients that see the brand. And, uh, fun, but yet an aesthetic typography that would go well with the brand.

So to ensure that my designs align with the user's needs, um, is based on whatever whatever user research that I have done. Um, there are 2 types of, uh, research methods that I would be using. Uh, first one being the qualitative method, uh, quantitative method. And secondly, uh, the qualitative method, which is followed by the quantitative method. Uh, I would kind of fix onto the demographic that I am looking at. Once that is finalized, I would kind of look send out a questionnaire or maybe get on a call with them and understand what they expect from a product or what their pain points are. Based on that, I would kind of create a user persona, which would help me design solutions that are best suited for my clients. Once that is done, uh, I would kind of create a user empathy map, uh, wherein I would focus on their pinpoints, the goals, SWOT analysis. Once that is done, uh, I would work on the information architecture. I would see what kind of, uh, what kind of tabs or what kind of pages that I need on my app or my website. Based on that, once that is done, I would kind of work on the user flow to understand how the user would go about the entire UI. Uh, after doing these steps, I would kind of proceed with, uh, the wireframing, just sketching out some ideas on paper, brainstorming them with my team if I'm working with the team. If not, then, uh, working on it myself, uh, seeing what would cater to my users' needs. Once that is done, once I'm I've worked on my high fidelity wireframes, I would make a prototype, would send them to my users that I had done an interview with, uh, collect feedback from them. And once that is done, I would, um, again iterate on the designs or my methodology and then proceed with releasing the MVP. Um, and, of course, before that, I need to make sure that whatever I am designing is in line with, uh, what my development team can work on, and if how, uh, easy or viable it is to build that particular solution.

The metrics that I would track when conducting a user research is, um, what kind of, uh, what kind of problems, uh, that we are looking at solving, and, uh, how many people are in for a particular solution or how many people are not, uh, not in favor of a solution or, I will firstly kind of conduct a quantitative user research, gather inputs. And once that is done, I would, uh, probably talk to, uh, talk to the users and get my ideas based on the research that I have conducted.

What is your approach to maintaining a design language across multiple products? The best way to kind of maintain a design language across multiple products is create a design system whenever I'm working on a new project that would help me be consistent in my spacing, my typography, the colors that I use. And, also, if I need to change something across the entire product, I don't have to individually go and change something on, let's say, 100 screens. I can if I have a design system in place, I can just make a change in 1 place and, uh, everything is sorted. So that is one thing that uh, I would definitely definitely do before start a new product start working on a new product so that there is also consistency in what the user see as a brand.

So wireframes can be in forms of sketches or in form of low fidelity designs of screens, let's say, apps or websites that you create on a tool. Uh, and these wireframes may not necessarily be very easy to understand, uh, for people that are not designers to see and imagine things. Uh, once the bio frames are done, the actual designs, like the high fidelity design of that particular wireframe is worked upon. And once the design is worked upon, uh, they are linked in a way to kind of form a prototype, which adds life to the wireframes that had been worked on. And these prototypes can be can be a view of the actual product. And it is also very easy for the user. Let's say, if you're working with a team, then you can the developers and the product managers, they can understand what your thought process of building a certain design is. So that is the major difference between wireframes and prototypes.

Gathering feedback, is very very essential and necessary to improve your designs. Now let's say, I receive a positive feedback from the stakeholders. My actual goal would be to see if the product that I have built is viable for the end user. Um, maybe the stakeholder who is giving me a certain kind of feedback have experience in building a product or in knowing what exactly the users of what problems the users are facing. And if, let's say, I am getting a negative or a constructive feedback from my stakeholders, I would potentially see where I where the designs can be made better, uh, how the users can benefit more from the designs that I have created, work on that, see where I can iterate my solutions, rebuild the designs wherever, uh, wherever I have received feedback. If if I know that I am right and if I know that it is the best thing for the users, I would kind of tell them that I would explain that this is my rationale behind deciding making decisions for this particular design and go ahead with it. Uh, of course, after explaining it thoroughly and thoroughly with my stakeholders. Uh, and if I genuinely believe after I've conducted the user testing, a b testing, if I genuinely think that, okay, it's proven that this design is not gonna work or this is something that I actually need to work on, I would take it as a positive feedback and kind of work on it.

So I have worked on building design systems in my previous companies, both Modus and Capita. Uh, When I was working in Capita, I I kind of worked on building certain components in the design system. It did become kind of overpowering, I would say. Uh, and there were times where I did not know what to do, but, uh, I think with the help of team members and you know, it becomes very overwhelming when you're doing it for the 1st time. But with the help of team members and, uh, my manager, it was really, really smooth. Uh, the challenges that I did face were, um, creating properties and components. I did finding it find it challenging when I worked on it for the 1st time, but then I also looked at a sort like, uh, looked at videos, um, tutorials on YouTube, um, by different designers who have actually worked on building design systems. I had a look at other design systems like Uber, uh, Facebook that are available on Figma, uh, and other design system platforms. So what kind of, uh, what kind of design systems they build and kind of followed a process similar to

Always building a design system before you start working on a product. And a scalable UI would be to design something that's responsive that would work well with any kind of device that is being used. It is very sad and does not leave a good impression on the user when, um, let's say, a design is built in a certain way that that is web friendly and not mobile friendly, it becomes difficult for the user to navigate where they are in the website. And, It is not always possible to oversee what or to foresee what you want to build or what the stakeholders might want to build in the future. Um, but a design system would definitely definitely help if let's say, um, there is a certain change in colors or change in typography or whatever the brand stands for.

Using auto layout for almost all the designs that I work on, especially for web web screens. I usually use Figma mirror to kind of see how how a certain design would look on my phone and then kind of increase and decrease the size using response uh, using the prototyping tool in Figma.

What is your process? I think the best onboarding feature experience for a new feature would be to kind of give them certain cues, uh, as to the number of steps that they'll be going through. Like, if if I have added a new feature, I would want my users to know that, okay, this is a new feature that would benefit them, and this is how that feature is supposed to be used. In very little one liner cues, uh, let's say, set 1 of five. You press this, then next. And obviously, next, um, then they reach the 2nd step, 3rd step, and so on and so forth. And, of course, there would be a option where they could skip the process. Um, but I think this is something that works the best for me.