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Aedge Podcast - A Touch of Design

Jun 27, 2024

Building products that users love

In this episode of Aedge, Deepa Srinivasan, the Design Director at Kickdrum, converses with Sakshi Sipani, a young designer at Clearly Blue, and Madhavi Nadig, the CTO of Adeptic Creative Labs. It is an open conversation where they explore how design is integral to building good products, the interactions between designers and various stakeholders, and how engineering teams and designers collaborate to deliver great products and user experiences. Deepa also shares many tips for young designers.

User research is very important to build good user experiences
Deepa advises Sakshi to share unfinished designs with stakeholders, as early as possible, to get better feedback
Studies show that people hesitate to ask for major changes when they think the design is “finished”
Ideally, designers should take part at every stage of the product development life cycle
Taking engineers’ inputs early in the design process ensures designs have workable implementations
It’s best if designers work closely with engineering teams and build products iteratively
Deepa’s mentor pushes her to understand other people’s mindsets
As a designer, it’s very important to try and get into somebody else’s shoes to get their perspective
The way a design appears to a 25-year-old may not be the same to someone older or with poorer eyesight
To gain a new design perspective switch to using only keyboard shortcuts for a few days
Designing with keyboard shortcuts in mind could help voice-enabled interfaces as well
Discuss designs with different people, even if they don’t fit the user personas
Though designers typically frown upon “Hallway Testing”, Deepa finds it useful
At IBM, during a hackathon-style event, Deepa teamed up with folks from the IoT team and built a product to monitor daily water consumption
As the team unpacked the complicated problem, they realised how many stakeholders were involved, including secondary stakeholders like apartment associations
Deepa believes it’s important for designers to be able to listen to a different point of view
Biases are unavoidable, but try to check yourself every time you speak
Listen, understand and empathise with the points of view of the end-users, developers, stakeholders and the business
Empathy is very important for designers
With so many points of view to consider, the designer needs to learn to navigate and negotiate their path
To stay updated on changes in the design world, develop the habit of reading every day
Podcasts help you learn from designers around the world, even if it’s not something you’re currently working on
To not get outdated, expose yourself to new ideas via reading, podcasts, meetups
Deepa periodically does courses with the Interaction Design Foundation to stay updated and attends their meetups
When ideas stop flowing, it’s good to take a break, do something you enjoy and let your subconscious come up with a new idea
When an idea strikes her in the middle of the night, Deepa wakes up and jots it down immediately
If you’re stuck with a problem, find out how others have solved it
To avoid getting biased majorly, make sure to look for different points of view

Deepa has over 20 years of experience in the field of user experience design. As a designer, she helps companies find solutions to their problems and turn ideas into tangible products. In her previous avatars, Deepa worked in online advertising, designed the user experience for various products and even ran her own design studio for a few years. Now, she works as the Design Director at Kickdrum. Deepa also has several hobbies, painting being her favourite. She paints in watercolour and acrylic.

This podcast is brought to you by Adeptic Creative Labs with support from the team at Clearly Blue Digital.

Write to us at podcasts@adepticlabs.com.