MASTER SERIES TO GAIN UX MASTERY / S01-E09
In this episode UX mentor Preeti Sheokand sits with us and shares how she transitioned from being a scientist to a UX designer successfully. She shares why defining what User Experience means is the most important question that one must answer to create a meaningful UX career. Preeti also shares framework to critically evaluate the designs. Preeti also shares the inspiring story of her design school – Design Shift and how she is designing a unique curriculum for every aspiring UX designer.
Preeti is teaching her students processes that can be applied to a team as well as by individuals. Her story is a testimony of how being open minded is one of the most skill that will make you successful as a UX designer. Tune in as she tells how being open and receptive to tech, business, design and everything in between has helped her advance in her career.
TIMESTAMPS QUOTES BOOKS ABOUT COMMENTS
TIMESTAMPS
[06:09] | What are Multimodal Interactions and how do you use it? |
---|---|
[08:35] | How to decide if UX is a career for them and how is it different than UI? |
[11:30] | How much research is good to get started? |
[13:38] | How can you help companies to understand the importance of UX? |
[17:44] | How can someone decide whether to take a formal education in design or not? |
[27:16] | How to decide what kind of career path one should take, i.e. freelance or a job? |
[28:59] | Why heuristic evaluation is important? And how you can do it? |
[31:47] | What skills do you need to master, in order to do better in the UX field? |
[33:18] | Things you can do to get started with UX even if you don’t have many resources? |
[34:46] | What is UX? |
[39:19] | What are those things that Voice Interfaces brings to design? |
QUOTES
You cannot put an end to the research. There is no number that anybody can put on when to stop the research.
Don’t just focus on design, focus on usability challenges.
The goal is to make tasks enjoyable, achievable and friendly to all the users.
We should always go into the depth-first before we realize how it should be.
You cannot grow designs, you have to have logic for everything you do.
Don’t get obsessed with numbers, just focus on the quality of work.
BOOKS
ABOUT

co-founder of Design Shift
Preeti Sheokand is the co-founder of Design Shift – A UX training institute in Bangalore that provides online and offline training.
What makes her story interesting is the fact that Preeti was the Inspire Fellow at Department of Atomic Energy and completed her Masters in Organic Chemistry before moving into Human Centred Design.
Not completely fulfilled by her career in Organic chemistry, Preeti realised maybe she would do best in something that is involves deeper understanding of human nature.
That is when she stumbled upon UX as a career and saw it as a perfect intersection of technology, Behavioural Science and Psychology. That is when she shifted gears and took admission in the masters program in Human Centred Design at Srishti School of Design. Once accepted in the program, Preeti consulted multiple startups to put her knowledge to test and give herself industry exposure even before graduating from the college.
At Srishti, Preeti deliberately chose to study user experience beyond just screens. She explored voice interfaces and chat-bots at times when they were not so popular.
She then went on to work with a VC Firm where she was responsible to design and facilitate human centred design for AI focused startups.It was around this time that Preeti and her husband Sudhir, also a UX Professional saw a huge skill gap in the aspiring designers. Deeply moved by their desire to help these aspirants, they traded their weekends to teach students. They taught their first batch for free from their own home and now almost an year later they are formally known as Design Shift. Today Design Shift has a lot of success stories to share not only from India but from around the world.
If you ever get a chance to talk to her, you will see how much passionate she is about the work she is doing and her energy is very contagious. Preeti is always open to possibilities and collaboration and the rapid pace at which Design Shift has grown in the last 11 months, is a true testimony to her passion for the cause she is working.
Read More
Other episodes(9)
Episode 10: Stop complaining and do the right thing | Joe Natoli
14 March 2019, 60 minutes
In this interview, we are interviewing the legendary Joe Natoli. We start with learning from Joe about how to gain rapport with the stakeholders and then design products that sell. Joe has an extremely open mindset and his advice on why designers need to step up the game instead of waiting for the permissions is extremely powerful.
Episode 9: How to understand what UX actually means | Preeti Sheokand
7 March 2019, 50 minutes
In this episode UX mentor Preeti Sheokand sits with us and shares how she transitioned from being a scientist to a UX designer successfully. She shares why defining what User Experience means is the most important question that one must answer to create a meaningful UX career. Preeti also shares framework to critically evaluate the designs. Preeti also shares the inspiring story of her design school – Design Shift and how she is designing a unique curriculum for every aspiring UX designer.
Episode 8: How to design a life and a career you love | Karthi Subaraman
28 February 2019, 55 minutes
In this episode we sit with Karthi Subbaraman, the founder and Chief Design Officer at Xperian School. Karthi brings with her a wealth of new insights and perspectives that force us to look beyond design in the context of just interfaces and products. Karthi has learned and taught how to use the design principles for not just designing products but for designing your body, life and even death. She asks some really uncomfortable questions which will make you look harder at your own life and choices you make. Karthi also tells us why designers should embrace business mindset and how they can do so. She defines designers as “sense makers”.
Episode 7: Why designers should embrace storytelling | Amit Patel
21 February 2019, 40 minutes
In this episode we talk UX designer and mentor Amit Patel. With no formal degree in design, Amit went on and learned UX by talking to users, businesses and doing a lot of work. He shares with us how asking right set of questions can be a game changer. He talks about the things he is teaching his students at his design school – Experience Haus. Amit focusses a lot of attention on the art of storytelling and shares a practical framework to design a story for your product.
Episode 6: The skills that will make you a great UX Designer | Sudhir Mor
16 February 2019, 55 minutes
In this episode, we bring to you Sudhir Mor who is the co-founder of Design Shift- a UX School in Banglore. Sudhir shares his incredible and inspiring design journey with us. He is empowering his students with not just conventional design skills but also giving them exposure to different industries, businesses, and technology. His perspective on design education is very unconventional and practical. You may not want to miss this episode if you are struggling with how to create a perfect portfolio, as he shares some awesome tips on that too.
Episode 5: How to bring visibility to UX research in your organization | Upasna Bhandari
7 February 2019, 60 minutes
In this episode UX researcher Upasna Bhandari shares with us how she used her extreme academic research skills and implemented them in one of the best startup of Singapore. Unlike typical research studies which can be months long, Upasna is setting up agile research processes which are more suited for fast paced startups. While she is doing it she is making sure she is training the stakeholders and her teammates within her organization in user research.
Episode 4: How to look past the default and create an amazing life story | Paul Millerd
2 February 2019, 45 minutes
In this episode, we sit down with Paul and learn how to think beyond the default path. He shares why winning the prestige bingo is not the only way to succeed and tying self-worth to money is a bad strategy. He teaches some tactical strategies and questions that can help you create a powerful personal story.
Episode 3: How not asking questions can be holding you back | Menaka Chandrasekhar
26 January 2019, 48 minutes
In this episode, Menaka shares with us the lessons from her very successful UX career. Having worked in diverse industries and organizations, Menaka shares some of the most practical ways to create a rewarding UX career even when you don’t know where to start.
17 January 2019, 50 minutes
In this episode, Markus Hofman tells us why designers should master empathy for their users as well as for their own organization. Working very closely with the business stakeholders as well as end users, Markus offers a different perspective on how to contribute better as a designer.
Episode 1: How to get the education of a lifetime | Xavier Bertels
7 January 2019, 60 minutes
In this interview, Xavier shares with us how he successfully transitioned from Graphic Designing to User Experience Design. A successful design entrepreneur with a deep interest in music and martial arts, Xavier shares how education is not a one-time event that stops at a degree but it is something you do for your lifetime. He further discusses how did he start his company, how they navigated the challenges of the remote work and how he has created a solid culture within his company.
Bonus: Why Designers must learn Storytelling | Jake Knapp
3 minutes
In this video, Jake Knapp - the author of NY bestselling book Design Sprint and Make Time tells us why Storytelling is one skill that every designer must master. Jake explains how designers can leverage storytelling to gain empathy with users, share their story internally and build teams and then share their solution with the users.
Get Updates
Subscribe