MASTER SERIES TO GAIN UX MASTERY / S01-E09
50 min
English 7 March 2019
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.
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