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I am a master's student in HCI at Indiana University, Indianapolis with 3+ years of experience in IT industry. After completing my bachelors in computer engineering from India, I joined Capgemini where I worked on multiple roles including UX designer and developer for their Sales and After-Sales projects in the domains of Automobiles and Telecom. My realization of how significant design and research is for products and how impactful it is in the user's day to day lives led me to learn more about UX design and research methods and hence I decided to do a master's in HCI.
Having a background in engineering, the experience of UX design and development and learnings from my ongoing MS-HCI degree, I believe I can solve problems, empathize with users and make links between goals, user satisfaction, and technical constraints to design meaningful and impact-driven user experiences.
I have a resourceful and adaptable approach to challenges while being optimistic. I promote excellent communication and organizational skills.
In my personal life, I like to design, explore new places, understand about people and cultures, taste new cuisines, read random articles and capture moments in a camera.
My story of connecting the dots - Landing into UX
As far as I remember, I was always doodling. As a young girl the crayons and colors were my best friends and getting new ones, well they were sheer joy motivating me to pick them up to draw immediately. Then came class 6th, I was ecstatic when my father got home the PC. Magic to my inquisitive mind, I was fascinated by working on its multimedia applications like Photoshop, PowerPoint, Paint, AutoCAD, Flash, etc. and taught myself their functionalities. Engrossed, creating my own drawings, I was frequently chastised by my parents for spending so much time on the PC. I also realized that I need something which is an amalgamation of both technology and creativity, but still I was unsure of my career choices. To understand more about computers I enrolled for a course called MS-CIT beyond the school. Though it was love at first sight, my connection with computers changed to the lifelong passion with the magic I felt every time I saw the outcome of simple codes I wrote. Computer, the magnificent machine enthralled me as much as it absorbed me for its endless possibilities.
I completed my high school degree with distinction and considering my penchant for computers, I decided to take undergraduate education in University of Mumbai as Computer Science (CS) student with the intention of working in the information technology industry one day. In my last semester of bachelors, I studied Human Machine Interaction. Thoroughly enjoying it, I discovered the importance of good interface design and role of human psychology in their creation. I also realized that I could explore my creative instincts and amalgamate them with technology to create a beautiful experience for the users. Thus, getting intimately involved with Computer Science in undergrad enraptured and intrigued my intellect, developing critical awareness and independent thinking.
After my undergraduate program, I was selected on-campus by Capgemini India Private Limited for the position of Software Engineer. Unsure of my career path and interest in coding led me to join for that position. My first client was Orange Business services. I worked for development and support of their application whose purpose was to create, store and retrieve the pricing/quotes for the Access-Line for Pre-Sales purposes. With this project, I was able to strengthen my coding and problem-solving skills. As I was working, I realized that I had inclination towards front-end part of the application more than back-end. So, I started learning more of front - end and moved into a new project for client Opel-Vauxhall as UI designer and developer. It was a transition project where I had to gain knowledge of functional as well technical aspect of the applications from third party vendor and implement it locally. I worked on solving the UI bugs and delivering it to the clients. Here, I also got chance to put forth some design ideas for a super app design to combine three existing client apps. While I was working, I started going for UI specific workshops where I got to know about UX. It is here that I realized the significance of design and research in products and how impactful it is in the user's day to day lives. This led me to learn more about UX design and research methods, hence I decided to do a master's in HCI.
