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"The UX knowledge that I got from the CUA helped me secure a new job, establish a UX-first culture in my org and directionally changed the way I do UX work.”
 
Sahil Sapra

Chief Manager, Design,
Gaana.com

Scientific & effective UX design approach with CUA

by HFI

Describe in detail your role in your current organization.

I am the Chief Manager, Design, for Gaana.com (Times Internet Ltd.). As a design lead, my responsibility is to provide seamless and best-in-class experience for the online music streaming audience across platforms and to help meet business goals. I am also responsible for mentoring our team of interaction designers, visual designers and UX practitioners to ensure human-centric design principles are adhered to.

Here’s what I do in detail:

  • Partner with product managers to understand scope and determine how UX can help achieve user and business goals
  • Understand end-user requirements through user research and task analysis
  • Manage a live styleguide to maintain consistency across platforms
  • Present final design solutions to stakeholders with appropriate user stories and use cases
  • Collaborate with tech team to check accuracy of final outcome against the shared design
  • Collaborate with analysis team to test effectiveness of design solutions and accordingly iterate and improve
  • Mentor the team in lean UX to ensure rapid design iterations

What projects are you currently working on?

I am currently working on the Artistes Profile page to make it more user-friendly by designing it for natural scroll and improved hierarchy of information. I’ve also delivered the Artiste Dashboard, which has just gone live and is loved by the artistes. It enables the artistes on our platform to get more insights about their tracks and be better connected with their listeners. We’ve recently redesigned 3 major pages – home, search and player screen pages – from scratch. These have got positive reviews on Google Play and improved metrics, which is helping business.

How does the CUA training help you in your day to day work?

The CUA training has helped me understand the scientific and theoretical sides of UX design, which is helping me in justifying the design solution to a broader audience. Awareness of the VIMM model has changed the way we design visual interfaces. I’ve also made headway about promoting usability testing in the organization in place of the free exploration test we did previously. This will also pave the way for user research for our upcoming products.

I’m also working to earmark one day a month, when we take a break from daily routine tasks and work together as a team on how we can improve our own UX capabilities and problem-solving – by inviting users for research or testing or brainstorming a solution to a known but ignored pain area.

How has this changed the way you communicate with your management?

Things have changed a lot for me post-CUA! It has boosted my confidence to present concept and design ideas in a more scientific way to all stakeholders. The management has recently approved user research for upcoming projects!

What about your job excites you the most?

When your hobby/interest becomes your profession, I believe you enjoy doing that the most! I love music and working as a UX professional in the entertainment industry really charges me up! I’m happy I get to solve real user problems by creating solutions for them with logical thinking and scientific knowledge.

What are the challenges you face in your work and how do you overcome them?

My challenges are the same what design managers typically face:

  1. 1. Everyone thinks he’s a soccer player

    Design is a subjective field. Despite individual opinions, the UX professional must come up with logical reasonings to justify their design solutions and maintain a user-centric environment in the organization. This is exactly what I find myself doing.

  2. 2. Delivery-driven Culture

    A startup environment doesn’t often provide the time or budget to do the due diligence regarding user research and testing. To handle such a challenge, we work in a collaborative environment. We design to the best of our knowledge and skill-sets and keep sharing the design with our team and with the broader audience for feedback before delivering to the tech team. Another way to handle such situations is to create libraries for design patterns and styleguides. This helps create consistent and logical designs within a given timeframe and the UX team doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

How do you see your current role changing in the next couple of years?

In the next couple of years, I see myself grow into the role of a CXO (Chief Experience Officer). I would then work toward establishing a user-centric culture across the organization for all products. I would also like to evangelize UX within my team and the organization at large, so that digital products can change the lives of so many users globally.

CUA of the Month

Each month we highlight the successes and achievements of a different member of our CUA community. If you are a Certified Usability Analyst and would like to be considered for CUA of the Month recognition, please send a brief professional bio to hfi@humanfactors.com

Privacy policy

Reviewed: 18 Mar 2014

This Privacy Policy governs the manner in which Human Factors International, Inc., an Iowa corporation ("HFI") collects, uses, maintains and discloses information collected from users (each, a "User") of its humanfactors.com website and any derivative or affiliated websites on which this Privacy Policy is posted (collectively, the "Website"). HFI reserves the right, at its discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time by posting such changes to this page. You understand that you have the affirmative obligation to check this Privacy Policy periodically for changes, and you hereby agree to periodically review this Privacy Policy for such changes. The continued use of the Website following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes an acceptance of those changes.

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HFI may use personally identifiable information collected through the Website for the specific purposes for which the information was collected, to process purchases and sales of products or services offered via the Website if any, to contact Users regarding products and services offered by HFI, its parent, subsidiary and other related companies in order to otherwise to enhance Users’ experience with HFI. HFI may also use information collected through the Website for research regarding the effectiveness of the Website and the business planning, marketing, advertising and sales efforts of HFI. HFI does not sell any User information under any circumstances.

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If a User includes such User’s personally identifiable information as part of the User posting to the Website, such information may be made available to any parties using the Website. HFI does not edit or otherwise remove such information from User information before it is posted on the Website. If a User does not wish to have such User’s personally identifiable information made available in this manner, such User must remove any such information before posting. HFI is not liable for any damages caused or incurred due to personally identifiable information made available in the foregoing manners. For example, a User posts on an HFI-administered forum would be considered Personal Information as provided by User and subject to the terms of this section.

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Information about Users that is maintained on HFI’s systems or those of its service providers is protected using industry standard security measures. However, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and HFI cannot guarantee that the information submitted to, maintained on or transmitted from its systems will be completely secure. HFI is not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures relating to the Website by any Users or third parties.

Correcting, Updating, Accessing or Removing Personal Information

If a User’s personally identifiable information changes, or if a User no longer desires to receive non-account specific information from HFI, HFI will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update and/or remove that User’s previously-provided personal data. This can be done by emailing a request to HFI at hfi@humanfactors.com. Additionally, you may request access to the personally identifiable information as collected by HFI by sending a request to HFI as set forth above. Please note that in certain circumstances, HFI may not be able to completely remove a User’s information from its systems. For example, HFI may retain a User’s personal information for legitimate business purposes, if it may be necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, for account recovery purposes, if required by law or as retained in HFI’s data backup systems or cached or archived pages. All retained personally identifiable information will continue to be subject to the terms of the Privacy Policy to which the User has previously agreed.

Contacting HFI

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, you may contact HFI via any of the following methods:
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Terms and Conditions for Public Training Courses

Reviewed: 18 Mar 2014

Cancellation of Course by HFI

HFI reserves the right to cancel any course up to 14 (fourteen) days prior to the first day of the course. Registrants will be promptly notified and will receive a full refund or be transferred to the equivalent class of their choice within a 12-month period. HFI is not responsible for travel expenses or any costs that may be incurred as a result of cancellations.

Cancellation of Course by Participants (All regions except India)

$100 processing fee if cancelling within two weeks of course start date.

Cancellation / Transfer by Participants (India)

4 Pack + Exam registration: Rs. 10,000 per participant processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the course (4 Pack-CUA/CXA) registration before three weeks from the course start date. No refund or carry forward of the course fees if cancelling or transferring the course registration within three weeks before the course start date.

Cancellation / Transfer by Participants (Online Courses)

$100 processing fee if cancelling within two weeks of course start date. No cancellations or refunds less than two weeks prior to the first course start date.

Individual Modules: Rs. 3,000 per participant ‘per module’ processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the course (any Individual HFI course) registration before three weeks from the course start date. No refund or carry forward of the course fees if cancelling or transferring the course registration within three weeks before the course start date.

Exam: Rs. 3,000 per participant processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the pre agreed CUA/CXA exam date before three weeks from the examination date. No refund or carry forward of the exam fees if requesting/cancelling or transferring the CUA/CXA exam within three weeks before the examination date.

No Recording Permitted

There will be no audio or video recording allowed in class. Students who have any disability that might affect their performance in this class are encouraged to speak with the instructor at the beginning of the class.

Course Materials Copyright

The course and training materials and all other handouts provided by HFI during the course are published, copyrighted works proprietary and owned exclusively by HFI. The course participant does not acquire title nor ownership rights in any of these materials. Further the course participant agrees not to reproduce, modify, and/or convert to electronic format (i.e., softcopy) any of the materials received from or provided by HFI. The materials provided in the class are for the sole use of the class participant. HFI does not provide the materials in electronic format to the participants in public or onsite courses.