APARNA GOKHALE

Contact me through my email or LinkedIn

 

Experience


Product Designer, Dave, USA | June 2021 - Present

 

User Experience Designer, San Jose State University Research Foundation, San Jose, USA | March 2020 - October 2020

Designed a mobile application for an autonomous vehicle project (in association with an industrial client).

  • Developed UX strategy and timeline for the mobile application design and user testing.

  • Created personas, journey maps, task flows, wireframes and prototypes.

  • Conducted remote usability testing via Zoom for this prototype for two rounds with 5 participants.

  • Worked with a multidisciplinary team of industrial designers, occupational therapists, industrial system engineers for optimal functionality between vehicle and the mobile application.

 

Designer, Moonraft Innovation Labs, Bengaluru, India | Feb 2016 - Jan 2018

As a designer at this design studio, I worked on diverse set of projects for various clients. My responsibilities included engaging with clients to understand business goals, generating design concepts, task flows, wireframes, prototype and visual design. I also collaborated with front-end development team to ensure accurate translation of design during development process. Some specific examples are as follows:

  • Led design team of “Colour with Asian Paints”, a machine-learning based mobile application. Managed the project till launch of first version of the app. Application won Gold award at “Digital Crest Awards 2019” for the best use of interaction design in mobile app

  • Designed UX for a personal finance mobile application for CGAP (World Bank) targeted towards low-income individuals. Created prototypes and helped with usability testing of the application. Insights from the project were published by CGAP [link to publication]

  • Contributed to projects such as Beroe Live web platform (visual design), TATA AIG General Insurance website (UX and visual), Taj Hotel website (design concept), Mahindra Finance paperless loan application mobile app (UX and visual), all of which launched successfully.

 

User Experience Designer, Commonfloor.com - Online Real Estate Platform, Bengaluru, India | April 2015 - Jan 2016

  • Worked on user experience for a real-estate platform geared towards realtors and property managers and balanced multiple projects with different Project Managers simultaneously, ensuring that the designs meet business goals for all projects.

  • Revamped the reward system for the realtors. New design made the system more discoverable and simplified reward redemption.

  • Designed a dashboard for executive team of the company to manage promotions from regional levels to nationwide deals

 

Design Intern, Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, India | June 2014 - Jan 2015

  • Worked on the in-house customer relationship management (CRM) product revamp.

  • Outcome of my internship project was restructuring of the information architecture and streamlining of critical task flows within CRM.

  • Conducted user interviews and used card sorting technique with existing users of CRM.

  • Designed concepts based on feedback from internal customers of this product

 

Education


Masters of Science in Human Factors and Ergonomics

San Jose State University, San Jose | 2019 - 2021

Post Graduate Diploma in Product Design

MAEER’s MIT Institute of Design, Pune | 2012 - 2015

Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communication

Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad | 2008 - 2012

 

Projects


Asian Paints : Color App | 2017 -2018 ( Winner of Gold at the prestigious Digital Crest Awards 2019)

The aim of the project was to design an application which enables consumers to visualize their dream homes in their choice of color on a digital platform. I was involved in the first phase of the project - from concept pitching till the implementation of Phase 1.

Sparsh - low-cost liquid level indicator for visually impaired people | 2014 (Awarded 2nd Position IKMC 2014 - Innovating to Improve Lives)

This project was part of our course - Design For Special Needs .

The initial brief was to "Understand visually impaired people and their problems and solve them through design intervention." After having to understand their lifestyle, daily activity, the environment around them, their education and their career, I focused on the kitchen area and their interaction in that area. The research and ideation led towards designing the low cost liquid level indicator integrated with a tea strainer.

 

Skill + Competence


UX Design

• Personas • Journey Maps • Storyboarding • Ideation • Information Architecture • User Flow • Wireframing • Visual Design • Rapid Prototyping • User-Centered Design • Data Visualization • Gamification

UX Research

• User Interviews • Surveys • Heuristic Evaluation • Usability Testing • A/B Testing • Data Analysis • Experiment Design

Design and Prototyping Tools

• Figma • SketchApp • Adobe Xd • Axure RP • Invision • Justinmind • Framer JS • Adobe Photoshop • Adobe Illustrator • Adobe After Effects

3D Modeling & Rendering Tool

• Rhino 3D • Solidworks • Cinema4D • Keyshot • Adobe Dimension

Tech and Programming Language

• Assembly • C/C++ • Python • Basics of HTML and CSS • Arduino

 

Achievements


Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society 2020

Lexus Design Award 2016 Shortlisted- Design concept was shortlisted among top 100 worldwide from more than 1,230 entries.

IKMC 2014 - Innovating to Improve Lives | Hyderabad, India Awarded 2nd Position - Category of Ag-Bio / Environment and Energy

Future Banking - International Competition 2014 | Deutsche Bank Shortlisted among top 100 worldwide

Aerochallenge 2014 organised by Honeywell, India - Selected in top 5 entries in India

 

Licenses & Certifications