The Secret Spell of Design with Ujjwal Varma P. (OnePlus)
To have an inclusive design mindset, one needs to understand user diversity. For that, having a communication channel with the users is a must. It helps understand what the users need and how they perceive a product. It also helps build on the operability of a product and makes it more accessible. But how can designers build an inclusive design mindset to increase the reach of their products?
To know more about this theme, in the 41st episode, we interact with Ujjwal Varma Pinnamaraju, Head Of Design, OnePlus India. He holds expertise in user experience design, interaction design, usability, user interface design, and product design. Let’s know more about his journey and experiences in the latest episode of the “Avantika Designeering Series” podcast, “The Secret Spell of Design”.
Rohit Lalwani: Moving from one plus to innovation, the domain operated by you. I wish to ask, innovation is future delivered, do you think the old traditional linear thinking and organized knowledge could lead to innovation as well?
Ujjwal: In my perspective, thinking or organized knowledge gives one an innate understanding of the domain without which the asked questions could stand irrelevant at times within the context of an outcome as innovation is all about the outcome or the production of a result in new ways.
Linear thinking may not get us to the future, the variable or the X-ingredient to it could be your perspective of looking at things.
This is necessary to encourage or nurture in meetings, brainstorming sessions, or classrooms so as to abolish that there can be only one correct answer. It has been seen that oftentimes a lot of participants are silent or reluctant to share their ideas because of this fear and I believe this is an indirect effect caused to an individual’s linear train of thoughts or knowledge or knowledge acquisition or methodology.
Rohit Lalwani: That was indeed a very unique take on how do you think about predicting innovation, I wish to ask next, what are some of the ways to build an innovative product, from coming up with fresh ideas, getting buy-in, and plotting your part to success, would you like to share or throw some light on how do you build innovative products?
Ujjwal: This is a very extensive and broad topic and I would try answering this in two parts. First one, covering the ideas and buying. First and foremost have a deep and thorough understanding of principles in a specific domain or field that we are talking about and to identify the right problem or idea, some clues that could be executed, collecting insights from users, specifically for whom the innovation is meant to help, this covers most of the categories of ideas.
Secondly, I would talk about a collaborative environment. It is crucial to nurture a collaborative environment within interdisciplinary things. This could be weekly informal discussions with teams and selling your idea. Try your best to be non-technical and expand your idea.
To set yourself on the path of success would be to execute and not let ideas just be on paper, and have this all mapped to execute and this is how innovation is repeated.
Rohit Lalwani: The defining skill of great designers is their ability to balance both subjective and objective thinking while making design and product decisions. I wish to know how can designers develop the ability to perceive and interpret both subjective and objective thinking to create experiences?
Ujjwal: Designers constantly have to make decisions whether or not they like it, hence creating frameworks, guidelines, research is extremely important in a way to guide them. In the initial stage, they should always practise objective thinking.
They should define a product, a field and create a roadmap on the basis of data. Depending on the size of the project decision-making could be divided into two categories, from end-to-end product experience to the visual aspect that pushes the experience even further.
The first category would consist of analysis, surveys, research, attitude, behavioural psychology, understanding users, their biases, their tech literacy, etc, and then defining the experience framework and consequentially the flow. The second category would be inputted in terms of color theories, mood boards, and validating the visual states. This helps designers build a design system and visual guidelines around it. This negates a lot of day-to-day subjective decisions among the team and designers as well. An approach like this would only reduce the number of choices. There would be still a level of subjective thinking involved. Towards the end, it only becomes easier to gauge the experience and be closer to the user’s expectations.
Rohit Lalwani: That brings us to our last question, for the show, at Avantika University we have coined a term as ‘ Designeering’ which is the base ideology that we operate on the blended approach of design and engineering. I wish to ask how is this blend of design plus technology helping you create a different user experience for your customers?
Ujjwal: According to me if you do continue to keep yourself up-to-date with technology, it does give you an edge, in terms of the solutions you can come up with, and these would often be practical and executable solutions since you understand the tech constraints.
In hindsight, this has been most evident to me is how easily I was able to navigate through enterprise projects in the past same time, while these keep you focused on what you are doing, you do have to practice getting out of the comfort zone. Another external effort in understanding principles, color, theories, and psychology which will take you a long way.
Mr Ujjwal has talked a long way about designing and his journey throughout. To further listen to his inspiring and motivational words, head to our latest Podcast episode. For more details, visit our profile.
