Just In:
- Deskala is now open to taking up projects in Web Design, User Experience Consulting. Click here to know more
- I will be also be conducting a workshop on Design for Social Impact at the India HCI conference, IIT Bombay, March 2010.
- I spoke at TEDx University at TEDx BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, read more about it here. .
- I will be teaching photography for another semester at WLC College, Bangalore.
Upcoming Design and Photography Workshops and Talks:
About Me
I am a freelance User Experience Design and Research Consultant and am now the Director of Deskala Research and Design. My areas of expertise are Designing for Social Impact, Interaction Design, Web Applications, Usability and Design Criticism.
At my startup, Deskala, we specialize in analyzing market demands, conducting Contextual User Research, and using Technology Intervention to create Products and Services for Emerging Markets.
Oh and did I mention, I do a bit of photography too?
My recently concluded other workshops:
- Light Painting and Basic Photography workshop at Footprints, MS University, Baroda, Feb 19-th to 21st 2010.
- Basic Photography and Light Painting Workshop at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus 4-6th Feb, 2010.
- 4 seminar series Basic Photography Workshop, WLC College, Bangalore, December 2009
- Outdoor Light Painting Workshop at FabIndia, Koramangala, November 2009
- Light Painting Workshop at NIT Surathkal, October 2009
- Human Computer Interaction Workshop at IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
- Light Painting workshop at IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
- Designing for Social Impact at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
A Project In Focus:
In the context of the Design for Social Impact, I recently launched the Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me! project for the promotion of child education in Rural Bihar and this project is a result of my Masters Graduation Project.
- Fig: Page from actual website
Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me! is an endeavor to use digital photography as a social reform tool to create awareness of the existing educational situations in rural Bihar. This project serves to provide a platform to people from different backgrounds (photographers, writers, educationists, social workers, donors etc) to collaborate. It allows to utilize the work done by one group (like photographers who go to these locations and shoot), for discussion with the others who are not able to. The project is based on the ACT-Now model, which is derived from Activity Theory.
Educational Background and Work Experience
As a graduate student of Human Computer Interaction Design at Indiana University, Bloomington, I explored the theoretical and practical side of Experience Design and Research. Prior to that, as an Interaction Designer at Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, I got first hand experience of the interaction with the different stakeholders in a project and on the different technologies. As an undergraduate design student at IIT Guwahati, I was fortunate to explore the technical rationality side of things equally with my creative thinking. Most recently, over the summer of 2008, I worked with Motorola Corporation, Chicago in the Customer Experience Design Group and have been consulting for startups in India.
Photography and Beyond
I have also been doing freelance photography for the past 8 years, published images across magazines and books and taken photography workshops. In particular lately, I have been looking into Visual Ethnography as a tool for informing user research. I enjoy shooting portraits, cultures of the world, nature and street life.
More information about my Photography can be found on my other website Happy Horizon Studios.
