Part 1: A bit about my journey for Young Change-makers
This is Part 1 of a series of posts aimed at young change-makers. As the world can seem grey at times, you might find some of my learnings useful. Reflections from 12 years as a…
Category: Design Thinking
The God of Thoughtful Design
When companies create products, focus often tends to be on maximizing perceived value and profitability (within the respective value category). It’s like they are looking outward, being reactive (to competitors), and playing their part in…
How Should the Pedestrian Cross the Road?
Many Rolls Royce cars have a sheer vertical drop front design. And while they are extremely powerful and can go fast, they normally don't, because they are meant to transport their occupants safely, in luxury,…
Investing, an Art
I worked in venture capital from 2006 to 2010, and over time, noticed an increasing presence of core finance professionals and Chartered Accountants in top roles at VC firms. It seemed concerning to me, though…
Product Names — What’s in a Name?
When thinking of names for one’s startup or new range of products, people tend to fall into the bucket of ‘let’s go with the first decent name and get started with the business’; or ‘we…
The Simple but Brilliantly Designed Bisleri 5L bottle
In our everyday products, there don’t seem to be too many that actually catch your eye for being beautifully and thoughtfully designed. I can hardly think of any. While I am not a fan of…
Time and Price in B2C businesses
Time and Price form interesting aspects of current B2C businesses. Uber for instance, has its routes generally optimized for speed (recommends a shorter route even if it is more expensive). Ola, on the other hand,…
Gravity and Angle of Approach
Two of my many favourite topics around design, and these are terms I use, are ‘Gravity’ and ‘Angle of Approach’ (AoA). Gravity, is not to be confused with layouts and reading gravity. And AoA is…
For a humankind trying to make sh!t happen
As of 2024, it is estimated that some 30–40% of senior citizens globally experience constipation. And while the western commode was developed in the late 16th century, but became widely used only in the 19th…
Same Same but Different
A few years ago, I was advising a consumer tech company, and two of a bunch of things I was working on, was conceptualizing the search function and recommendation engine for the tech team to…
Inclusive Solutions
In continuation of yesterday’s post (link here), which was about why involving users on either extreme of the bell curve (as opposed to innovating for the bulk majority) facilitates in creation of a more innovative…
Innovative Products or Solutions
When designing products or solutions, some of us have a tendency to gravitate to the Pareto Principle — we try solving for the bulk. For approximately 80% of the majority. And we feel it is…
Prefer a Plain Product or an Ergonomically Designed One?
Which one’s better, a plain product or an ergonomically designed one? I’m not quite sure, but I think it was Kat Holmes, Chief Design Officer at Salesforce, who mentions an interesting counter-intuitiveness to do with…
Car Variants at Showrooms
I was recently at a few car showrooms, just browsing.. And I noticed something. Many of the popular brands tend to keep a higher or top end variant of different models on display. And interestingly,…
Netflix on How Small Features go a Long Way
Netflix does something admirable with its listing thumbnails. it toggles the image thumbnails of many of its movie and series listings, and also the hover preview clips, from one of 2-3 different ones. While it…