Hi, my name is Kshitiz and I am a Design and Research Consultant, based out of Bangalore, India. I help clients create solutions that are user centric, and high on user experience. I also help clients understand markets and users, analyze trends and their likely needs, by using design research methodologies. My research interests lies strongly in Design for Social Impact.

My Work and Educational Background

Presently I am the Program Director and Head of Operations in India of the French Design school L’École de design, Nantes-Atlantique in Bangalore. Prior to that I lead the Design team at a Social Technology company, Kuliza Technologies, in Bangalore, and earlier to that I had co-founded a Design startup, Deskala.  I have also been consulting for and mentoring different startups in India, apart from being a freelance photographer, Visiting Faculty to Design schools, and a contributing author to different online forums.

I have also been invited for talks at corporates houses like Mindtree, Infosys, Regalix, and at events such as TEDx talks, IGNITE talks, for sharing my views on the above. I have also conducted workshops around the same at different venues across India in corporates, academia and design conferences.

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.  In the summer of 2008, I worked with Motorola Corporation, Chicago in the Customer Experience Design Group in the mobile phones division.

Design Philosophy
Here’s a design philosophy I believe in and what I feel is probably the best explanation of Design I have read in a long time.

“The real JOY of design is to deliver fresh perspectives, improved well being and an intuitive sense of balance with the wider world. The real SPIRIT of design elicits some higher meaning. The real POWER of design is that professional and laypeople can co-design in amazingly creative ways. The real BEAUTY of design is its potential for secular, pluralistic expression. The real STRENGTH of design is this healthy variance of expression. The real RELEVANCE of design is its ability to be proactive. The real PASSION of design is in its philosophical, ethical and practical debate.” – Alastair Fuad-Luke, in Design Activism.

Photography

I have also been doing photography for the past 10 years, and published images on cover of books by Penguin India, Beyond Profit magazine, and Hindustan Times online. Amongst the critically acclaimed photo-documentaries done by me are the “Promotion of Child Education in Bihar” and “25 years of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy”. In particular lately, I have been looking into Visual Ethnography as a tool for informing user research.  I enjoy shooting documentary style portraits, cultures of the world and street life.
More information about my Photography can be found on my other startup website Happy Horizon Studios.

I write for online forums on Canvera, Indian Auteur on articles related to photography and film.