I'm a UX designer at John Deere, At John Deere I am responsible for the UX of various digital products used by multiple internal and external stakeholders. I work with multiple stakeholders to create products that meet business goals while creating an awesome user experience. My experience with both, design as well as development helps me create solutions that are both delightful as well as feasible for development. My current focus is on reimagining the experience of the core Deere.com website.
11
Years of Experience
UX
Designer
John Deere
Current Employer
Area of Expertise
My journey so far
How I got here
In 2022, I transitioned to John Deere which is a manufacturing company. Here, I focus on enhancing the experience of various dealer and customer facing applications. These include a dealer facing information portal, a customer configuration tool, a dealer locator and the main deere.com website. However, my primary focus currently, is on redesigning the core deere.com experience. I am also involved in parallelly building a design system to ensure consistency across applications. My role involves collaborating with product managers, scrum masters, and developers, to ensure UX aligns with business needs and is implemented as intended. I also work closely with UX researchers for activities like user tests and surveys to better inform design decisions. Lastly, I often conduct UX awareness sessions with various stakeholders to deepen UX implementation across departments.
I joined TCS in 2013. Here, I designed CXO facing content. I also developed some tools to optimize the process across the team. I realised that the role of a UX designer best leveraged my skills. I joined a UX CoE and have been working as a dedicated UX designer ever since. My role involved understanding business requirements, conducting contextual enquiries, extracting user goals and needs, wireframing, prototype and user testing. I also overlooked visual design and development to ensure 100% alignment with business and user needs. I also conducted research in various areas that lead to paper publications, speaker engagements and patent grants. I had a key focus on UX practices for emerging technologies like blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Conversational Interfaces.
After being introduced to coding, I started to teach myself front end development. I realised I found this as interesting as designing and wished to explore further. In an attempt of achieving this, I joined Sunlabs Software Pvt Ltd a mid sized IT firm in Mumbai. Here, I worked as a web designer/developer. While UX design was not as formalized back then, my role included responsibilities of a UX designer as well. My responsibilities included requirement gathering, conceptualization, wireframing, visual design, development and final deployment. Eventually I also learnt PHP and MySQL to build custom CMS tools and other backend requirements. In due course I was also involved in pricing and sales which gave me a better grasp on business context and point of view.
It all started in college when I took up the task of designing promotional material for our college fest. I was teaching myself photoshop at the time. This felt like a good oppurtunity to further enhance my skills. Students, parents and the staff really liked my designs which led to some interesting leads. With adequate demand, I started my freelance career. I designed multiple assets for both print and screen. It is here that I first learnt various design principles and techniques. I also learnt about various context, domains, industries and their unique requirements. While working with a start-up, I was introduced to coding which led me to my next creative phase.
Freelance Designing
It all started in college when I took up the task of designing promotional deliverables for our college fest. I was teaching myself photoshop at the time. This felt like a good oppurtunity to further enhance my skills. Students, parents and the staff really liked my designs which led to some interesting leads. With adequate demand, I started my freelance career. I designed multiple deliverables for both print and screen. It is here that I first learnt various design principles and techniques. I also learnt about various context, domains, industries and their unique requirements. While working with a start-up, I was introduced to coding which led me to my next creative phase.
Sunlabs Software Pvt Ltd
After being introduced to coding, I started to teach myself front end development. I realised I found this as interesting as designing and wished to explore further. In an attempt of achieving this, I joined Sunlabs Software Pvt Ltd a mid sized IT firm in Mumbai. Here, I worked as a web designer/developer. While UX design was not as formalized back then, my role included responsibilities of a UX designer as well. My responsibilities included requirement gathering, conceptualization, wireframing, visual design, development and final deployment. Eventually I also learnt PHP and MySQL to build custom CMS tools and other backend requirements. In due course I was also involved in pricing and sales which gave me a better grasp on business context and point of view.
Tata Consultancy Services
I joined TCS in 2013 where I designed CXO facing content. I also developed some tools to optimize the process across the team. I realised that the role of a UX designer best leveraged my skills. I joined a UX CoE and have been working as a dedicated UX designer ever since. My current role involves understanding business requirements, conducting contextual enquiries, extracting user goals and needs, wireframing, prototype and user testing. I also overlook visual design and development to ensure 100% alignment with business and user needs. I also conduct research in various areas that lead to paper publications and speaker engagements. My current focus is on UX practices for emerging technologies like blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Conversational Interfaces.
John Deere
I joined TCS in 2013 where I designed CXO facing content. I also developed some tools to optimize the process across the team. I realised that the role of a UX designer best leveraged my skills. I joined a UX CoE and have been working as a dedicated UX designer ever since. My current role involves understanding business requirements, conducting contextual enquiries, extracting user goals and needs, wireframing, prototype and user testing. I also overlook visual design and development to ensure 100% alignment with business and user needs. I also conduct research in various areas that lead to paper publications and speaker engagements. My current focus is on UX practices for emerging technologies like blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Conversational Interfaces.
Process
How I do what I do
Any project is first broken down into independently working sections. Once broken down I then prioritize these sections based on business relevance and value adds. I then follow the below process for each component so I have a quality MVP to atleast start with.
I indulge with various stakeholders though kick off calls, contextual enquiries, interviews etc to understand the context better
Based on conversations in step 1, I define key business goals as well as the users' context, needs, challenges and goals
I design various low, medium and high wireframes to evaluate various possible solutions and design strategies
Whenever possible I engage with end users to evaluate solutions and test assumptions using functional prototypes
I refine and enhance the solutions based on user testing insights. Whenever possible I repeat with another round of user testing
Once everything is finalized, I share with the visual design team. Post this, I constantly review designed and developed versions
Approach
Personal set of principles I follow
I believe that anything on the interface must only be added if it serves a purpose. I reduce clutter by including just the bare essentials and often ask myself, "what else can be eliminated without impacting the user's experience?". I follow the same approach for content too. Keeping the language simple and jargon-free as much as possible. I also try to free the user by automating as many tasks as possible. For example, any data that can be pre-populated or inferred from existing data must be handled by the system.
People are unique. No matter how well you plan your personas, there will mostly be some outliers. I've observed this even in niche business contexts with a narrow set of user profiles. Hence, when designing, I consider these possible edge cases and explore ways of addressing them without complicating the UI. For example, I provide a simple, easy to understand help section. However, below the simple description, I also provide links to a more detailed version for users who want a technical and detailed description.
While assumptions are an inevitable part of the process, it is essential to validate them as frequently as possible. The only way to do this is through user testing. Hence, I push for frequent user testing as much as possible. User testing also helps remove any subconscious bias that may have influenced a design decision. It helps us discover any unforeseen scenarios as well. The relevance of these tests depends heavily on participant demography. Hence, I also push for users who are as close to the real end-users as possible.
I believe in backing every design decision with data and rationale rather than intuition and taste. From time taken to complete a task to Likert scales gauging emotional responses, there's a lot of data to inform our design decisions. I try to include as much data and objectivity as possible in my approach. This helps remove any unintentional bias from the application. It also acts as an effective tool to justify and defend designs during reviews. Likewise, it also comes in handy when demonstrating RoI.
Insights from user testing, reviews, and other tollgates are useless if one cannot act on them quickly. Changes are inevitable as design is an iterative process. The success of any project largely depends on how quickly it can implement these changes. One of the strongest determinants of this is the architecture of the application at various levels. I aim for modularity here. Irrespective of what software I use, I try to create "modules" that I can reuse and modify across the system quickly. I also urge developers to adopt a similar approach and create reusable components that could be modified without breaking the entire application.
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