My name is Kirit and I am a user experience designer with degrees in Computer Science and Digital Media (i.e. 3D animation, photography, sound design). I have over a decade of experience in the industry, having worked on a wide variety of clients with one thing in common – I know how to bring complex projects from inception to delivery while bringing stakeholders and the team along the journey. My skills also vary interaction design through to branded experience design, from discovery through to testing and research.
Outside of being a designer, I love skiing, board games, learning languages and generally being curious and open about the world especially while travelling!
I began my UX journey at Telstra when my then boss tapped me on the shoulder and said:
Manager: “Hey Kirit, you want to be a UX designer, right?”
Me: “yeah, why?”
Manager: “There’s been a reshuffle, but you’re staying in my team. Due to the changes, I can change your role so starting tomorrow you’ll be a Designer”
Having no idea what to start on, I began working on a project that would later become “Presto”, Foxtel’s foray into a streaming service. I starting by creating user-centred requirements (user stories), progressing onto flow diagrams and wireframes. I went on to receive a Chief Operations Officer’s Quarterly Award along with the rest of the team for delivering an excellent customer experience with Presto on Chromecast which launched simultaneously with Google’s Chromecast in Australia in 2013.
After that, I moved onto working on another strong video-on-demand product, BigPond Movies. At launch, we delivered BigPond Movies on the Telstra TV streaming device to market with excellent Likelihood To Recommend score of 8.4 (minimum of 7.3) and received a Group Managing Director’s Award for excellence in delivering the app and device to market.
I followed that up with the Telstra TV 2 device. The new challenge was to work on a new experience for browsing terrestrial (free-to-air) television with a Roku remote – a remote that does not have channel or number buttons.
After that I took a year off, working and skiing in Canada, volunteering on a coffee farm in Guatemala and travelling Central and North America.
I wasn’t done travelling so I landed a job at an ad agency where I was part of the CX department (now a separate agency called Bernadette), where I got to work on iconic brands such as Cadbury, Shell and O2 (telecom). I learned the importance of not only being good at design, but honing the skill of presenting back to clients and answering tough questions. I learned how to make service blueprints, deal with fast turnarounds and the importance of brand.
I then came back to work at Merkle ANZ in Sydney, where I further developed my research skills, and my presentation skills came in useful in the form of workshop facilitation. I realised I had a knack for extracting not only requirements, but growing ideas and taking them through to implementation.
On the side, I have also studied Auslan (Australian Sign Language) for 4 years and successfully passed the Auslan interpreter’s exam. This means that I am able to accredit myself with the national authority (NAATI) and work as an interpreter if I wish. I also like to volunteer, either to raise money by performing on stage through sketch comedy shows and original theatre productions. Using Auslan, I have through other organisations such as Able Australia where I volunteered for a Deaf Blind camp or Veronica James Science Challenge where I have tutored and interpreted for deaf and hard of hearing children at annual science weekends for a few years. I now regularly perform as part of an improv troupe with monthly shows and a slot at the Sydney Fringe festival in 2024.