About Ganesh Kumar
b. 1999
My first pay cheque was INR 500 ($5.99) in 2018 and since then I have been in love with design.
Getting a cab in NYC is hard. Surviving pandemic is hard. In fact, life in general is pretty hard. As a product researcher, I embrace that because I believe in design's potential to untangle the hardest problems around us to make us live better, fuller lives — with our friends, at work, and beyond.
I believe that the best products are made by people who are willing and able to work at whatever level necessary to iterate towards a better solution. Good design starts at the research and permeates all the way to code, sales and customer support. In addition to my work, I also value meaningful conversations and good music, that keeps up my creative process.
tldr; I want to build products to help people autonomously and efficiently create as much value for themselves (and others)
What I do.
Problem Discovery
Good design solves problems. I can help you to uncover those tricky problems that frustrate your customers. And I’ll work with you to pinpoint opportunities that improve user experience and your business goals.
Workshop Facilitation
Sometimes, there's nothing better than getting people in a room, talking about problems and thrashing out ideas. I can help you to facilitate productive workshops. Whether that's a half-day problem-solving session or a week-long design sprint.
Prototypes & Usability Testing
Guessing is risky. And building the wrong thing? That's even riskier! You could leave your customers frustrated whilst wasting precious time and money. Reduce the risk. I can help you prototype concepts and test them with your customers, remotely or in person.
UI Design & Development
Wireframes and prototypes are great for testing. But they leave a lot to be desired when creating incredible experiences. I can help you to design & develop interfaces that are a delight for your users – without sacrificing usability.
Things I like
- Smell of sunscream
- Good Goods
- Wearing black tees
- Ilaiyaraaja music
- Good foods
- Mountains
- Architecture
- Interior Design
Things I wanna do
- Drive through United States
- Go skydiving
- Solo backpack across San Francisco
- Open a bookcafe
- Live in New York City
- Do a month+ long hike
- See Northern lights
- Climb a large mountain
- Roadtrip with strangers
- Publish a magazine
- Be on a float for the NYC Halloween parade
Experience
Available for world-changing projects.
Led a full redesign of the MISO Energy Help Center through intensive user research, iterative prototyping, and testing. The revamped design significantly enhanced search, navigation, and content access, drastically improving user satisfaction metrics.
Optimized emergency response times at Naval Base through UX research and Human-Centered Design approach. [Under NDA]
Pursued independent Assistive Tech research, helped dad with building Accessible Magnifying Specs for him, explored other design forms (doodles, genArt), prep for grad school.
Developed & conducted usability testing for enhanced Hindi core model for Alexa, increased usability score by 12% and DAU by 18% after incorporating local dialects.
First full-time design hire after 6 month internship here. 0→1 design for hCare app. Led Health Journal feature implementation, conducted feasibility study, collaborated on Food Journal design, boosted app engagement and subscriptions.
Redesigned Android Notifications for Android 10, collaborated on layout overhaul, contributed to API enhancements, increased app openings.
Redesigned Pleo Client page 2.0, increased feature usage, new partners, and client referrals.