Design Principles

To ensure consistency & rigour in decision-making & dramatically reduce design cycles we employ principles. These principles though universal in their approach are specific to the problem and business space I’m working in.

Observe ambiguity, visualize with clarity / Digital products have inherent complexity that must be considered. If you don’t simplify tools enough, people are going to have a hard time. But if you over-simplify, you risk losing the very value the product tries to provide.

Employ design efficiently & effectively / Design is strategy. Use it efficiently. Design as little ‘design’ as possible.

Be predictable / Often design gets a bad rep for being unpredictable and too lost in the weeds. It comes across as time and money spent and eventually ruins what design can bring to the table. To overcome this, it’s essential that design be predictable & accurate. To implement this, my team uses standardized T-shirt sizing followed by estimation sessions with PMs & EMs.

Design for Ideal state, deliver MVP / The goals of every tech team I’ve worked with have been lofty. Alas, if our tech( at that time) supported our ideas! Design will always be ahead of what tech can currently deliver and that is OK. When designing, align the team on the ideal state and based on constraints, arrive at delivering an MVP that is quantifiable & measurable. The goal is to learn.

Design Process

For the most part, the triple diamond process clarifies how my team designs & innovates. Alignment is key between phases to ensure we’re solving the right set of problems.

Discover the problem space / Understanding the who? The goal of this phase is to go broad and gain a deep understanding of the customer problems and opportunities within the project scope. At the end of this phase, teams converge by compiling insights and aligning on a clear customer problem and ideal state.

Alignment / What problem are we solving and why is this the right one?

Explore the solution space / Understanding the what? Generate as many wide and divergent ideas as possible to solve and then get uncomfortably narrow and test ideas for desirability, viability & feasibility.

Alignment / What’s the right solution for our customer’s pain?

Prototype & refine the experience / Understanding the how? How far or close are we to achieving our ideal state from a technological pov. What constrains do we need to manage in order to deliver a delightful experience. How can we rapid prototype and test these solutions at the cheapest possible cost?

Alignment / What’s the end-to-end experience we’re delivering that solves for our customers.

Design Effectiveness & Execution

“I originally began working with Shankar after needing help with conceptual designs around an early-stage shopping/commerce partnership with Pinterest. Shankar really helped our team ideate around some potential checkout designs (which were ultimately shared externally with Pinterest). Overall, his work helped us progress and refine scope jointly with Pinterest. The impact here has been pretty significant since we are now working to formalize a partnership and this could prove to be a very strategic project for Etsy in 2022.”

“Shankar consistently pushes the boundaries of our design system, and questions where the experiences can be better or improved. It’s great to see a team member rethinking assumptions about our space and producing really well-though-out experiences. An example is when he’s been working on the Credit Cards for India project, Shankar thought through many divergent ideas and made sure to bring stakeholders such as myself into the process to solicit feedback.”

“Shankar is ALWAYS thinking about the end user with what they'll need and how they'll experience a flow. He's always taking a look at the most minor details and making sure they're perfect so that the end experience is polished and ready for any user. He also calls out points and perspectives that others haven't seen that are often spot on! This is so important to delivering a great product and keeping Etsy's brand what it is. This is all while being one of the friendliest people I've met at Etsy and is truly a pleasure to work with.”

“His designs are beautiful and he's generally realistic about what is "Ideal Scenario" vs "MVP". When he presents first draft designs that are unexpectedly difficult to implement, I've seen him be a good partner with engineering at finding an approach at the intersection of acceptable UX and reasonable engineering return on investment.”

Optimism & Resilience

“I particularly appreciated a time when he pointed out that the team's attitude towards one of our partners was overly negative.”

“I really enjoy working with Shankar and his positivity is contagious. Really excited to partner with him more in the future!!”

“His positivity, enthusiasm, and adaptable working style are some of the traits that have made him one of my favorite people to work with at Etsy.”

Problem Solving through Creativity

“He recently helped design a team planning a workshop for the API & Data squad which we will use to help identify and explore the problem space for our squad. Originally, I had some specific ideas in terms of how to format the working session, but Shankar regularly came up with new ideas to make the activity fun for all of our participants (including things like ice breakers, breakouts, etc). This will be extremely helpful for our squad as we move into 2022 and beyond.”

“An ambitious vision for design of the work we're doing and the entire user experience even beyond our charter. I've seen this in the walk throughs we've done where he'll point out potential points of friction and opportunities for improvement both with our direct work and parts of the flow that are orthogonal to our direct work.”