Design Archives
These are some select projects over the years. Some of the projects I have done in the past were pioneering for that time and had won recognition. The Digital Media industry is quick to celebrate the ’new' but rarely acknowledges how the 'new' got to be 'new'. The shelf life is very short for projects that can be displayed on a website but there is a lot more to chat about if you are interested.
Lenddo
Lenddo is recognized as the world’s first non-traditional data-based lending platform, which has now expanded to more than 200 banks and lenders across 18 countries.
It started as the world's first online platform that helps the emerging middle class use their social connections to build their creditworthiness and access local financial services. By combining community-based microfinance techniques with social media data, Lenddo is pioneering a new approach to serving the underbanked. Lenddo's community members can use their reputation on social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Yahoo! to obtain life-improving loans, to use for education, healthcare, home improvement, or a small business. The Facebook app enables users to register, get a Lenddo Score and apply for a loan. Lenddo Leverages Opt-in Mobile and Social Data and excels in model building including the collection, analysis, and processing of billions of data points in the world today. Lenddo’s patented technology and proprietary algorithms provide real-time, highly accurate, and robust applicant verification.
Lenddo recognized that the global financial crisis took away loan opportunities for millions, while people in developing countries never got a chance, despite much hard work. Lenddo had done 10,000 e-loans to 500,000 global members till 2015. This software solution is helping individuals obtain credit through a new online model for microfinance, as well as helping to create and strengthen a new middle class worldwide. It's truly a world-changing creative idea!
The design principles that guided the design for this application were:
Clean, simple, and efficient. Users should be able to go through the application screens in the shortest time period.
Useful and valuable. Information and interactions should provide guidance and encouragement to complete the process and become part of the platform. Users should not see any information that is not relevant to them.
Joyful. Design should bring positivity, should not overwhelm, and be easy for the user to engage with.
My role and impact
As a design director brought into the organization as a consultant, I worked with C-level executives and product managers on business objectives and educated how great UX affects the bottom line. I built respect and value for design across the organization through workshops and creativity.
A new customer-facing digital app streamlined the loan application and communication process for the customer, dramatically reducing application time. The customer applications increased manifolds enabling Lenddo to increase its presence in 15 countries worldwide and being recognized as one of the topmost innovative companies in the world by the World Economic Forum.
Accolades
One of the primary concerns we had with this application was making sure that it could work across diverse cultures in developing nations around the world, particularly in places where digital literacy was low or financial ecosystems and markets were more complicated.
It was a pleasant experience seeing this product accepted in multiple markets and recognized by Wired Magazine and World Economic Forum. Today Lenddo is a Global company with a presence in 15 countries around the world.
Lenddo's profits rose 54% after it used a combination of traditional and alternate data-based models on risky unbanked populations.
Lenddo helped top financial institutions globally make more accurate and quicker decisions across the customer lifecycle and drive higher levels of growth and profitability.
Lenddo became the World leader in Identity Verification and Credit Scoring technology using non-traditional data solutions. Before the acquisition, it powered over 2.5 million instant credit decisions in 20 countries across the world.
People I worked with
"I have worked with many designers and Himanshu ranks in the top 1%. Himanshu takes the time to understand the business case and engages in a much higher level of conversation than I am used to when it comes to design and UX help. Himanshu has a gift to take a complex process and condense it into a simple and easy-to-understand interface. I highly recommend him and will continue to consult with him in the future."
Avinash David Singh, Head of Digital Product Management, Seller Financing, Goldman Sachs
Sara Lee
Hillshire Farm Community
Opportunity: Create a program that will seize upon emerging media platforms to deliver deeper insights in a faster turn-around time than ever before possible. Leverage social media to engage with the prime prospect at a deeper level. Position Hillshire Farm as a leader in and outside of the category.
Solution: The Hillshire Farm Social Community is a place for Hillshire Farm's most loyal fans to build a Community based on great food. It's a chance to share recipes, tips, and experiences with people who understand what it takes to feed a busy household quick, delicious meals. A space to ask questions, give and take advice, exchange ideas - to have a conversation. It's also a chance for Hillshire Farm to thank customers for their loyalty. Participating members of the Community get access to exclusive offers and promotions, plus invitations to events.
My role and impact
As an Associate Creative Director, I mentored a team of 5+ designers. I stayed up to date with consistent check-ins through regular team meetings and personal 1:1s where we discussed challenges, and priorities, as well as career and personal development. I Mentored designers through shared experiences and heartfelt conversations, investing in their career as well as them personally. I was responsible for the overall planning, coordination, and quality of the design deliverables. I managed the overall timelines, quality of the deliverables and was responsible for the success of the product and its business impact. I managed design team learning, and growth plans resulting in more confident and skilled designers.
This customer-facing digital platform streamlined customer research, customer communication, and documentation, dramatically reducing research and loyalty marketing costs. A first of its kind in the world and ahead of its time, I developed an equivalent of a social media 'Test kitchen' creating capabilities equivalent to having your own private tracking panels, on-demand focus group resources, and an army of brand ambassadors packaged up together and unleashed into the social media sphere. Alas, it was for a client. If it was released as a stand-alone white-label subscription product for any business, it could have been a multimillion-dollar, marketing tech company. It was a turning point in my career where I started looking for opportunities within product companies to create a better impact through innovative ideas.
The design idea: Facebook Like Newsfeed.
After reviewing several approaches to present content that are flexible for multiple media and content types ranging from surveys, articles, contests, and discussion, a Facebook-like familiar feed was selected, However, people are generally busy and can be distracted when using a Facebook-like newsfeed. It’s easy for people to miss important details. A critical challenge with this design style was helping people find the entry point, create engagement through discussion, and clearly communicate its value to loyal users.
George Bernard Shaw once said: "There is no sincerer love than the love of food." Perhaps, that’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed working on the visual design of the screens. Good food photography simply brings any design to life and makes it 'juicy'!.
People I worked with
"A thoughtful, detail-oriented designer who designs around what you need and is the type of person that is easy to work with as a colleague."
Ephraim Cohen, SVP & Senior Partner- General Manager, FleishmanHillard
"Himanshu is a talented designer who can be a valuable addition to your design team. With experience with UX across multiple platforms, his experience will help take your design to the next level."
Ari Greenberg, Global Head of Voice Marketing, Spotify
"Himanshu was very detail-oriented in creative reviews. The slightest errors would not go unnoticed. The work was always done on time and Himanshu provided excellent feedback to designers that he was managing. He was fun and inspiring to work with."
Stewart Traver, Owner/CD at Qwatee Productions
Working in healthcare is incredibly rewarding and fulfilling.
Healthcare could drive us to do our best knowing that It is work that can improve the lives and outcomes of people facing some of the most difficult times in their lives. Over the years I have worked for several healthcare agencies in NY as well as startups related to the healthcare space. But the reality of working on these deeply impactful products is full of obstacles in sensitive domains, which are slow, regulated, costly, and involve all the legacy and integration baggage.
A better user experience is needed
In healthcare, change isn’t embraced as much as in other industries. It comes more slowly, partly because it can have serious implications on the health of millions of people. Healthcare products also have the tendency to be very technical and scientific, and often don’t take the people interacting with systems or processes into account enough, from doctors to nurses to patients. Then there are privacy issues, ethics, and legal issues, questions around how data is handled and what recommendations and insights a user can receive. As a result, doctors are spending a lot less time with patients and more time battling inefficient medical systems. Regulatory standards in healthcare can vary hugely from region to region, making the consistency and scalability of design solutions problematic.
Compared to other sectors in healthcare one cannot ‘move fast and break’ things when the product we are building really does have life or death implications for those who will use it. Today some significant change is happening: health is no longer confined to the walls of the doctor’s office. The web has empowered people to manage their health themselves more than ever before, making it critical to get the UX of digital health products right. I look forward to doing more innovative and meaningful work in this space in the future.
acroT Tracker
A mobile application for patients diagnosed with acromegaly to track their symptoms over time whether they are at home or on the go, record where and when they have taken their daily injection (or other medications), keep notes and questions, and generate reports to facilitate doctor discussion.
The app allows fewer options for selection as per Hick's law. As they say 'form follows function’ the interface of the app was developed simplifying each function. Every screen was designed to please the user using the 'joyful' design philosophy so that users can use this app even in pain. The visual design should have a calming effect through its simplicity of design and choice of colors.
Sage
Sage One website, Sage Hub: A Touchscreen Application, and Sage Listens: iPhone App
Sage provides small and medium-sized organizations, and mid-market companies with a range of easy-to-use, secure and efficient business management software and services - from accounting, HR and payroll, to payments, enterprise resource planning, and customer relationship management. Sage One is an online accounting software to simplify life for small business owners.
Sage Hub: A Touchscreen Application
Sage Summit is an annual conference attended by around 12,000 customers, partners, business owners, companies, accountants, bloggers, analysts, etc. This could be a great networking opportunity. Hub is a social map that visualizes connections between the attendees with common interests, educational background, work history, and network behavior. The application thus helps attendees in strengthening their professional network. The aim is to not also facilitate stronger networking, but also knowledge sharing through people matching. The application is also available on smartphones and tablets to allow users to network before, during, and after the event. This mobile app helps users find connections in the same room while attending a presentation in a conference room.
Some key features: Provide digital networking capabilities with dynamic visualization. Exchange contacts in person. Find if any of the contacts are in close proximity to the conference center. Find possible close connections in close proximity. Add connections on LinkedIn. Export collected contacts. Could be used by companies in their kiosks and exits to collect lists of potential interests, fields, or competencies. Create personalized lists yay automatically show top matches. Match attendees based on similarity or personality type. Help attendees find experts in areas of greatest need. Could be used by hiring managers during conferences to connect with potential hires.
Sage Listens: iPhone App
Sage Listens is an iPhone app for Sage executives to personally visit customers across the U.S., to build stronger relationships with those customers and supporting local businesses in communities nationwide.
University of Michigan
Refugee Case Law
Architecting a solution to catalog the largest index of refugee and asylum case law in the world was the challenge. This large collaborative global database of case law is used by professionals around the world (40 countries) in the research of refugee and asylum case law. International Judges, lawyers, and scholars can create an account and easily upload a new case into the database. The site offers Advanced concept-based search capability, Mass email management, Advanced content management system, Fully-searchable PDFs, Case upload management using documents created in any word processor and Multilingual content.
People I worked with
"I worked with Himanshu for 5+ years at Epsilonium. Not only is Himanshu a great person to work with, his design skills are impeccable. His level of detail and creativity make him a top-notch designer. During this time, Himanshu created 100+ innovative designs based on a diverse client base and a variety of business sectors, each with a level of uniqueness tailored to each individual client with an emphasis on their desired user experience.
I learned a lot about design while working with Himanshu because he was very good at explaining the effects of design elements to our clients, from colors used, to placement on the screen."
Liz Hamant, IT Solutions Architect at DriveTime
"Person with innovative design ideas. He has a great sense of usability which translates his creative ideas into a greater user engaging experience. A very soft-spoken person who knows what he wants. Loved working with him and looking forward to grabbing an opportunity in the future too. I wish him the best of luck."
Rajiv Seth, Sr. Delivery Manager, Atherio Inc
Tyson Foods, Inc.
Jimmy Dean User-generated content program
Jimmy Dean aims to drive awareness, trial and overall acquisition and engagement of Jimmy Dean users on social media. Stressing the brand belief and equity of Jimmy Dean, i.e. Jimmy Dean delivers Great Days to its fans every single day. A weekly incentivized UGC program that allows fans to submit (via text, photo or video) examples of how they deliver great days with friends and family, depending on the call to action. The strategy was to stress the brand belief and engage power users in the community, ensuring we retain repeat users and engage new fans.
People I worked with
"Himanshu is a great member to have on your design team. With a good eye for UX detail and a clear understanding of strategic goals of a given project, he was always able to provide innovative suggestions and solutions to problems."
Cody Walton, Creative Director at Swagger
"Himanshu is very strategic in his design process. He designs with a smart and intuitive approach for optimal usability and always promotes best UX and UI practices."
Dave Pfeiffer, Principal UX Designer at Information Builders, a TIBCO Company
IBM
IBM Small Business & Information On Demand (IOD)
IBM provides small and medium businesses with expert IT solutions and lower IT costs, specifically designed for midsize businesses. A redesign of the existing site was done that improves traffic flow through the website and showcases the best high-value segment content from across the Point of engagement ecosystem. Business Goals and project objectives were to increase the engagement rate of the website, improve traffic flow from the homepage, increase the volume of engaging content, increase BIC ability to quickly support changing marketing needs.
IBM Information On Demand
IBM is the market leader in Big Data & Analytics that is transforming our world. More and more organizations are using it to create a huge competitive advantage for themselves in the marketplace. Information On Demand 2013 is the Largest conference by IBM for industry experts, fellow IBM clients, IBM Business Partners, and IBM executives to share their experience and guidance for managing big data and analytics. The attendees have the opportunity to improve their skills, gain best practices, network, etc across multiple tracks – Business Analytics, Enterprise Content Management, Information Management, and Business Leadership. A complete marketing program across web, social, email, and web advertising was built.
IBM Research
It is a website refresh to help IBM research become a destination for users to learn about and engage with the latest science and technology breakthroughs. It will help define the new era of computing – educate clients and IBMers about the future of cognitive computing. And finally Support other business units and areas of IBM.
For more than sixty years, IBM Research has been the innovation engine of the IBM corporation. From helping the Apollo space missions land on the moon to the discovery of fractals; from the technology behind laser eye surgery to a question answering computer called Watson now being applied to health care, IBM Research continues to define the future of technology.
People I worked with
"I worked with Himanshu on multiple occasions on creating a web environment for Midmarket IBM. Himanshu was always very responsive, delivering -timely- great results as well as bringing a value add to the overall web experience. Himanshu is both as creative as he is responsible and makes working with him very enjoyable."
Jacobo Gonzalez, Social Media Strategist, IBM
"I worked with Himanshu on a number of projects during his time at Havas. He is a talented Creative Director capable of translating strategic vision into a high-quality design. His focus on user experience and attention to detail helped push the iteration process, leading to well-crafted final work deliverables. I enjoyed working with Himanshu and would happily do so again in the future."
Matt Bernardy, Vice President of Growth, Knock
"After having worked with Himanshu on various IBM projects he is well-deserving of some praise. There is constant collaboration throughout the project and he manages the projects to be on brand and strategy. We always had constant communication between us, and he would always let me know what issues might arise. Overall, he is a great Creative, team player and creative partner."
Jim Hall, Digital Operations Lead, Mindtree
"It was my pleasure to work with Himanshu on an exacting IBM project, requiring some quick turnaround and adherence to new standards being developed. Not only did I find him to be an intelligent and thoughtful designer, but his ideas were embraced by the whole team and were ultimately successful."
John Mucci, Managing Partner, Director of Public Relations and Communications, The Zygus Capital
Deloitte
Deloitte University
Deloitte University wanted to position itself as an organization that proactively engages in collaboration of thought leadership on marquee issues with leading thinkers. The online solution must capitalize on the presence of Deloitte leadership by connecting them with clients, external influencers, and academia in a collaborative setting.
Mission of the website: Take DU online and convene leading thinkers at Deloitte University on topics that matter to DU clients and provide a nurturing online environment for ideas to prosper.” The purpose of this digital program was to shift Deloitte University’s approach from just pushing out content to an always-on digital acquisition hub driving inbound lead generation to grow and educate a customer base. This real-time utility served as a hub for all Deloitte expertise and content, ensuring that all content was timely, relevant and organically social, and reinforcing the Deloitte University strategy of “Where Ideas Prosper.” This digital destination served as a lead generator for prospects and media, as well as a resource for recruitment.
People I worked with
"A thoughtful, detail-oriented designer who designs around what you need and is the type of person that is easy to work with as a colleague."
Ephraim Cohen, SVP & Senior Partner- General Manager, FleishmanHillard
"Himanshu is a talented designer who can be a valuable addition to your design team. With experience with UX across multiple platforms, his experience will help take your design to the next level."
Ari Greenberg, Global Head of Voice Marketing, Spotify
"It is a pleasure to work with Himanshu. He has a strong understanding of the space, is creative, strategic, and, most importantly, is a great teammate who will always go out of his way to help and to support the team."
Richard Robbins, Founder, and CEO at Upper West Strategies
SocialN
The iPhone is an interesting mix of print and web. It's the web, things can scroll and the data is pulled from remote servers. But like print, it's also a fixed width, a fixed browser, fixed typefaces, a small screen, and few buttons, etc. So designing applications for the iPhone is an exercise in building smart and simple software. I have found it to be pretty cool and a really refreshing design process. Showcased here is a project (name undisclosed) under development for a social networking iPhone application. It allows users to find their neighbors and communicate with them.
Phoenix Suns
A treat for all Phoenix Suns fans. This is a social networking application that allows users to feel the pulse of the Twittersphere through dynamic data visualization. Fans can stay organized and up to date on their team and players. Features include - the more popular a player is, the bigger is his picture in the application. The timeline graph shows the Twitter buzz over a period of time. Users can connect with this application to tweet the current trend, share the trend on other social networking sites, or even embed this application on their website. Other features include viewing the trend of top tweets in real-time and viewing the tweet tag cloud in real-time.
Song Airlines from Delta
Song Airlines was a low-cost carrier of Delta Airlines. It planned to promote different artists every month and play their music, sell their CDs online within a ‘Song Records’ promotion website. The design aimed at not only taking into consideration the overall style and mood of the Song Airlines website but also add more fun, attitude, and casual feel to it.
People I worked with
"There are lots of people an agency can call to simply get work done. He-man, though, is that rare exception who cares enough to understand the project's significance in a larger context and then come back with ideas to help make it better. His diligence and attention to detail mean that work gets done right and we're able to keep our commitments to clients."
Peter Leeds, Executive Creative Director at Freeman Company
"When "He-man", as he is affectionately called, is not defending Castle Grayskull from Skeletor, you can find him wielding a sword of a different kind. Among the unique weapons, he has at his disposal is his understanding of both the creative and technical side of interactive design and his ability to marry the two. His attention to detail will leave you feeling reassured there is not an "i" without out a dot or a "t" without a cross. Add to that his great personality and what you have is a real-life "Master of the Universe"
Keith Hensel, Global Digital Experience Lead at Cognizant
GE Aircraft Engine
GE - Aviation is the world's leading producer of large and small jet engines for commercial and military aircraft. It also supplies aircraft-derived engines for marine applications and provides aviation services. This award-winning Engine 101 flash movie assists a user to learn about the functioning of engines and also serves as a marketing piece for GE to promote its rich history of innovation and excellence.
People I worked with
"I had the pleasure of working with Himan for several years while at Modem Media. Himanshu is super talented, a rare combination of creative and art direction coupled with phenomenal technical expertise and mastery of technical tools. His versatility and ability to succeed across so many disciplines, his constant and relentless vision, and his uncompromised imagination made him uniquely qualified and wanted as a team member on any and all of our projects."