San Jose, CA
Open to product design roles
I lead with research and engineer the design, with a working knowledge of AI systems.
From the AskNestlé research.
Research notes: “My son is a fussy eater.”; 95% of visitors are on mobile; “Dinner has to take 20 minutes.”; “So much advice. Whom do I trust?”; 58% can’t find the right content; “I google recipes in the cab at 6pm.”; 3.3M visits to recipe pages; “It logged me out halfway through.”.
Clusters: Time, Trust, Findability.
Insights: 1. Parents decide dinner on the go, in minutes. 2. They want one trusted answer, not more advice. 3. Recipes are the draw, but hard to find on a phone.
How might we get a parent from question to dinner in one tap?
Design: a mobile screen with search “Dinner for a fussy eater” (insight 3), filters “Under 20 min” (insight 1) and “Expert approved” (insight 2), a recipe card for Veggie paneer wrap, and a button to add to tonight’s plan.
Listen. Start with what people actually say and do.
I’m motivated by complex problems that require both research rigor and thoughtful design. My goal is to help build intuitive, inclusive and scalable products, while keeping usability and real human needs central to technological innovation.
Selected work
01 · Sarvagya · Saptang Labs · 2023
A threat-monitoring dashboard for Saptang Labs. I took it from a raw spreadsheet to a screen where the dangerous stuff jumps out first.
02 · SportsMarkers · SquareResults · 2026
Talent deserves to be seen. A brand and design system for a platform that connects athletes with recruiters.
03 · AskNestlé · Nestlé India · via Design Brewery · 2022
A nutrition site with 41M+ parent visits, rebuilt for the phone in their hand, in English and Hindi.
04 · Accessible Voice AI · Confidential project · 2026
An AI screen reader for blind and low-vision people. It reads any website or PDF clearly, sums up what matters and answers your questions, all by voice.
Process
Interviews, surveys, competitor research, personas and journey maps, so the problem comes from evidence, not guesses.
Framing the problem, sketching ideas and wireframes, and sharing them early while changes are still cheap.
Polished screens built on a design system, checked for accessibility and ready for developers.
Usability tests and data, then another round. The best decisions usually come from the second try.
Shakthi’s understanding of designing as an art of understanding humans and resonating with their mental expectations of interaction through designs was the best impression a designer could have made. We never had to follow up on the deliverables once assigned to Shakthi, and he does all the homework to understand our competitors and read up on the necessary information to design suitable solutions.
He showed great prowess in finding and addressing the problem with an innovative solution and displayed excellent communication skills and good clarity in conveying the project’s progress.
Excerpts from recommendation letters, shared with each referee’s permission. Personal contact details are removed from the linked copies; references are available on request.
3D and motion
Urban Inferno is a VR piece about urban heat in Arizona. I modeled the city in Blender, animated an AI narrator called Breeze, and built scenes in Unity.
Read the craft notes
