I was going to create a standard About Me page but I'm very often asked in interviews, "Arjun, tell me about your journey into product design."​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Product designers generally enter the field from all walks of life; there's no straight path or clearly-defined road. For me, because of my personal passions and hobbies growing up, I was often led astray in thinking product design is all about being "artsy", creative and focused only on aesthetics and visual design.
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Before I entered the field of product design, I was an aspiring videographer and motion designer.

In the beginning, I often confused artistic expression and designing for users. Due to my passion for music, one of the first things I tried to showcase in my portfolio was a prototype I call the "contextual music visualizer".

This experience displays your favourite songs in a UI reminiscent of the time period in which each song was originally released. The aim was to connect users with their favourite artists/music. Click here for the inspiration.

Design is how something works and adds value for users. Also a labour of love, the contextual music visualizer was primarily an art project. What was lacking to make this a portfolio piece?

• This idea was something I personally wish existed in music streaming platforms. More work to gather feedback from potential users was necessary to assess usability and value to music lovers.

Now as a product designer, where would I take this idea?

• Qualitative Testing
  I would confirm early whether music lovers enjoy navigating this interface and can make some sense of all the functionality. Would they continuously interact with it?
• Visual Design
  Prepare to change font choices, colours and button placement based on usability and accessibility concerns.
• Feasibility
  Going further, (how) could it fit into a streaming platform from a technical perspective?

I love sharing ideas that are wacky, artistic and abstract but being a product designer today involves carrying ideas through to a real user experience based on checking assumptions, avoiding being self-centred and leaving my ego at the door.