UI and Experience Design / Strategy / Theory
San Francisco Bay Area
- Past
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- Sr Interaction Designer at Cisco
- Senior Designer at Involution Studios
- Design Analyst at Frog design
- Experience Designer at Adobe Systems, Inc.
- Lead UI Designer at BEA Systems, Inc
- UI Designer at Oracle Corp.
- Education
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- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Michigan
- The University of Texas at Austin
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Recommended
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14 people have recommended Uday - Connections
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240
connections
- Industry
- Design
- Websites
Uday Gajendar’s Summary
Uday Gajendar is a UI Designer in Silicon Valley. His work has spanned enterprise software, desktop tools, Web applications, and phone devices at a range of companies—Oracle, Adobe, Cisco, and Involution, a design studio. Holding degrees in both interaction design (Carnegie Mellon) and industrial design (Univ of Michigan), Uday continues to evolve his place within industry. As an accomplished member of the design community, he advances the field with talks and papers about designing attractive, meaningful digital products. Additional deep thoughts on design are continually posted at www.ghostinthepixel.com.
Uday Gajendar’s Specialties:
new product innovation, taskflow/interaction analysis, experience modeling, next-generation visual concepts, information architecture, interface design fundamentals, design strategy, UCD process, exploratory research
Uday Gajendar’s Experience
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Sr Interaction Designer
Cisco
(Design industry)
March 2008 — September 2008 (7 months)
Sr IxD within the Voice Technology Group UX team led by Cordell Ratzlaff. Designed the UI for upcoming VOIP phone models for both "budget-minded" enterprise users and "high-luxury" executive users. Delivered executive-approved specs and future concept sketches, while working with a globally distributed team, including offshore vendors. Also created and updated keystone documents for shaping a broad user-centered design program for Cisco VOIP team.
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Senior Designer
Involution Studios
(Design industry)
January 2007 — February 2008 (1 year 2 months)
Senior designer for the re-design of enterprise PLM (product lifecycle management) software for Agile Corp. (now a subsidiary of Oracle) encompassing visual design and interaction design. Delivered final comps, assets, and behavior specs while collaborating with a prototyping team. Also supported internal Involution projects and other client engagements as needed. Last major project involved re-doing the consumer installation and activation flows and screens for McAfee's security client. I delivered comprehensive wireframes and flow diagrams.
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Design Analyst
Frog design
(Design industry)
September 2006 — December 2006 (4 months)
Design analyst for two projects with Hewlett Packard, providing overall information architecture expertise and new product discovery and visualization for future design planning. Delivered final IA taxonomies for a Sharepoint system, and visual concept sketches.
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Experience Designer
Adobe Systems, Inc.
(Design industry)
March 2005 — August 2006 (1 year 6 months)
Lead UI designer for the "Out of the Box" experience for Creative Suite 3 (install, activate, uninstall), also the enterprise e-licensing ecosystem (both back-end and client-facing). Collaborated with PMs, engineering leads, and doc writers as needed to deliver compelling solutions. And designed features for Acrobat 8, Photoshop CS3, and Photoshop Elements 5.
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Lead UI Designer
BEA Systems, Inc
(Design industry)
May 2004 — February 2005 (10 months)
Lead designer for flagship WebLogic Integration Business Process Manager (BPM)--based upon emerging BPEL standard--owning and driving the UI design for the next version. Collaborated with a dev manager, dev team, PM, and doc/QA leads. Delivered iterative specs, concept sketches, annotated wireframes, and detailed designs.
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UI Designer
Oracle Corp.
(Design industry)
July 2001 — April 2004 (2 years 10 months)
UI designer for Oracle Financials, a central component to Oracle e-Business Suite. This included Accounting, Loans, Leasing/Contracts, Treasury, and enterprise Taxation systems. Delivered wireframes, flow diagrams, and XML-based prototypes. Worked under a design mentor and with usability engineers, with guidance from product PMs.
Uday Gajendar’s Education
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Carnegie Mellon University
MDes. , Interaction Design , 1999 — 2001
The master's in interaction design at CMU is taught as a multi-disciplinary, humanist approach to new product innovation. I studied under acclaimed design theorist Dr. Richard Buchanan and award- winning designer Dan Boyarski.
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University of Michigan
BFA , Industrial Design , 1996 — 1998
The ID degree was a blend of fine arts education and design coursework, rounded out with several classes in humanities, including art history, Shakespearean literature, and macroeconomics.
- Activities and Societies:
- Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Kappa, Michigan Union Program Board
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The University of Texas at Austin
none , Engineering, Art , 1994 — 1996
My first experience in college, explored engineering and fine arts.
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Rhode Island School of Design
none , Industrial Design , 1995 — 1995
RISD Summer Session provided a great opportunity to learn about design as a professional practice.
Additional Information
Uday Gajendar’s Websites:
Uday Gajendar’s Interests:
Product innovation, Digital product design, Aesthetics/Style, Design theory, Rhetorical methods
Uday Gajendar’s Groups:
AIGA, IDSA, BayCHI, CHI
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BayCHI -
Adobe Alumni -
Carnegie Mellon Alumni -
Interaction Design Association -
Carnegie Mellon Design
Uday Gajendar’s Honors:
+ Published a chapter in Jon Kolko's new book, Thoughts on Interaction Design, April 2007
+ Guest speaker for a design class at San Jose State on software design process, Feb 2007
+ Taught a class on interface design at San Jose State, Fall 2007
+ Spoke at the IDSA World Design Congress, Fall 2007
+ Spoke at Silicon Valley Code Camp, Fall 2007
Uday Gajendar’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
