New product innovation, style, and discourse
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
-
- Senior Interaction Designer at Cisco
- Past
-
- 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
-
- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Michigan
- The University of Texas at Austin
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Recommended
-
8 people have recommended Uday - Connections
-
156
connections
- Industry
- Design
- Websites
Uday Gajendar’s Summary
Uday Gajendar is a UI designer in silicon valley, whose work has included enterprise software, creative tools, web applications and phone-based interfaces at a range of firms, including Fortune 100 and boutique studio. He earned a Master's in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon after completing a BFA in Industrial Design at Michigan. Uday strives to advance the field with frequent talks and writings about user experience, aesthetics, product development. Visit www.udanium.com to learn more. You can also read his latest thoughts at www.ghostinthepixel.com.
Uday Gajendar’s Specialties:
new product innovation, information architecture, taskflow/interaction analysis, process design, visual concepts, experience foresight
Uday Gajendar’s Experience
-
Senior Interaction Designer
Cisco
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CSCO; Computer Networking industry)
March 2008 — Present (5 months)
Sr IxD within the Voice Technology Group UX team. Focused on VOIP phones and related ecosystem: video chat, web collab tools, etc. X-functional team, evangelizing design values/thinking, shaping a user experience process, etc.
-
Senior Designer
Involution Studios
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; 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 enhancements. Also supported internal Involution projects and other client engagements as needed. Last major project involved re-designing the consumer installation and activation flows and screens for a major computer security client.
-
Design Analyst
Frog design
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Consumer Services 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.
-
Experience Designer
Adobe Systems, Inc.
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; ADBE; Computer Software industry)
March 2005 — August 2006 (1 year 6 months)
Lead UI designer for "out of the box" UI for upcoming rev of Creative Suite (install, activate, uninstall), also the enterprise e-licensing ecosystem (backend and client-facing UI's). Collaborated with PMs, Engineering leads, and doc writers as needed.
-
Lead UI Designer
BEA Systems, Inc
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; BEAS; Computer Software 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.
-
UI Designer
Oracle Corp.
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; ORCL; Computer Software industry)
July 2001 — April 2004 (2 years 10 months)
UI designer for Oracle Financials, a central component to Oracle e-Business Suite. Worked under a design mentor and with usability engineers, with guidance from product PMs.
Uday Gajendar’s Education
-
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.
-
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
-
The University of Texas at Austin
none, Engineering, Art, 1994 — 1996
My first experience in college, explored engineering and fine arts.
-
Rhode Island School of Design
none, Industrial Design, 1995 — 1995
RISD Summer Session provided a wonderful, truly life-altering opportunity to discover design, my professional calling.
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
-
BayCHI member
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
