Apurva Ulabhaje
Design Shipped
B2B Design for an early-stage startup as a founding designer.
Overview: I joined Wipro Linecraft AI in its first year as the first design hire.
Company's Vision: Manufacturing teams often struggle to identify production bottlenecks. The founding team had the vision to build an AI-powered solution that optimizes manufacturing lines.
Building the MVP
I conceptualized and designed the MVP product by owning the 0-1 design process.
My Role
Product Designer
UX Researcher
Facilitator
Duration
1.5 years
Tools
Figma
LLM's
My role beyond UX design
Stregized the product market fit with the founders.
Mentored junior designers.
Defined the design system from ground up.
Helped in creating marketing materials and more..
How did it all start?
Core Challenges
The product began with a high-level founder vision, and my role was to bring structure by defining users, aligning stakeholders, and laying the groundwork for a design system.
I started my work by asking 3 primary questions:
1
What's the business vision?
2
Who are the end users, and what do they need?
3
What's the timeline to launch the first MVP?
Narrowing the scope
Defining the right users for the MVP
I conducted on-site research at manufacturing plants to identify and segment key user groups, which revealed that the business vision was most closely aligned with the needs of tactical users on the manufacturing line.
Impact
This research helped us narrow down the target users for MVP.
Prioritizing insights
After the user research, there were too many insights to act on at once, so I grouped them into Must Have, Should Have, and Nice to Have. This made it easier to define the MVP and build focused personas.
Identified User Needs
I identified 12 distinct personas and defined their user journeys, creating the first clear source of truth about the end users.
Designs shipped for MVP
Flow 1 : Overview and drill down of machine data to analyze downtimes.
Flow 2 : Comparing machine performance
Flow 3 : Highlighted bottlenecks and AI recommendations to fix issues.
Defined the design system from the ground up
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Impact at the end of 1.5 years
The company had a defined business vision due to customer research.
A newfound design culture with upcoming team expansions.
User-friendly software in the market
5 successful deployments and 6 clients in the pilot phase
Expanding my role beyond product design
Along with product design, I managed the creation of email templates, training documentation, and visual assets for sales and marketing.
I also helped strategize the product market fit and mentored junior designers.
Glimpse into my Figma File
Memos
Words from the Co-founder
" Apurva was among the company's first UX designers and amazingly managed the end-to-end UX process for new product revamps. I would describe her as a self-driven and responsible professional with the potential to shine in every domain. "
By Saya Date, Co-founder at Linecraft AI
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