Design is like an exploration of limitless possibilities!

Back in 2019, when I was working with KPMG, we were developing a web app for our clients. We only had business dev guys and engineers (including myself) in the team. We had no clue about, colors, fonts, navigation, how information should be presented. The first version of the app we created was not at all user friendly.

Even though the tech was amazing, clients still requested PPT reports because they couldn’t understand the dashboard in our tool. This experience taught me the importance of UX. I looked for an institute that taught UX UI Design and found Designerrs UI UX Design Course. Since they were highly rated, I enrolled with them.

I always had a lot of ideas and solutions to problems. But, my biggest hurdle was that I thought too much like engineering. I would start thinking about the implementation of the solution first, then get boggled by the complexities and eventually shelve the project.

Design education gave me freedom from this sort of mindset. Design is like an exploration, unlike engineering which is very methodical. The design outcome need not be perfect or an exact implementation, it can be a study of the problem and a prototype of a solution. This for me was like an exciting revelation.

I had the idea for Rakugoi for several years now. Procuring the music licenses, setting up back end infra, scaling to multiple languages, it seemed like a mammoth task and I just told myself that it would be too complex. When I started learning design, I told my mentor about it and he said

“Don’t worry about the complexities of implementation, just design it! Implementation comes later”.

It felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulder and I thought “Oh yeah, that’s right. Let’s start with the design”. After doing the course at Designerrs, I started working on the idea and also learning visual design (I was pretty bad at it). I got the idea when I was learning the Japanese language, picking up new words through music. I teamed up with my friend who is a Japanese language interpreter and began Rakugoi’s concept design.

Conveniently, an All India Online Japanese Business Pitch Contest was calling for applications. So I applied and pitched the idea, design, and business potential of the app to the judges there. We were judged on 3 things- the quality of the presentation, uniqueness, and implementability of the idea. The judges liked it and said that it would be very useful for language learners and awarded me the winning pitch. To my pleasant surprise, I won the Oculus Quest VR headset! (I’m excited to start designing for VR now! :D)

Even a year after I did the course at Designerrs, I still referred to their materials like the PPTs, tips, and tricks, and sources to find design assets. I also utilized the help from fellow designers in the Designerrs Dtalks Community, whenever I had doubts or got stuck with something. These were extremely helpful while I was making the app.

I encountered problems especially in designing the information hierarchy in this app, that were more complex than those we learnt but the basics were taught very well and I could extend those and apply them to solve the more complex problems. My mentor, Sidhant Goyal was even kind enough to give me feedback even after a year! I love the support that Designerrs gave me and I am glad to be part of their community.

Thank you for reading! If you wish to learn more about Rakugoi, check out the detailed case study here: http://yeshashreeprasanna.com/rakugoi/

This article is part of the Designpreneur Series at Designerrs. A Designpreneur is a person who utilizes both Design and Entrepreneurial skills to create products and services which solve real-world problems in an innovative and viable way.