Kandarp Khandwala

UX Designer

San Francisco, California, United States9 yrs 4 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Led user research for bioimaging projects.
Improved MATLAB user experience through strategic design.
Redesigned Flutter error messages for better usability.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a UX Researcher with expertise in software and healthcare industries.

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Skills

Core Skills

Ux ResearchUser Experience DesignUser Research

Other Skills

CollaborationProduct StrategyUser InterviewsUsability TestingDesign CoordinationPrototypingUnmoderated TestingRapid PrototypingResearchUser ExperienceUser Interface DesignInteraction DesignSketchingInformation ArchitectureWireframing

About

I'm Kandarp, a UXer who likes to (re)imagine how things should work given real-world constraints, and test hypotheses with users. I go beyond mandates to maximize product impact, with a careful attention to detail. I worked at MathWorks until recently, where I was responsible for performing user research and design about various aspects of MATLAB, a software platform for scientists and engineers. I partnered with over 7 dev. teams and their cross-functional partners to make MATLAB easy to use for non-programmers, working on diverse features from flame graphs and APIs to MATLAB's startup experience. Previously, I was a UX research intern at Google, where I redesigned how errors look in Flutter to substantially improve readability and eventual task outcomes. I did my Master's specializing in Human-Computer Interaction at UC San Diego, where I created scalable user-centered systems to help people learn and do programming effectively at the Design Lab, advised by Prof. Philip Guo. I was also a teaching assistant for multiple HCI courses and conducted lectures for 200+ students. I did a Bachelor's in Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Bombay. You can find work samples and my resume on my website: www.kandarp.xyz

Experience

9 yrs 4 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 8 mos

Average Tenure

3 yrs 10 mos

Current Experience

Chan zuckerberg initiative

2 roles

Senior UX Researcher, Science

Promoted

Mar 2024 – Present · 2 yrs 3 mos · Redwood City, California, United States · Hybrid

Leading user research to inform and iterate with product strategy and design for bioimaging, machine learning and API related projects in the CZI Science Technology division, in collaboration with the CZ Biohub Network.
We build the CryoET Data Portal (https://cryoetdataportal.czscience.com) in collaboration with scientists at the CZ Imaging Institute. The portal hosts high-quality, standardized, annotated data to support the ML competition we are currently running on Kaggle!

UX ResearchUser Experience Design

UX Researcher, Imaging

Jul 2022 – Feb 2024 · 1 yr 7 mos · Redwood City, California, United States · Hybrid

Responsible for conducting user research to inform and iterate with product strategy and design for bioimaging projects in the CZI Imaging team (czi.co/Imaging), in collaboration with the Core Developers of the community-led, open source tool "napari" (napari.org).

UX ResearchUser Experience Design

Mathworks

2 roles

UX Researcher, Online Products

Jun 2021 – Jun 2022 · 1 yr · Natick, Massachusetts, United States

Responsible for user research for the MATLAB home experience (cutting across the web and desktop app), working with several teams and cross-functional partners. Leveraged different methods with flexible turnaround times to influence strategy and scope. Example projects:
Conducted user interviews to understand how users begin using MATLAB, and later switch context, to influence the design of a home page for the MATLAB desktop app. Surfaced discovery issues and latent user needs.
Interviewed and surveyed 25+ stakeholders and teams across the org. to reveal how they influence MATLAB startup and identified multiple gaps. Performed moderated and unmoderated usability activities to study a progressive startup experience and evangelized changes across disparate teams. Establishing it as a repeatable process for fellow UXers to adopt.

User ResearchUser Experience Design

UX Specialist, Technical Computing (MATLAB programming language)

Mar 2019 – Jun 2021 · 2 yrs 3 mos · Natick, Massachusetts, United States

Responsible for research and design on the core MATLAB programming language, as well as how it works in the GUI IDE (Integrated Development Environment), i.e. the MATLAB application.
Example project: Designed new code creation workflows to alleviate multiple pain points and presented vision to senior stakeholders. Coordinated design efforts across multiple teams, allowing projects to move forward. Performed an online experiment with 190+ users, which helped choose a design direction by countering long-standing assumptions.

User Experience DesignUser Research

Google

Developer UX Research Intern, Flutter

Jun 2018 – Sep 2018 · 3 mos · Mountain View

Worked to improve the usability of error messages in Flutter (https://flutter.dev). The redesign showed a 55% improvement in readability and was integrated in the product:
Conducted interviews to understand how developers write error messages and the considerations (or lack thereof) put into them.
Examined design principles to apply and prototyped distinctive variations of error messages, working with multiple teams to ensure feasibility.
Compared how the variations affected performance of 120+ users in tasks via an interactive unmoderated survey.

User ResearchUser Experience Design

Ucsd design lab

Student Researcher

Dec 2016 – Dec 2018 · 2 yrs

Created scalable user-centered systems to help people learn and do programming
Sketching, web prototyping, usability studies, participatory design (co-design)

User ResearchUser Experience Design

University of california san diego

HCI Teaching Assistant

Sep 2016 – May 2018 · 1 yr 8 mos

Interaction Design (Prof. Philip Guo, Prof. Scott Klemmer):
Conducted lectures on Needfinding, Mental Models and Web Analytics for 200+ students
Led design studios on storyboarding, heuristic evaluation, A/B testing, etc.
Usability & Information Architecture (Prof. Mary Boyle):
Created detailed rubrics and evaluated students' designs
Provided feedback on personas, graphic layout, etc.

Adobe technology labs

Research Intern

May 2014 – Jul 2014 · 2 mos · Bangalore, India

Visualized users to target when online shopping carts are left unpurchased:
Analyzed clickstream data and email interactions of millions of website visitors to help predict their (A) likelihood to purchase, and (B) propensity to unsubscribe from email campaigns, working with data scientists.
Designed and developed visualizations used in 2 patent applications and well-suited for integration in the product dashboard for marketers.