FIELD NOTES
Field Notes
17 years of shipping products. These are the things worth writing down.
The Redesign Nobody Asked For
We shipped what we thought was the best version of the booking flow. Clean, modern, consistent. Users hated it. Not the design — the familiarity loss. Here's what we missed.
When A/B Testing Lies to You
We optimised for the wrong metric. The test was technically correct — conversion did go up. But what we couldn't see in 2 weeks was what the change was doing to long-term trust.
The 44px Tap Target That Cost ₹2 Crore
Nobody caught it in design review. Nobody caught it in QA. It shipped to 50 million users and quietly generated 34,000 failed tap events per day for 6 months.
The Single Word That Changed Conversion
The most impactful design change I made in 2023 wasn't a redesign. It wasn't a new component. It was changing two words in a CTA. Here's the psychology behind why it worked.
The Empty State That Became a Sales Tool
When users have no points yet, what do they see? We used to show a grey 'No activity yet' message. Then we redesigned it. Loyalty program enrollment increased 28%.
4 Seconds of Loading That We Turned Into Delight
The payment processing step took 4 seconds — non-negotiable, it was bank infrastructure. We couldn't make it faster. So we made it feel better. CSAT for the payment flow went up 18%.
Dark Patterns Work. That's Why They're Dangerous.
The uncomfortable truth about manipulative UX: it does increase conversion. The problem is what it does to the metrics nobody's tracking — trust, retention, word-of-mouth, brand reputation.
UX Debt Is More Expensive Than Tech Debt
Everyone understands a codebase that needs refactoring. The equivalent — a UX that has accumulated years of inconsistent decisions — is just as expensive to fix and much harder to quantify.
What I Learned Watching People Use Apps at 4am
You cannot design operational software without watching people use it in the actual conditions they use it in. Not a usability lab. Not a Zoom call. A departure lounge at 4am with someone who's been awake for 18 hours.
The User Who Screenshotted Everything
During research for CrewPal, I discovered that cabin crew were screenshotting their schedules and sharing them on WhatsApp because the app was too slow. The product team didn't know this. It had been happening for 2 years.
When Users Lie to You in Interviews
The social desirability bias is the most dangerous thing in user research. Users tell you what they think you want to hear, or what they think is the 'right' answer. Here's how to design around it.
This is just a test blog for review purposes
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