Pushkar Patange
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since May 9, 2019
Pushkar is a senior product designer with a rich background in design, spanning game studios, design studios, and ad agencies. His expertise is crafting standout products, seamlessly blending robust UX principles with visually captivating UI designs, finely tuned through user research insights. Pushkar leverages his skills in product design, drawing from experiences in games, product development, teaching, and advertising, to create compelling and user-centric experiences.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Lead Product UX Designer
SF Interactive
- Developed a roleplay creation product platform. Shaped the startup's product features, UX, UI, and design vision.
- Led the team in taking the product from a prototype to a functioning product in the hands of the users in just six months.
- Focused on crafting robust and intuitive creation tools, allowing game masters to create user-generated VR maps in under an hour.
- Implemented a product-centric, user research-focused development strategy, delivering a functional product to users within six months.
UX, Figma, Human-centered Design & Data Visualization Instructor
Vancouver Film School, Digital Design Department & VR/AR Department
- Taught UX, Figma for Advanced UI, Human-centered design, Data visualization, and other portfolio development courses in the AR/VR development program.
- Acted as an instructor for the HCD course focused on understanding the user and designing a product that will best suit their needs. Provided a foundation for creating experiences focusing on user needs, goals, and behaviors.
- Created the data visualizations for a VR/AR course from scratch. Worked on the course where students learn how to access data sets and transform them into visualized and interactive VR/AR experiences. Taught this course since 2018.
- Held several portfolio-building and Figma for advanced UI workshops, guiding students and recent graduates; took a user-centered design approach to portfolios to get an interview in the digital design industry.
- Taught a persuasive design elective course for digital design, which focused on game design principles that would help students create habit-forming and clear design products.
- Delivered speeches at the Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia. Discussed topics remotely on UX design for VR/AR games and experiences as part of the FIA festival event on October 27, 2021.
- Discussed UX design trends in VR and AR games and served as a speaker and panelist at various design events hosted by Calgary UX and the General Assembly.
- Delivered multiple talks on UX of a UX portfolio to the 2020 cohort from September 2020 onwards at the Centre for Digital Media, a part of SFU and UBC, Vancouver, Canada.
- Presented and conducted a workshop on UX design for VR/AR games and experiences at Bangkok University. Introduced the basics of creating an AR game in a Spark AR (from Meta) workshop that about 100 students and alums attended.
- Presented Design for Immersive Media (AR, VR, MR, XR) at the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) design thinkers conference at Vancouver Playhouse.
Visual & UI Designer
Dragon Tree Partners LLC
- Led a product designer and user researcher on a video calling feature for a client's proprietary robotics device.
- Designed iOS and web platforms, including UX and UI, in Figma. I held stakeholder meetings and collected feedback that iterated every week.
- Created user journeys, personas, competitive reviews, user flows, and other relevant design documents.
- Researched and designed a solution to build video calling and AI avatar-based calls.
Faculty Lecturer
Simon Fraser University
- Created and taught a new elective course, "UX Design for Immersive Media, " at the Centre for Digital Media.
- Taught DMED 540, "UX Design for Immersive Media," at the Centre for Digital Media.
- Interacted with talented students to explore the exciting UX and product design world for immersive media (VR, AR, MR, XR), interactive media, and games.
- Provided master's students with an unparalleled opportunity to launch a career in digital media, product design, AR/VR, and games. In partnership with Simon Fraser University, UBC, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, BCIT, and the CDM.
UI/UX Design Lead
Archiact Interactive
- Engaged in working on VR/AR games and business solutions. Contributed to Doom 3: VR and Foundation VR. Currently, I am working on Journey To Foundation, an AAA VR game and a world-leading social VR project.
- Worked on the UI/UX of Doom 3 for PlayStation VR, released in March 2021. It was nominated for the best VR/AR game for the Canadian Game Awards and VR game of the year by the Academy of International Extended Reality.
- Led a team of UI/UX designers, UI artists, and UX prototypers. Worked with engineers, artists, game designers, tech artists, and the audio and narrative departments. Oversaw UI/UX requirements for all active projects in the studio.
- Designed the UX for VR and AR business solutions, including creating the wireframes, personas, and user journeys to help developers, designers, and stakeholders align on the product vision.
- Crafted the user interface and visual design for a seamless experience, which included rapid prototyping, designing the user interactions, implementing them in Unity3D, and iterating and validating the designs by user testing.
- Researched users, collected player feedback, and prioritized tasks for developers to complete the UX feedback loop. Conducted various types of user research, including the UX flow, persona, and competition.
- Designed the UX for VR and AR game development, taking responsibility for user research and development.
- Shipped successful VR games like Slots in De Nile (Ocul.us/39f5HTK) and Deep Space Battle VR to the Oculus store.
Design Lead
Adoreh Inc
- Developed a platform set in a fictitious city called "Adoreh," where users can create avatars and engage in a marketplace with retailers and other businesses offering real-life services and consumer goods.
- Started with a planning phase and further refined project requirements with a multinational remote team. Designed and fleshed out a technical approach for a virtual reality platform.
- Defined and designed an MVP with use cases where the avatars could shop for clothing in a mall-like setting, try on the clothing, and then order the items to be shipped to their home.
- Designed a platform to generate revenue through fees associated with membership benefits, transactions, store design services, licensing, etc.
- Defined and designed a platform that would expand to eventually include media, gaming, and other components in addition to the marketplace.
AR Expert
Lenovo Group Ltd. - UX Org for TechToday.Lenovo.Com
- Performed user research interviews, sharing insights and experience with the AR/VR hardware team on Spatial design and creation process for AR/VR experiences.
- Shared insights for best practices in the 3D spatial design creation process.
- Guided the team on AR/VR game creation workflow for small and large projects.
- Shared remote work-specific insights for 3D spatial design creation process working with distributed teams.
Product and UX Designer | Co-founder
Chkout (Mixed Realty Retail Platform)
- Created personas and user journeys to help developers, designers, and stakeholders align on the product vision.
- Researched and implemented a seamless user experience in an augmented reality game.
- Defined the UX of immersive VR as we built the product.
- Studied best practices in VR and AR for the retail industry.
- Implemented rapid prototyping of the user interaction design and implemented them in Unity3D.
- Iterated and validated the designs with user testing.
- Set up and facilitated client meetings and product retros.
- Managed client expectations and aligned with the scrum master to develop the product.
UX/UI Designer | Product Owner
YUMEBAU (Location-based Augmented Reality Game for Children)
- Created personas and user journeys to help developers, designers, and stakeholders align on the product vision.
- Studied and implemented a seamless user experience in an augmented reality game.
- Defined the UX as we built the product using best practices in AR.
- Performed rapid prototyping of the user interaction design and implemented them in Unity3D.
- Iterated and validated the designs via user testing.
- Helped the development team with the game design document.
- Designed engaging gameplay and core loops for fun and learning.
- Maintained the style guidelines and an art bibble.
- Set up and facilitated client meetings and product retros.
- Managed client expectations and aligned them with the scrum master to develop the product.
UX/UI and Product Designer | User Researcher
Shape Immersive (Spatial Data Marketplace)
- Researched how geospatial data can be used to develop persistent AR experiences.
- Interviewed stakeholders and experts in the field.
- Devised a high-level guideline to explain how spatial data is used in AR.
- Designed a happy user path from a data buyer’s perspective.
- Designed and iterated wireframes and visualized spatial data.
- Performed usability testing and built a high-fidelity and clickable prototype.
Associate Creative Director
BPG Group
- Fulfilled my creative and UX responsibilities for several accounts across the Middle East and North Africa to create digital campaigns and products for major clients using a human-centered design approach.
- Led a team of art directors, designers, and copywriters to create digital products, branding, and campaigns.
- Won several international awards, including the Dubai Lynx, Communication Arts, among others.
- Represented the agency at the Cannes Lions festival in France in 2014 and 2015 as a reward for being the best creative.
- Mentored junior designers, copywriters, and art directors using my experience contacts in the industry and providing relevant art and production recommendations to the agency creatives to get the best creative work.
Education
Master's Degree in Digital Media (UX and Product Design)
Simon Fraser University, Centre For Digital Media - Vancouver, Canada
Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Visual Design, Communication, Graphic Design
Sir JJ Institute of Applied Arts - Mumbai, India
Certifications
Web Development with HTML5 and CSS
Innosoft
Cinema 4D — Advanced 3D Modeling
Aptech
Social Media Marketing
Naseba
Digital Design
Naseba
Skills
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop 2018, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Figma, Adobe CC, Microsoft PowerPoint, Unreal Engine, Adobe After Effects, InVision, Sketch, Zeplin, Adobe, Sketch 2, Photoshop CC 2019, InVision Studio, Blender, Miro, Cinema 4D
Platforms
Mobile, iGaming, Mobile (Tablet), Web, iOS, Oculus, Webflow, Apple, iOS 11, Android, PlayStation VR, PlayStation, YouTube
Industry Expertise
Games, Marketing, Education Technology (Edtech), Retail & Wholesale, Consumer Products, Professional Services, Media, Food & Beverage, Automotive, Education, Events, Security, Healthcare
Languages
Visual Design Language, CSS3, HTML, CSS
Other
Presentations, Mobile UI Design, Mobile UX Design, Wireframing, Typography, Art Direction, Digital Branding, Advertising Design, UI Design, UX Design, Product Design, Prototyping, User Interface (UI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), User Experience (UX), Visual Design, Game Design, Data Visualization, Branding, Graphic Design, Product Branding, UI Branding, Brand Design, Gaming, Remote Work, 3D Games, 3D, User Flows, Oculus Quest 2, Video Games, Human-computer Interaction (HCI), Interface Design, System Usability, 3D Modeling, User Journeys, Presentation Design, UX Wireframes, Web Design, Layout Design, Icon Design, Design Systems, Email Template Design, Infographics, Enterprise SaaS, B2B, Dashboard Design, Proof of Concept (POC), Design Leadership, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Mobile Design, Agile UX, Stakeholder Management, Pitch Decks, Dashboards, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Unity, Mobile UI, Creative Direction, Mobile App UI, Interactive Design, Communication, Client Management, Web App Design, User Personas, User Stories, Instructional Design, E-learning, Logo Design, Brand Guidelines, Collateral Design, Design Production, Mobile Game UX, Mobile Game UI, UX Review, Heuristic Analysis, Web UX Design, Web UI Design, UX Audits, Personas, UX Strategy, User Interviews, Visualization Design, Chart Design, Squarespace, UX Branding, Layout, eCommerce, Web & Mobile Applications, Marketing Design, Mockups, Style Guides, Editorials, 3D Design, Print Design, Packaging, Conversational Design, Illustration, UI Components, Journey Mapping, Color Palettes, Landing Pages, A/B Testing, Business to Business (B2B), User Testing, Information Architecture (IA), Curriculum Development, Curriculum Design, Training Videos, MVP Design, Gaming Platforms, Mobile UX, Educational Games, Unity3D, Usability Testing, UX Research, Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, User Research, Public Speaking, Immersive Experiences, Unreal Engine 4, Agile, Rapid Prototyping, SaaS, Component Libraries, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Conversational UX, Atomic Design, Adult Learning, Instructor-led Training (ILT), Motion Design, Videos, Software as a Service (SaaS), Finance, SaaS Design, Social Networks, Web3, Chatbot Conversation Design, Concepting, AI Design, Landing Page Design, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Robotics, Industrial Equipment, UX Writing, Content Strategy, Apps, Student Engagement, Websites, Scuba Diving, Diving, Responsive Design, Mobile App Design, Hair & Skin Care, Tablet Design, Kids & Families, Website CMS, Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Apps, Store Design, Visual Identity, Spatial Design, Software, User, Spark, Virtual Reality App Design, Conference Speaking, Career Coaching, UX Workshops, Design Thinking, Interactive UX, VR Interfaces, Team Building, Roadmaps, Card Sorting, Gamification, Interaction Design (IxD), Startups, Early-stage Startups, Lean UX, Lean Startups, Meta Quest, Classroom-based Instruction, 3D Art, 3D Motion Graphics, Social Media, B2C Marketing, Instagram, Facebook, Email Marketing, Interactive UI, Digital Design, Digital Marketing Design, Digital Strategy, Strategy, Social Media Strategy, Conversational UI, Game Engine Programming, AR Interfaces, Project Estimation
Experience
- Branding - 18 years
- User Experience (UX) - 12 years
- Product Design - 8 years
- User Interface (UI) - 8 years
- Unity3D - 7 years
- Augmented Reality (AR) - 6 years
- Unreal Engine - 5 years
- Virtual Reality (VR) - 5 years
Tools
- Unreal Engine
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