Contact me:

me@smithaprasadh.com.

Download my resume: design / research

Smitha Prasadh

Interaction + Inclusion + Interculturalism

Hi! I'm Smitha.
こんにちは！スミサ・プラサードと申します。

I'm a UX designer, researcher, mentor, and speaker, and I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

I work end-to-end across product experiences, from detailed interactions to systems and strategy, and I strive to advocate for people from all walks of life and all parts of the world.

13 January 2021: The site's back up at last! I ultimately rewrote all the HTML/CSS from scratch. Thank you for your patience and understanding!

I'm actively looking for new opportunities.
UX research or design, web design, digital illustration. Strong preference for more mission-/social-impact-oriented work, but I'm happy to chat about any opportunities you may have! Fulltime, contract, or freelance are A-OK.

UX work samples

A screenshot of the Autodesk ReCap web app.

Autodesk ReCap: disrupting the mental model

Identified a fundamental disconnect in our product's design and intent, and drove a comprehensive, systemic redesign.

A close-up photo of the laminated poster I used as a whiteboard in this activity. Across the top it says '-w of reality capture dat-', then 'where? when? why? how?', then two printed prompts that read 'send' and 'receive,' and comments and arrows and dotted lines drawn in multiple whiteboard marker colors.

Autodesk ReCap: capturing the customer journey

Designed and facilitated a whiteboarding activity with customers at a major conference.

A pencil sketch comic covering part of the conceptual design process.

Autodesk Infraworks: sketching and creative wireframing

Visual artifacts I created to help me learn concepts around civil engineering and urban planning: sketches, comics, wireframes, and digital illustrations.

A photo of a Microsoft Surface tablet with the Convergence app loaded on it. The tablet is at an angle, revealing both the screen and the hand of the person holding the tablet.

Convergence: visualizing patient health history

My work on a Windows 8 app for Microsoft Surface tablets. User research and facilitation, synthesis deliverable, wireframes, and UI screens.

A series of yellow and pink sticky notes on a wooden table. The photo is a little blurry, but the closest legibile sticky notes read, 'How can we partner with other Japan-America orgs?' and 'What geographic area do we wish to engage?'

JETAA Pittsburgh: generative research and facilitation

Using UX facilitation methods to run a brainstorming session for a Japanese cultural exchange nonprofit.

Conference presentations

A photo of a symphony orchestra performing from above stage left and the conductor's right shoulder. There is blueish-purple light playing over the musicians, and the conductor's podium seems to glow golden-brown. A cello stands out, glowing bright red among the blue-purple.

Classical music + UX

Deriving lessons from classical music related to teamwork, problem-solving, making something your own, and more.

A close-up of one of the slides from my presentation. It's unfortunately blurry (for the moment), but it's a 4-up featuring a world map with Asia highlighted in blue in the upper-left, a map of India in yellow with the ocean in blue in the upper-right, a group of people marching while holding a black-and-white banner (the only words visible are END and NOW!) in the lower-left, and two women and a man dressed in suits in the lower right.

Intercultural Design

Applying insights from the discipline of intercultural communication to designing for international and culturally diverse audiences.

Side and passion projects:

Information design, graphic design, and illustration

A close-up of a dense infographic featuring a cluster of chartreuse dots and lines mapping from them to a series of keywords stacked vertically to the right. The visible keywords read Audo, Collections, Dialogues, Essays, and Gallery.

Visualizing information spaces: Design Observer

A graduate school information design project, visualizing the dense masses of information across this website.

A close-up of the project in question. It looks like musical nomenclature - specifically, an 8th-note in black against a staff in grey - except both symbols are made up of words. The 8th-note's words read: '1990, read my first book about Mount St. Helens, became obsessed with volcanoes and geology,' and the words visible in the staff are 'elementary and middle school were ver-; hobbies and fields that captivated me, a-; usually the way these things go. middle; was often teased and taunted for being

Information design self-portrait

A graduate school information design project: using the informational structure and linear flow of written music to tell my story.

A close-up of the JETAA Pittsburgh logo, which is a red circle with white lines representing Pittsburgh's 3 rivers crossing its surface.

JETAA Pittsburgh: logo and identity design

How I collaboratively redesigned the logo and identity for this Japanese cultural exchange organization.

A close-up of my working illustration file for the Pirates of Dark Water logo, with one of the elements highlighted to show its anchor points.

Pirates of Dark Water: digital illustration

An exercise in detailed digital illustration.