What’s your name and where do you come from?
I’m Sanjay Katwa, born and raised in Peterborough. I studied in Hertfordshire for my undergraduate degree and at Cranfield University for my master’s degree.
I then worked in London, Stevenage and across the pond in Atlanta for a time before settling in Leicester.
For anybody not familiar, what is UX and why is it important?
UX is short for User Experience. It’s all about solving problems and delivering solutions to provide the best possible experience for users.
My role in particular, involves understanding user needs and motivations in order to deliver intuitive interfaces that are optimised for ease of use and able to delight customers.
These efforts are always combined with business goals and objectives to deliver a digital platform that is commercially successful.
How do you work with clients to re-examine the UX of their websites?
We run a series of fun and engaging workshops with all stakeholders and users to truly get a feel for their site, their motivation and any UX problems their site currently has.
Together, we find practical solutions and define how we can deliver an interface.
Any problems that are being faced by existing customers are always closely examined, and we look to identify pockets of opportunity to deliver innovative ideas to help turn things around.
Where do you see the UX industry heading next?
I see UX design becoming much broader as a service and offering. This is because similar techniques can be applied to various digital touch points – not only user interface.
UX design branches over how we engage with customers before they reach a website, how we keep customers on the site and what additional aftercare we can provide to get them to keep coming back.
Customer experience (CX) design and service design are another two areas that have grown in the past few years, with businesses investing more and more money in these sectors. They’re definitely worth keeping an eye on.
What else do you like to do outside of work?
I’m a co-founder of Create Leicester – an initiative to help bring together Leicester’s digital design community. We host regular events with acclaimed speakers who provide valuable insight, and each Create Leicester event offers the chance for attendees to learn and collaborate with like-minded people.
Looking for UX Design services? Say hello to the Un.titled team.
I also follow my team Liverpool FC. You might have seen us winning the Champions League this year…
And I’m a family man, spending a lot of time entertaining my twins.
