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Akash Kumar · akashshivanand

I make complicatedproducts simple.

Product designer, nine years. I designed across Tata Neu, one of India's largest super apps, and now design government services used by millions of Indians.

Akash laughing during a mentoring conversation at a cafe

What I believe

Every screen quietly chooses its users. If a form needs fast internet, perfect English and ten taps, it has decided that people without those don't matter. Most teams never notice they made that choice. I make it on purpose, so the answer is everyone.

The interface decides who a product is actually for. Read the full argument

Three choices decide whether Meena can use this form.

Language
Network
Errors

Meena gives up.

The form is in English only. Meena cannot read it, so she never starts.

Play all six decisions

The work

Also shipped: the Tata Motors Virtual Showroom, the Qmin food app, SpeedLabs, and the Rapid Visas websites.

See all work

Tata Neu

2020 to 2025, consumer scale

I designed almost every screen of the super app, then built its design system: the shared kit of parts that keeps every screen looking and working like one product. It powered a major relaunch, then grew into food delivery, fashion, grocery and festival seasons.

The receipt3.8 → 4.2Google Play rating across the relaunch my design system shipped with
Read the Tata Neu case study

National public services

2025 to present, nation scale

I now bring many separate government platforms together into one system that has to work for everyone, including people on old phones and weak networks. The client stays unnamed, as the work requires.

What I design firstMany of these users are going online for the first time in their lives. So the error screen gets designed first, not last.
Read the National public services case study

Proof

This site follows its own argument. It is built for the slowest phone in the room, and the measurements are public.

See it for yourself. View this site as:

You are seeing the standard view. Custom fonts, photos and gentle motion, all kept light on purpose.

Akash Kumar, warm monochrome portrait against a marble wall

The person

Engineer by training, designer by instinct since I was fourteen. Consumer work taught me how dozens of services become one screen people keep coming back to. Government work taught me how a form must behave for someone using the internet for the first time. Each job keeps the other honest.

Working with me looks like this: Most of my work is design systems and untangling products that have grown too big to follow. I keep things simple, and I never mistake simple for plain.

Recommended on LinkedIn by people I worked with

… He has great understanding of latest design trends, mainly because he keeps himself upto date. Can rightly say he is tech-savy UI/UX designer with interaction skills on different levels, from website discussions to strategic planning meetings. …

Gaurav MakkarWorked with Akash on the same team, May 2022Excerpt. Read it on LinkedIn

Very creative and classic web designer integrated with latest skillset.

Gaurav NautiyalWorked with Akash on a different team, August 2018Read it on LinkedIn

Things I have built

Design is the job. Building is how I make sure the design ships.

Have a complicated product?
Tell me about it.

If your screens decide whether someone gets their money or gets locked out, I would like to hear about it. I read everything that comes in here.

Tell me about the product

Goes straight to my inbox. I do not run a mailing list.

What I take on, and what I turn downMessage me on LinkedInBook a mentoring session