hello, i'm

Ankita Gawde

I am a digital cartographer.
Senior UX & Product Designer with 8+ years mapping complex systems into experiences people can actually navigate. I specialise in AI-powered clinical tools, enterprise workflows, and design systems — where clarity isn't optional, it's the whole point.
I started as a software engineer — which means I design with the whole stack in mind, not just the surface.
My story
From Mumbai to Chicago
Growing up in Mumbai, I was always drawn to technology — not just how it worked, but how it felt to use. I studied Computer Applications, became a software engineer, and spent my early years building products end to end. But somewhere along the way I found myself more curious about the person on the other side of the screen than the code behind it. That curiosity became a career.
I moved into design, and eventually to Chicago — a city that pushed me to think bigger, work harder, and take risks I wouldn't have taken otherwise. I've spent nearly a decade at CitiusTech, growing from designer to lead across some of the most complex, high-stakes products I could have imagined working on. Healthcare and AI — two domains where there's no room for confusion and every design decision carries weight.
I believe good design is invisible. It doesn't ask to be noticed. It just gets out of the way and lets people do what they came to do.
How I work
My design process
01
Strategise
Map the existing mental model before touching the design. Understand the workflow, the constraint, and where it breaks — through user interviews, heuristic evaluation, and contextual inquiry. Define the problem worth solving before jumping to solutions.
02
Iterate
Generate multiple directions before committing to one. Sketch broadly, test early, and let real users decide — not assumptions. The best solution rarely comes from the first idea.
03
Launch
Design end-to-end with systems thinking. Every pattern becomes a component, every component becomes something teams can build and scale from. Interaction specs, accessibility, and handoff are part of the design — not afterthoughts.
04
Strategise
Test with real users, measure what changed, iterate. The design isn't done when it looks right — it's done when it works right. Data and feedback close the loop and feed the next cycle.
Illustration based on 'The Elements of User Experience' by Jesse James Garrett
THE OTHER PALETTE
Watercolour is my weekend ritual, Indian mythologies are my current obsession, and a good dessert can genuinely fix a bad day. I travel to places where there's more sky than people. Back home — a windowsill garden, a yoga mat that actually gets used, and Miyazaki films on repeat.

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