Hitesh Agrawal,
MS, CUA
Project Director

Job at HFI

• Develop creative, usable interface design solutions (interface architecture and detailed design) to challenging interface problems.
• Work as a Center of Excellence team lead for US Client projects.
• Perform usability testing on existing client products, paper prototypes and new designs. Also, use iterative usability testing during the HFI design process to ensure that the design is easy to use.
• Develop customized Web standards, prototyping tools and standard templates as per clients requirements.
• Contribute in the development of courses and conduct training courses.

Experience

• Over 4 years of applied Human Factors and Interface Design experience.
• Started his professional career as a Usability Engineer at General Electric — Global Exchange Services. Worked on various design projects through the entire process of Usability Engineering Life Cycle. Maintained state of the art Usability Lab and tested various business application with customers and clients. Contributed in creating user interface standards for web applications in GXS.
• Worked on projects for Citibank, India, Sony-Ericsson, HP Labs, HCL Technologies, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, besides other usability design projects for a number of other organizations.

Education

M.S., 2002, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, — Industrial Engineering (emphasis on Human Computer Interaction)

He completed his M.S. in IE with thesis in human factors. Concurrently, he also worked as a web / usability designer for CU Career Services department and maintained the site for 2 years. This site serves 40,000 students in CU.

B.S., 1999, Nagpur University, India — Industrial Engineering

Favorite Projects

Never one to be partial — his current project always tops the 'Favorite Projects' list.

Hitesh enjoys the challenges of UI design projects, which have challenging design issues and provide research opportunities.

Also likes working on high-level architecture projects that require extensive involvement from conceptualization, through iterative design, to validating usable application interface solutions testing with real users.

Areas of Interest

Internationalization, Section 508 Standards and Accessibility.

Especially enjoys working on research based projects and cross-cultural designs.

Hobbies and Special Interests

His obsession with gizmos and gadgetry has earned him the nickname 'Hi-tech'. So far, he already the proud owner of a Camcorder, a Handspring TREO 90, a Digicam, an mp3 player, and has recently added an apple iPod to his ever-expanding collection.

Enjoys traveling and has an avid interest in studying the different work and social cultures of cities around the world. His travels have taken him to USA, Brazil, and Nepal, so far. An airport enthusiast, he's also managed to squeeze in stopovers at Paris, Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt, and Vienna.

He likes reading and watching science fiction and is one of three people in India who has actually seen all the episodes of Star Trek - Voyager!

Plays Badminton, Loves watching college football (belongs to Clemson Tigers ).

Favorite Food

A stringent vegetarian, he debunks the notion that there's a dearth of good vegetarian restaurants and dishes (please feel free to take him up on the offer to prove his claim).

He likes cooking and experimenting with food, and harbors a secret ambition of opening up an Indian restaurant in Clemson, having already established a sturdy fan base for his cooking.

Loves Indian (no contest), Mexican (yes please, Taco Bell!), Chinese, Thai, and Italian. Recently tried Cambodian and Argentinean food and has been going non-stop about it ever since.

Pizza — Papa Johns rules. Pizza Hut will do fine.

Character

Super-organized at work and at home — there's never a paper clip out of place on his documents. He's a virtual 'Advanced Search' at work — Whenever there's a missing post-it, stapler, folder, binder, etc., Hitesh knows exactly where it's at.

He's extremely finicky when it comes to time; punctuality is his middle name.

He also loves kids and especially likes spending time with his niece and a nephew.

Personal Album

Hitesh with his best friend and wife Jyoti

4th of July Fireworks, Boston, MA (Courtesy: my digicam)