Finding what one loves doing and achieving it requires 3 C’s , and she had them all. Curiosity for how things work, Choice to make things, and Courage to take risks to make things happen. Parimala Hariprasad who works as a UX Program Manager in Research operations at Google, Bangalore, is a very well known face among Software Testing and UX communities. Pari, as lovingly called by many, is not only a successful woman in technology, but has built herself a credibility of being a go to person when it comes to software testing and UX(User experience).
A tale of becoming an Engineer
Apart from being a witness of someone’s life and journey, a good story would continue to march ahead, inspire and pave the way for the ones who are going to read or listen to it. It becomes more interesting and fun in childhood when your father himself introduces you to stories such as of a great civil engineer and Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, who not only inspired Parimala to dream big but also pursue engineering in Information Science.
Parimala’s parents who believed in empowering daughters left no stone unturned to educate her despite facing many challenges and financial debt. Being among a few girls to finish school, study engineering and getting a job at Oracle’s was no less than getting an award.
A credible Curious Tester
Despite getting a high salary package after graduation, many tried to downplay her achievement as getting a job in Software Testing was not valued as much, but Parimala decided to give it a shot and try for herself to know where it could lead her.
Parimala believes saying yes as a child, as a student, as a growing professional does a lot of good help to your personality and your career.
Eager and excited to do her job well at Oracle, she mastered many products with Oracle CRM suite, would spend weekends learning and reading documentations of hundreds of pages, go through trial versions of similar products, and raise feature and bug requests for Oracle products she was testing, which gave her a foundation of functional approach. At McAfee, while managing machines and processors as big as a house she could sharpen her technical approach. While working with many startups, managing projects, leading teams and heading an academy to train people she built a credibility of a curious tester who is the expert of her craft.
UX Evangelist
Doing user testing for a project in 2013 and giving a lightning talk on UX (User experience) ignited the spark. She kept feeding the flame by reading, attending and doing things which involved UX and design even outside of work. Everything was not tailor-made. She had to dig her way out. Before applying she asks heself a question if company’s organisational and business goal matches with her passion and dreams or if a company can benefit from her skills and performance.
At Amadeus, in the interview she battled between Sr. UX architect, and a Sr. QA architect roles. She showcased what she can do for them in each role. Ultimately she selected the Sr. UX architect role, and soon set up a dedicated UX lab. Few years later she dabbled into Product Owner role, but she could not give up on UX. She continued reading and educating herself using books and doing UX related courses.
Reading Enchanted Objects by David Rose, and Best Interface is No Interface by Golden Krishna inspired her to pursue her UX dream. She even made a choice to work only if it is a UX role, and decided to let job come to her instead of chasing the one, and the job didn’t disappoint her. Google called her, and coincidently the role she got interviewed for was about emerging markets and research operations for which she was learning for almost a year. After clearing many rounds of interviews, now she works as a Program Manage in UX research operations at Google and her team supports users’ research needs for India.
Working at Google
Parimala says, at Google intent is very important. Intent is always at the center of everything. At the same time they acknowledge and reward your efforts.
Do you have a good intent to change the world or to build better products? Find your good intent.
Personally she wants to adopt the principle which Google has, is to assume best intent when it comes to people. For example instead of getting angry when someone gets late at the meeting, they assume best intent and asks if everything is all right at their end.
The Book Explorer
Parimala has read around 500+ books on various topics ranging from Philosophy, Spirituality, Testing, a lot in UX, Psychology, Sociology etc. Initially she used to read books based on her mood or relevance to the projects and would read one book at a time and finish it. But now she takes books more slowly and does not force herself to finish.
Books are like people, we need to feel connected to it.
If she does not enjoy a book, she stops and returns to it when she feels connected. Some books she re-reads every year to find something new in them. Whether it was studying engineering, testing or UX books have played an important part in Parimala’s life.
A Woman in Tech
Parimala says being a woman, one does not get lot of acklnowldegement, respect and get valued as mush. A decade ago, women must have found it hard in sitting in a room full of men. It felt difficult and unfair. But while looking back it is difficult for everyone. It is not that one group or gender is discriminating against the other gender or groups.
It is the stereotyping which had made things difficult . Instead of attacking the root cause, we are attacking symptoms.
Our kids needs to see both husband and wife equally doing house work and change the stereotypes.
Humanizing UX Research
Parimala dream of humanizing UX, and by that she means to focusing more on user experiences and bringing the human element in the work we build and service we offer. It is 2021 and still why do you want a user to pull out his phone and operate via apps to interact with so called smart devices? How can you call a TV smart which comes with two remotes? To explain more she mentions David Rose who wrote in his book Enchanted objects that we are not supposed to wake up to a loud alarm, instead we should wake up to natural lights and sounds. He created a light which starts showing up like how sun rises and make you feel like a morning without sound. Don’t make and expect users to interact with smart devices via mobile applications. Build intuitive products and humanize the experience.
A Few wise words
Parimala says she received a lot of help from known/unknown people. The guiding people gave strength to create her own destiny instead of becoming victim of her situations. If you involved yourself in something you love, you would find something worthful in that area. Best way is to find and doing what you love, like how Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam who was teaching till last minutes of his life
Apart from being a great Tester, UXer, Mentor and a successful woman in technology, Parimala Hariprasad is a simple and humble person. and We hope, walking in Parimala’s soles have inspired you to do better in your craft. Let us know in the comment section how do you like her journey. Like her, please help us Share your story and make more wonderful Sole Stories.
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