“For me it’s all about how humans interact with these strange
surfaces”. Calculation and timing is important he says, “it’s
like a science; it includes a strange type of psychology”.

While his impressive
track record for being a top designer on the digital networks like Uplabs and
Dribbble, Johny tells Digital Computer Arts that he’s much more focused on his
craft and teaching others. Working for Healthtap, SYP partners, UXD Training,
ZOHO, and Tekion, Johny boasts a vast portfolio that showcases not only client
side work but also collections of side projects that are mainly targeted at
teaching others advanced examples of Interaction Design (IxD). “The focus
for me, is creating animations that make technology more human like”.
Premium Interaction Design, a collection on Dribbble, includes over 100
examples of animations that do just that, and has been viewed almost a million
times.

Login Animation from Premium Interaction Design Collection

As the industry
evolves, this fourth dimension and added layer of concept becomes more defined;
more sophisticated. Johny is certainly leading interaction design in a way that
is vital for products to become more enjoyable to use. Living between Bangalore,
India, and New York, Johny has a unique perspective of different cultures and
this is evident in his work. As we talk more about his process in idealizing,
planning, sketching, and animation techniques, he brings to light many
constraints and problems that he has to worth through. “I have many
interests such as architecture, design, culture, fashion, etc. and each field
has its uniqueness. But no matter which kind of product we are making, that
product has to solve a problem for the user to improve some aspect of the their
life”. Expanding on this, we start from his beginning, an interesting
story that shows how intense focus and specialization can create a reputation
that is known globally.

In our research, you mentioned you started at the age
of twelve, with paper sketching. Amazing. Can you elaborate about this time?

Yes sure. During my
childhood days, I was a kid that thought differently from the other children. I
thought deeply and had many ideas. When I was growing up, people weren’t
interested to hear my ideas, so I started sketching my design on paper that
immensely help me to reach the level where I am now. I sketch at the beginning
of every project.

You’re from India is that correct? And you studied at
Alagappa Chettiar College of Engg &Tech, Karaikudi. Tell us a little bit
about what you studied, what this college life was like, and what the program
was like?

Yes, I am proud to
be from India. I studied in Electronics engineering. I feel those are memorable
days in my life because my college completely transformed my personality and
made me the person I am today. Also, it helps to find my early interests and strengths.
I had started my career as a magazine designer for my college. So I began
combining my Engineering skills and Design skills. Thinking about the technical
details is something I still do. For example, I design for the wearable space
which relies heavily on data and not a lot of room for design or transitions.
It needs minimal interaction. I have worked on a project called HealthONE,
which helps users access their health record through sensors and provides them
results, displayed in a straightforward, clean way, in their native language. I
completed a lot of ethnography research during this project, to understand the
people’s empathy and to find the correct solution for the different types of
user-types in different regions. Below is my home studio, its for both work and school.

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Were you working or freelancing at this time?

I was living in New
York during this time, doing my Masters in parallel with freelancing. It’s a
great challenge for me to manage my time, though I enjoyed applying the
theories I learned from school, and use them in the concepts I was doing for
client projects. I am learning a subject called, “Service design”
which greatly helps me to identify all the touch point of the user to make the whole UX
design cohesive. I am currently working for companies like Healthtap and SYP
partners.

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Then New York. First, why the move to US? Secondly,
how is New York as a home?

As I mentioned in my
previous answer, I wanted to extend myself as an interaction designer who can
design for the whole world, not just for India. Also, I want to understand
multicultural problems and work with multiple types of user-types. My studies
have helped me open up my mind and make me think in a broad perspective to
solve different types of user problems. I see differences between my home, and
here, but at the same time both homes have been the same for me. It’s nice,
because if I want to go back, in today’s worlds it easy to book a flight and
go.

This is my favorite quote you spoke about, “I have
diverse interests – architecture, design, culture, fashion, etc. and each field
has its uniqueness. Nevertheless, all the above fields have a common
characteristic – The Problem of the User.” Can you elaborate a little bit about
what this means and why you’re so passionate about it?

Yes, I have seen the
people all over the world following the same “conventional” method.
For example, still now so many people are confused which side to open
commercial doors, to push or to pull. A simple example of bad design. In each
field, people are obsessed doing the same thing, being comfortable with
conventional methods, so I decided to make some changes which enhance the
people life. I like to think new.

My board at work

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Backing up even further and touching on your
upbringing, how did creativity enter your world? Was there a set of influences
within your family, school; did you have mentors?

I would say my MUM
is my support; she always supports me to decide to follow my heart. When I
joined as a designer, all my friends got good salaries but I wanted to choose
the design profession because I loved the field. My parents hold and mentored
me, they showed me how to improve myself and move further to the top.

Let’s talk about freelancing for a moment. Your
portfolio boasts projects for UXD Training, ZOHO, and more. Can you speak a
little bit about this time? How long have you been a freelancer and why the
change in career? How long did you work full-time before this?

I worked for two
years as a Fulltime employee. I also started doing my freelancing projects to
improve myself in design. One thing that I did to gain attention is start
making concepts for those companies (Airbnb, Google, others). It has been huge
in getting views and more clients. I used Behance to get these projects (and
other graphic designs) out into the community. My first project I did for $2.

Amazon Tracking Application Idea

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What is your process like? How do you start a project?

1. Think of the design problem I’m facing. I try to find the best solution using my experience as a designer but I also always ask my associates, who can see the problem through another lens.
2. Sketch my initial take on the problem and tape my inspirations on the handy whiteboard.
3. Take sticky notes and jot down what are the problems I’m discovering along the way, and how to solve them through interaction.
4. Do an initial UI design in Sketch. I take the rough layout I have drawn on the whiteboard, and then I start polishing the UI digitally.
5. Initiate the interaction design using Principle with all the groundwork done by now. As you can imagine, this is the part I enjoy the most!
6. Export the.MOV file from Principle and then import the.MOV to Photoshop. I crop the length, and finally, I get to export my prototype in GIF format.
7. The only thing left to do is to publish the final result on Dribble, Behance, Uplabs! I usually submit once a day, and it always brings me joy to get immediate feedback from fellow designers. It keeps me motivated to submit more of my work, and it helps me learn what gets traction and gets users excited.

Please see some examples of user boards and journeys that I map out before jumping into the computer. These are the most important part.

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Do you have anyone else that is working with you,
under you? Next to you?

Yes I have worked
with my college Juniors, to guide them to get good jobs. I enjoy teaching
others.

Talking a bit about the Google Analytics Project, I
noticed what was unique about this project was that the animations were focused
on illustrations, not necessarily screens or UX dashboards, things you usually
focus on. Can you describe what this experience was like?

Thanks for asking
that, it was a great challenge to make the perspective animation on principle,
because you can’t make perspective vies in the principle app. So I took that as
a challenge to make the illustrations animated. It was an excellent welcome to
enter that space. I feel that it was a breakthrough to my portfolio.

Google Illustration and Pay Concept

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Besides Google, what has been your favorite project to
date?

My favorite project
is Music app because I did lot of groundwork and innovative idea:

Spiral Play

Music Play

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If you were to change one thing about Freelance what
would it be?

I want to change my
communication medium, it is hard for me communicate with clients through Gmail.

Premium Interaction design (IxD). You have a
collection of Shots on Dribbble and Behance that showcase beautiful
case-studies and imagery of mobile and web interactions. Can you talk about
this project? Why did you do it? What was involved (AE? Client work?)?

It was for teaching
and showcasing my skills only and did not involve any clients. Also, a lot of
clients asked for these examples, but I don’t want to sell them, I wanted to
license them in my name. Those are projects that helped me to enrich my talent to
the next level. Now everyone calls me an interaction guy because of these. It’s
a good kit for beginner to learn interaction design.

Do you have plans for extending this, making it a
website or elaborating on the how-to’s portion?

Yea, I am planning
to make a youtube channel.

Similarly, with 100 Best Mobile App Interactions. You
can tell that many of these scenarios are honestly from a different era, they
speak to a future that is bright and beautiful. Can you also talk about this
project here?

I don’t think there
are words to define these interactions, you have to just go see them. I have
tried all types of interactions and this best showcases a good range. Because,
I have a broad range of research for many of the examples here, these interactions
were filled with different directions. I never want to assume things all by
myself, so I always go the extreme users-cases and physically ask them
questions and give these prototypes to them to test it. This 100 different
interaction scenarios include failures and successes, but I intend to make
solutions continuously whether it is right or wrong because only after
user-testing can you know it’s working or not.

If you were to change one thing about Interaction
Design, what would it be? What could today’s current applications (mobile and
desktop) be better at?

I would suggest not
jumping into designing with view frames (rectangle – artboard) dimensions
particularly being held to 1024*1024, 360*640. Come out of the square boxes;
the world is so big; For example, You can make a table which is interactive,
you can make a garden with a tree which interacts with you. So think of the
daily environment we all live in and try to improve those things with
interaction.

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Second question on this topic, what do you see the
future like for Interaction Design, Mobile and desktop alike?

I see the future of
interaction is like I said before, it is not in a small rectangle. It will be
how humans interact with the environment. For example, imagine if you sit on a
chair with a table in front of you and your able to see all of your pictures,
something that AR might be moving into.

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And of course, what is the future like for you? What
projects are you excited for?

This is the
fascinating question. In my future, I want to move into environment interaction
design which combines the interaction of the environmental like sounds, air,
music, heat, soil with robot technology which works seamlessly. This will bring
the things we use in our environment easier to work with and something that can
take us back to our roots like jungle age where people are healthy and happy. I
want to make any user a superhuman with my technology which interacts with the
environment.

Also, you have 1Cor 10:31 in your profiles, Can you
talk to this?

Yea, and thanks for
noticing. I am a firm believer of Lord Jesus Christ. I pray everyday morning
and ask God to give me an idea to make today, he always helps me and holds me
and give me an idea. Without Jesus, I can’t be here, in each and everything I feel
the God to decide my path. So it’s a bible verses: “So whether you eat or
drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” I always have a
jealousy for the people that work for Jesus; I wish to be like those people,
because Jesus also wanted to make the human life better. And empathy is
essential in design, that Christianity taught me this. If you are doing proper
research after some time, you will emphatically match to the people’s lives,
this will make you the best designer.