Why we’re starting this series

At Tcules, we believe we’re standing at the crossroads of a UX revolution.

With AI becoming the core of virtually every product, design thinking is rapidly evolving. The old rulebooks are being rewritten, and the barriers between ‘UX professionals’ and ‘everyone else’ are dissolving before our eyes. Today, anyone with intention and ideas can shape meaningful user experiences.

But amidst this democratisation, we find ourselves asking, what makes for truly exceptional UX in this new landscape? How do we balance AI capabilities with human needs? And how do we avoid the trap of technology for technology’s sake?

That’s why we’re launching ‘My Experiments with UX’, a series featuring the voices of product managers, marketers, UX designers, and ‘amateur’ AI builders who are navigating these waters in real time. Mind you, these aren’t just theoretical discussions; they’re practical insights from people solving real UX challenges every day.

In this inaugural piece, we speak with Karthik Pasupathy Ramachandran (KP), who is presently the head of marketing at Fyno. His technical writing background and hands-on experience building AI tools give him a unique perspective on what makes for truly exceptional user experiences.

When less becomes more: The Ather redesign story

“When I opened the Ather app, I wanted one thing: to know if my scooter was charging and how much charge it had. Everything else I can see in the scooter itself, right? I think we have come to a point where you can use a lot of these AI systems to create contextual UI.” Ather is a very popular e-vehicle company in India.

Just for clarity’s sake, the Ather app had all the information, but the user had to scroll through it once or twice to access the information they needed. Also, they can now switch the mode on the app to see the change in mileage. KP’s objective was to bring all that critical information right on the first fold.

So, KP stripped it down. His redesigned version surfaced only the most critical information up front: battery percentage, charging time left, charging station proximity, and the next logical action. 

The result? The design went viral, drawing over 100K views on Twitter.

Why? Because KP had vocalised and visualised what many wanted in the app.

But what makes KP’s perspective on UX so valuable? His journey tells the story. KP started his career as an academic author at ANSR source and went on to become a technical writer at Zoho before moving on to Freshworks as product marketing lead. In short, he’s been at the core of enabling users to understand products. His career has given him a ringside view of what makes for good product UX. Add to it his penchant for redesigning popular apps and, more recently, building AI-at-core tools, and you have someone who understands product design intuitively.

This intuition for what users actually need is precisely why his Ather redesign resonated with so many people. “A lot of users resonated with how the app should be,” he said. 

Whether he’s redesigning the Ather Energy app to be cleaner and more purposeful, or building personal AI tools like DayNotes, KP’s design mantra is rooted in one timeless question: why is the user here?

The user perspective: A missing step in product development

KP’s approach to UX is refreshingly straightforward, “When you’re designing any app or any functionality, you should think of it like a user.”

It sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly rare in practice. “Most of the time it happens from a designer’s perspective or a developer’s perspective, and it’s getting shipped,” he notes. “There’s the urgency to go to market. The whole step of testing it from a user perspective is basically missing.” 

This is where his background in technical writing gives him an edge, “If it’s difficult for me to mentally write that instruction, then it’s a difficult app to use.”

He notes that this ‘not interacting with the user’ practice is quite prevalent in the B2B set-up. Most early-stage founders, KP observes, rely on UI clones from Dribbble or their competitors. Few actually talk to users on a consistent basis.

“B2C SaaS companies are great at UX because they’re always talking to users, on Discord, Twitter, everywhere. B2B startups should copy that feedback loop.”

The core and nothing more

For KP, exceptional UX always centres on the core function, the primary reason someone opens your app.

“A payment app should enable you to make that payment in one tap or one click,” he explains. “If there are more layers to it, then something’s wrong.”

He applies this same principle when building MVPs for AI tools and side projects. “There will be a core functionality for any product and a couple of surrounding functions which support the core function.”

When building his journaling tool DayNotes (LinkedIn post on DayNotes), KP followed the same principle. What’s the core task? Writing quick thoughts. Everything else is secondary.

So DayNotes was:

• Limited to 280 characters per entry (like tweets)
• Structured around simple calendar navigation
• Equipped with a daily, weekly, and monthly AI-generated summary

In other words:

• Core function: Text entries with headings, content, date/time stamps, and location
• Supporting functions: Edit entries, delete entries, move entries between dates
• Good-to-have feature: 'On this day' last year/month views

“You don’t need folders or search bars to start. You just need to make the core action frictionless.”

KP’s approach to MVPs is to simply nail the 90% first.

“If you finish this, 90% of users are going to use only these features, and your journal app is complete,” he says. “Everything else you add is just the old way of building software where there has to be some release note, some road map.”

Contextual awareness: The next frontier

What excites KP about the future of UX is contextual awareness, as in apps that understand why you’re using them at any given moment. He goes to the Ather example to highlight a possible situation.

“When the scooter is charging somewhere, the app should be smart enough to know that I’ll be opening it only to see the charge and not any other information,” he explains. “UX is also contextual awareness.”

He believes AI systems are perfectly positioned to create these contextually aware UIs that adapt to user needs in real-time. “So, where you drop off, where you pick up a particular activity, or what is the purpose with which you opened the app, that is something that we’ll have to predict and then show the relevant information.”

KP’s experience in B2B teams has also taught him that UX is not just about the happy path; it’s also a lot about guardrails. 

"I’ve heard of stories where people could upload an unlimited number of files in a tool. It became a free cloud storage, whereas the intention was to allow customers to upload any number of bills seamlessly. UX needs to account for potential misuse, too.”

For him, thoughtful UX also includes thinking through how things can be misused, and designing proactively to avoid it.

Rethinking UX for the AI age

With AI fundamentally changing how we interact with technology, KP believes designers face a major unlearning curve.

“A lot of things would be unnecessary with respect to the whole UI. Now you don’t have to explicitly show everything," he explains. "Previously, it could be like a whole module dedicated to say, analytics, and you’ll have to drill down, drag, drop, etc. I think designers have to be less rigid when it comes to changing their opinions about design thinking.”

The future, according to KP, is the ‘ask and you shall receive’ paradigm. “This whole ask-and-get kind of thing, everything is going to be some kind of a chat interface,” he predicts. “How you differentiate is going to take a lot of work, and that’s where the success is.”

This demands a new design lens: outcome-first, not interface-first. AI-native UX means fewer visible components, more context-aware responses, and dramatically simpler flows.

KP’s warning? Don’t fall into the trap of building chatbots that all look the same. Even in AI, there’s room for taste, opinion, and brand identity.

“Style is important, but it shouldn’t affect functionality. If it makes the app look great without losing functionality, then it’s a great product.”

KP’s UX golden rules

1. Strip it down to what matters: “When you’re designing any app, view it from a user’s perspective. Think: what is the primary reason someone opens this app?”
   
2. Context is king: “The app should be smart enough to know why I’m opening it at this moment and show me exactly what I need.”
   
3. Function first, style second: “Style shouldn't affect functionality. If it makes the app look great without losing functionality, then it’s a great product.”
   
4. Core first, extras later: “Focus on the core function, and nothing should disturb this experience. The other features you can hide under two or three clicks.”
5. ‍For AI products, rethink everything: “People don’t have to come to the app for everything. It’s okay to not have an explicit UI for every action.”