Meet Studio +91: Karthi Subbaraman

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing stories from our women-identifying Microsoft Design community in India. We’re delighted to introduce Karthi Subbaraman, Principal Group Experience Manager, in conversation with Rachel Romano, Director of Strategy and Communications. Karthi is part of Studio +91, our design hub in India, and this is the first of our “Meet Studio +91” interview series. Together, Karthi and Rachel take a deep dive into her multifaceted educational background and career path, the experience of working in the industry as a woman, and the dynamic challenges and strengths our biology often plays in every aspect of our lives.

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Romano: Could you chat about what team you’re on and what your role is within that team?

Subbaraman: I currently lead the Customer Success and Storytelling Collective (CSSC) at Studio+91 (Microsoft India Design). As part of the Studio+91 leadership team, I focus on promoting a culture of Customer Obsession and Storytelling across the India Development Center (IDC). My team is uniquely positioned to bring the voice of our customers to designers and product makers, and we strive to influence them to be customer-obsessed and innovation-focused.

In my role, I build systems, processes, and programs that bring our product makers and customers closer. Predictability and certainly are essential as we create relevant and delightful experiences for our users. In essence, I make work invisible for our product makers so that they can move forward faster with their creative ideas.

Romano: Interesting, so in a way you’re designing the experience of designers.

Subbaraman: To put it another way, my team crafts the systems, processes, programs, stories, and operations so that designers can create delightful experiences for our customers. In a sense, we empower the creative team with operational excellence (Research Ops, Design Ops, Story Ops and Business Ops).

Romano: And it’s interesting that you’re crisscrossing design ops with customer obsession. It feels more typical to have those live in different teams in so far as focus groups or leading customer-focused studies.

Subbaraman: To me, all operations are interconnected. Whether it’s design ops, research ops, business ops or story ops, they work together because product development requires a seamless integration of these operations. In short, we design the operational experiences of product designers. For example, Research Ops help them connect with customers, design ops help them bring insights to product teams, and story ops help them influence product makers to be curious about meeting customers’ needs and wants. This curiosity motivates them to build products that fulfill customers’ unmet and unarticulated needs.

Romano: You work on a team and office that works on global products and based in India…When it comes to the discipline of design, as someone who sees the 30,000 foot view in their work, how do you see cultural influences like Western and non-Western influencing the field, aesthetics, and process?

Subbaraman: This is an interesting question! While design has been influenced by cultural factors throughout history, I don’t see it as a Western versus Indian matter. In my view, design is all about making intentional choices to improve people’s lives. This discipline is domain-agnostic and human-centric, and what makes it unique is that the user’s context shapes our design thinking. Therefore, understanding the context deeply will impact how we design and what choices we make around the form and shape.

As designers, we learn from each other and apply our learning based on the context we design for, irrespective of whether it’s Western or Indian. Copying design without applying contextual nuances might cause us to miss important details, but we can keep those details intact when we borrow ideas from other cultures.

The Bauhaus movement, which emerged in Germany during the early 20th century, is an excellent example of how design has been influenced by culture. This movement was characterized by its emphasis on clean lines, geometric shapes, and the use of modern materials like steel, glass, and concrete. Traditional Japanese design, on the other hand, is characterized by simplicity, asymmetry, and the use of natural materials like wood and paper. African culture has also influenced design through its use of vibrant colors, bold patterns, and the incorporation of traditional symbols and motifs. Indian design, on the other hand, is characterized by intricate patterns, bright colors, and the use of traditional textiles like silk and cotton.

For instance, we all love the simplicity of IKEA furniture, regardless of where it’s sold. It’s simple, contemporary, and minimal in style. On the other hand, Indian furniture that is raved about is grand, complex, and known for its craftsmanship. Having an IKEA bed in a Jaipur palace would not fit in, and a grand bed in a student hostel would be out of context.

Therefore, it’s important to understand the nuances of the context and cultures together, so that design decisions can be appropriate. When it comes to segmentation, it’s important to look deeply into the topology of the Indian consumers before making design decisions and finalizing design expressions. Learning to embrace the nativity of the context is more important for us to design better because it’s going to improve lives in this context. It’s supremely important to understand that.

When designing a curriculum for future designers, it’s important to recognize that there are different viewpoints that can be used to create products for a diverse global population of over 8 billion people. Rather than viewing these viewpoints as right or wrong, it’s crucial to consider them as necessary approaches to design education.

Romano: One thing that I want to touch on is that you have an interesting and unusual background. There’s cognitive science, design, anthropology, probably philosophy, and more. How does that shape your approach to work and technology and productivity software?

Subbaraman: In terms of my career path, I’m not sure if it’s unconventional, but to me, it felt like a step-by-step journey driven by curiosity. In India, many children aspire to become either doctors or engineers. I ended up becoming an engineer and studied electronics and communication engineering. However, after placements, all engineers usually end up in software engineering. I had the privilege of being a software engineer at Microsoft where I coded some of the most exciting software of those times. During this experience, my curiosity got the best of me, and I began to question who decided what to put on the interfaces we were coding. This led me to discover a field called human-computer interaction which didn’t even exist in India at the time.

Although I had never heard of it before, I was fascinated and started to learn more about it. Eventually, I pursued a master’s degree in cognitive science to gain a deeper understanding of how the brain processes information. As an autodidact, I enjoy learning new things. In addition to cognitive psychology, I studied behavioral science, linguistics, semiotics, neuroscience, and anthropology to gain a deeper understanding of the human element in human-computer interaction. But it wasn’t enough to only know about human-computer interaction, so I also learned about strategy, decision making, organization design, and business administration to understand how businesses function and sell the products we make.

My curiosity took me from being a technologist to being a product designer, a business designer, and finally a product leader. No school can teach everything. Sometimes, we must make our own curriculums fueled by curiosity.

Romano: I appreciate that as a self-nominated autodidact myself! Now, you also wear an important hat as a community organizer and recently started a community group in India called Women in Product. Could you share what this is and the impact you hope it can make? What are the unique challenges that women in India face?

Subbaraman: Community is the lifeline of a fraternity. As a student of anthropology, I understand that the power of distributed cognition and it is usually untapped. And if you really look at how human societies were formed, communities are a crucial part of that. That’s why I started Women in Product in 2018. It’s a community dedicated to women in product, providing a place to form a community and to solve product-making challenges together. The group is special because women bring a unique perspective to the product making process due to our different experiences and societal positions.

I have built almost 250 products and whenever I build products with women, the output has been completely different. I see a common pattern where there is an ingrained impostor syndrome that women bring to table and men don’t. I guess that stems from societal influences. These influences are a big part of how women function in work and life. These challenges are inherent, and we wanted to create a safe space where we can talk about these things and find solutions together.

So, these are some high-level problems or challenges that are inherent, and we wanted a community — a safe space so that we can talk about these things. That is the foundation of the community.

Romano: One thing that I feel women are particularly adept at is thinking holistically about product, perhaps because we traverse the broadest spectrum of life possible. I mean, it literally begins from within us.

Subbaraman: You’re right. When we look at biology purely from a physiological and psychological perspective, the differences between individuals are fascinating — both within and beyond a gender binary. Many of our design and product-making processes are informed by our experiences, including dealing with menstrual cycles, childbirth, and menopause. These experiences shape our outlook, perspective, and approach to problem-solving. This holistic thinking comes from juggling many different things throughout life as women in a modern context.

Design thinking is creative problem-solving, which means looking at problems outside the box and finding ways to connect different ideas. Given the unique experiences that women bring to the table, it’s fascinating to see what they can contribute. Creativity is all about combining novelty and utility. Therefore, it’s essential to think out of the box. Considering the whole spectrum of experiences and associations can truly help us to be more creative and innovative.

Romano: Given its Women’s History Month, what women have had the biggest impact on your life?

Subbaraman: My mother is the first woman who had the biggest impact in my life. Somebody who had been a single mother (my father passed away very young, and she decided to stay single for a lifetime), in a society like India, and bringing up a girl child is unfathomable. She had a vision and the strength to execute that vision. Growing up and being enveloped in that strength has been the single most important thing that has made me who I am today.

Romano: You recently posted on LinkedIn about that clash between your career clock and your biological clock. Could you share a little bit about that?

Subbaraman: Haha, the post went viral. We literally broke LinkedIn that day because I think the idea resonated with every woman on the platform and everyone said “yes, plus one to this.”

It is interesting, right? Biology is biology. A career is a career. I guess, nature did not think we would be career women. I am sure it did not prepare us to lead organizations, design things, or create fascinating tools like AI.

According to nature we must survive and procreate and nothing more. If you just survived and made offspring, you’re successful and you’re the fittest. In other words, if you had an OKR, it would have ticked both and said — well done.

But our human mind wants more. It is not happy with survival and procreation. It wants to grow and perceive better. We have intelligence and consciousness. No other animal on the planet has this. Every other animal function between two lines. It survives and procreates, and it perishes. But we want to push our biology to the limits, especially as women. Our biological clock and career clock can clash. Our priorities and responsibilities change as we age, from focusing on education and career in our twenties to starting a family in our late twenties and thirties, and dealing with aging parents and menopause in our forties. Despite these challenges, we rock it.

Romano: The OKRs of biology, that’s such a fascinating take! And it’s interesting in terms of career because society and biology collide in that more and more women are now working and financially independent, yet study after study shows that we still bear the brunt of family caretaking.

Subbaraman: Nowadays, more and more women are working and achieving financial stability. However, despite their workload, women are still expected to take on caretaking responsibilities. India is a patriarchal society where women are culturally expected to take care of everything. Those who do not fit into this rule are often seen as outcasts.

It is difficult to escape these responsibilities, but one can find support from family members, especially those in joint families. In my case, my family circles, including my in-laws and parents, took care of my children. We thrive better when we are part of a group or tribe, and when we are alone, we face more stress. Outside of family circles, there are also strong friend circles that can provide help.

Lately, there has been a trend of men staying home, caring for children, and taking on responsibilities while their partners excel in their careers. It is heartening to see this change. The principle that helped me lead a balanced life is that every choice has a consequence. A career is a choice with consequences, as is getting married and having children. Our lives are a sum of the choices we make and the consequences that follow. When we take ownership of our choices, we are better able to accept responsibility for them.

Romano: It certainly gives you more of a degree of accountability. And when you’re accountable, you’re in the driver’s seat and you can make a different choice.

Subbaraman: Absolutely. I stopped sitting in the passenger seat long ago. And I think that’s what life design is all about.