About
The only insufferable page on the internet all about nik.
- Keywords:
- About, Nik, Nikash, profile, personal, philosophy, teaching, non-profit, research
- Last updated:
- 2023.01.23
- By:
- Nikash SINGH
I'm a Fijian-Indian Aussie, complicated huh? I grew up in Western Sydney with a love for comics, drawing, programming and making. Since then I've learnt a great deal more about the mechanics of visual communication and its power to ease understanding. My perrenial goal now is to employ, refine and share this understanding.
I'm on a mission
As a professional, I've spent almost 2 decades doing my bit to ensure design is acknowledged as the complex field it is, and to dispel the harmful myth of superficiality.
“We do not have to turn design into an imitation of science; neither do we have to treat design as a mysterious, ineffable art. We recognise that design has its own distinct intellectual culture.”
Nigel CROSS
In the workplace, I've done this by arguing for Design's place at the decision making table, by basing my own decisions on data while communicating ideas objectively and with evidence. Through academia, I've presented at conferences, steeped my understanding of design theory and human behaviour in peer-reviewed research and taught more than a thousand university graduates to do the same.
My philosophy
This is the long and fluffy part.
Feel free to skip this if you're not in the mood for a spiel.
I think what people believe, drives them.icon-down
I believe we can improve people's lives through design. I'm not under any delusion that design will save the world, but I wholeheartedly believe that behind every well-made thing is a considerate Designer. Someone who enriches lives by improving, refining, delighting. For me, this enrichment is demonstrable in ease of use, aesthetic beauty, minimised environmental impact and enduring customer satisfaction. It's as simple as the power of eliciting a smile, but also as complex as the human mind and heart.
I think what people do, defines them.icon-down
I've practised design as a Graphic Designer, as a Web-Developer, a Webmaster, a Desktop Publisher, a User Interface Designer and a User eXperience Consultant. I've completed a PhD in User Interface Design at the University of Sydney. This has led me on a mission to academically demonstrate that design is intent. Part of that agenda involves training students to rationalise their decisions with credible theory and to reject fads and trends.
I think what people stand for, validates them.icon-down
I'm an idealist. I like volunteering time to good causes, like LibreOffice, SourceForge and the Papercut Collective. I'm a proponent of organisations that support the cause of freedom and equality, like the FSF. I'm an opponent of corporations that propagate the perception that good design is an elitist premium reserved for the rich, like apple. That is an unpopular thing for a Designer to say, but I believe an era of Ethical Design is coming, one that will set the record straight.
I think what people love, sustains them.icon-down
I'm a simple guy. I enjoy the company of genuine friends. Conversation about life lessons, purpose and big ideas. The smile students get when something clicks. The praise of accomplished people. Music that travels back in time and movies that bend my mind or make me laugh. Floating around in a Kayak, taking time to appreciate something as simple and yet infinitely complex as the tide and sunset. And I love philosophical quotes and buttery pastry!
About others
I realised recently that this site is all me, me, me. But no one becomes who they are in isolation. I've been lucky to learn-from and bend-the-ear of a handful of brilliant people that shaped my thinking, career and ambitions. I found that learning from the following peeps made me a more penetrative thinker, able to dive beyond the superficial;
Prof. Andrew VANDE MOERE challenged what I thought I knew about being thorough. There is always a deeper level of understanding and Andrew made me question whether I'd reached it and inspired me to never stop digging.
Director Leigh BARNETT's passion and mastery of the praxiology and business case for human-centred design is infectious. Maybe mostly because he's so remarkable at sharing his process with others and expertly coaching them to excel.
Prof. Martin TOMITSCH has remarkable breadth of vision over how technology can better the human condition. His teaching in User-centred processes stems from a deep and genuine interest in human problems and it made me value truly empathetic design.
Prof. Mary Lou MAHER changed my perspective with the way she talks about design as something that can be systematically understood
and something to approach with equal dedication to theory and practice as an empowered practitioner.
“Those who know, do.
Aristotle
Those that understand, teach.”
Other activities
Teaching
I'm back to teaching Interface Design with Design Lab Director Prof Martin TOMITSCH at the University of Sydney. If you're looking for some of my older online teaching material, I maintain an archive of that here;
Non-profit
I'm an advocate and volunteer of Open Source Software, I'm linking below to my non-profit site. And every so often I get an enquiry about the old LibreOffice paper-case I designed to try and reduce the environmental impact of distributing plastic cases. I've also maintained that page, instructions and files at the archive below, but unfortunately I don't actively volunteer at LibreOffice any more.
Research
The two peer-reviewed papers I'm proudest of focus on my research into Email user behaviours and solutions. They've been cited by researchers at Georgia Tech, IBM, MIT and Xerox and they are archived on ACM's digital library, but can be accessed together via Google scholar. My PhD thesis is unfortunately restricted-access from University of Sydney's library. please reach out if interested.
Have I forgotten anything?
The above links are just some of the most common enquiries I still get, but if there's anything I've left off that you need access to, just let me know. But do brace for a delay, haha, I'm frequently incommunicado =)
