Voices of Augnito – feat Kaustubh Limaye, Head of Product Design.

A graduate of the IIT Bombay Industrial Design Centre School of Design, Kaustubh has a decade of experience in product design. He has previously worked with Practo, Vedantu, and Zeno Health in roles such as Senior Product Designer, Senior UX Designer, and Design Team Lead before joining Augnito in September 2021. He describes himself as empathetic, analytical, a dreamer, and a problem-solver – who aspires create meaningful interactions between people, products and services; and make everyday experiences enjoyable.

In his role at Augnito, Kaustubh is at the forefront of balancing innovation and feasibility in healthcare solutions, leading the charge in developing user-centric solutions for our healthcare AI products. He is instrumental in guiding the design vision, ensuring an intuitive and seamless user experience that not only empowers doctors but also integrates effortlessly into clinical workflows. His expertise is crucial in navigating the collaborative innovation in healthcare, bridging user needs with technical feasibility, and aligning closely with Augnito’s overarching mission to revolutionize healthcare documentation—an epitome of employee-led healthcare transformation.

Key Insights From Kaustubh

What are some key projects or design initiatives that you’ve led at Augnito and how have they contributed to the company’s overall goals? 

Kaustubh sheds light on the Design Systems project initiated in the first half of 2023, aimed at achieving visual consistency across Augnito’s product suite. He emphasizes the standardization of components and visual elements such as typography styles, button styles, and color palettes. This initiative not only enhanced the visual appeal of the applications, perceived as a valuable addition by users, but also facilitated the Engineering team in accelerating front-end development. The user-centric design process employed here underscores Augnito’s commitment to innovative healthcare product design.

He further discusses the Spectra Competitor Analysis project undertaken in November-December 2023. This project emerged from extensive user feedback gathered through our Customer Success teams, highlighting experiences with competing products. By providing in-depth insights into the user experience flows of critical features in competitor products, this analysis has become an invaluable reference for developing new features, allowing Augnito to better meet healthcare technology workforce expectations and enhance its market competitiveness.

Kaustubh then touches upon the Website Redesign initiative from the first half of 2023, a strategic move to enhance Augnito’s global visibility. This project not only revamped the information architecture to support future scalability but also aligned the website’s visual identity with the brand image, leading to a significant uptick in inbound leads, improved advertisement conversions, and a notable reduction in page bounce rates by over 50%. This endeavor is a testament to Augnito’s collaborative work environment and its drive towards innovative healthcare product design.

Lastly, he delves into the ongoing Ambient Clinical Intelligence project, where the team is pioneering multiple methodologies to generate OPD notes during live consultations. This project, emblematic of Augnito’s user-centric design process, is the culmination of over a year’s worth of testing and iteration, aiming to craft the most efficient solution and carve out a substantial market niche for Augnito in the healthcare technology sector.

How do you foster creativity and innovation within the design team?

Kaustubh explains that he leads the team akin to a think-tank, emphasizing a holistic and collaborative work environment for problem-solving. He is a staunch advocate for providing an unrestricted space where solutions can emerge through creativity and innovation, integral to the healthcare technology workforce. Despite the potential constraints of timelines, resources, and budgets, his initial approach is to assume an abundance of resources, fostering an atmosphere ripe for employee-led healthcare transformation, and then to refine from there.

This openness in the process, he notes, is crucial to the development of unique solutions that were initially off the product roadmap. Notable examples include the Smart Input AI for Chief Complaints, tailored for a user in the Middle East, and the Transfer Note feature, a streamlined version of the Augnito Widget. Additionally, the inception of a Beta Testing Program showcases significant healthcare product development insights, further enriching the innovative landscape at Augnito.

How do you stay updated on design trends and ensure your team remains at the forefront of industry developments?

A student of the internet, Kaustubh sites UXMatters, UXCollective, Nielsen Norman Group, and Figmalion as some of his go-to’s. In the past 6 to 8 months, he admits that the best learning has been through experimentation with new AI-based design tools and ChatGPT.

What role do user feedback and usability testing play in your design process?

Here, Kaustubh highlights Augnito’s user-centric design process and reiterates that clinicians are the centre of our problem solving process. He further delineates our research into Generative and Evaluative categories, pivotal for user-driven healthcare solutions.

Generative research involves understanding the user’s environment, motivation, attitude and nature of work, whereas Evaluative research showcases how well our products help the user to do their job. He even highlights some ongoing studies, including one on product usage which studies doctors in hospital environments across Bangalore, Delhi and Jaipur to understand their experience with Augnito as their daily driver of clinical documentation. Insights from this research are instrumental in pinpointing necessary product enhancements and gathering critical customer service insights, crucial for the role of user feedback in healthcare technology development.

He also details a project from July 2023, where the team visited hospitals in Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata to understand various documentation use cases in a hospital – across Radiology, Histopathology, IPD and OPD departments.

Lastly, he discusses a project aimed at grasping the longitudinal user experience with new products. This involved a 3 to 4-week study on OPD prototypes in hospitals, allowing the team to iterate effectively based on real-world feedback and usability testing, further highlighting the role of user feedback in healthcare technology development.

What are the key areas you are working on and how are they going to create an impact in 2024? 

Kaustubh ends the video by talking about the fact that the latest advancements in LLM technology, or AI in healthcare technology are big global themes to keep in mind. For us at Augnito, this translates into a key focus on the Ambient technology for OPD documentation, as well as continuous improvements to Spectra – offering even more convenience and productivity to our users.

A Look Behind The Curtain

Through this series, Augnito has shared a window into the lives of the remarkable individuals behind its cutting-edge Voice AI innovations, shedding light on their pivotal roles, diverse experiences, and the collective ambition that propels the company forward. From the ingenious minds in Product Design to the dynamic forces in Sales and Customer Success, each story not only underscores the ethos of innovation and accessibility that Augnito cherishes but also offers insights into the personal journeys that enrich the company’s culture. This narrative serves as a testament to the team – one that’s innovative, creative, attentive, and driven by precision.

As we anticipate future chapters, the #VoicesOfAugnito series promises more than a mere peek into the company’s employee-centric approach; it heralds a saga of perpetual innovation and compassionate technology creation, aimed at empowering healthcare professionals through innovative solutions. By focusing on the individuals who constitute Augnito’s core, this series not only celebrates the diversity and ingenuity within the team but also highlights the overarching goal of shaping the future of healthcare through employee-driven innovation. 

As we conclude this first chapter, let us take a moment to appreciate the story shared and the insights gained. Here’s an invitation to learn more about careers at Augnito and be a part of this transformative journey in healthcare AI.