Hello! I’m a full stack product designer, researcher, writer, and artist. I operate at the intersection of technology and justice, and seek to design products that are responsible, inclusive, and safe.
I have worked in news journalism, on political campaigns, and at early stage start-ups figuring out product market fit. I have designed AI systems for journalists, open source tools for developers, and am currently leading design for a harassment reporting system on Wikipedia.
I am passionate about technology ethics, responsible design, democracy and governance, and the Trust and Safety space.
I mentor emerging BIPOC designers in tech. This brings me great joy and purpose!
👋 (LinkedIn | Instagram | Newsletter)
Aishwarya Vardhana’s Digital Garden is a non-linear space where I nurture ideas. It is meant to be oppositional to traditional blogging practices, and intentionally embraces an emergent practice to writing.
Private incident reporting system, Trust and Safety Tools (2022-2023)
Function editor, Wikifunctions (2021-2022)
Function page, Wikifunctions (2022)
Product design, Knowhere (2017-2020)
Redesigning Wikipedia moderator tools (see a before and after) (2022-2023)
Moderators on Wikipedia are essential for maintaining articles. I redesigned the "mobile diffs page" used by thousands of moderators to improve Wikipedia articles. I was responsible for user research, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, and community consultation. I’m interested in content moderation and gained valuable experience in this problem space through designing tools for moderators. Our work is documented and shared with the Wikipedia community on our Project page ↗️
Sign up workflow for The Wikipedia Library (2021)
The Wikipedia Library, with over 2,000 monthly active users, grants Wikipedia’s power users free access to paywalled research. In my first three months at Wikimedia, I supported this team and redesigned the login workflow for the platform. This effort increased login conversion by 40%.