Sangeeta Parakala
Sangeeta Parakala
Product Design | AI & Complex Systems | 0-->1 Designer
Sangeeta Parakala is a product designer with 10+ yrs of experience designing complex systems across healthcare, operational technology & AI-enabled platforms. She has helped transform complex workflows, data-rich environments & regulatory requirements into experiences that support clarity, confidence & better decision-making.
Her work spans startups & global organizations such as Slope.io, Omnicell, UnitedHealth Group, Lenovo, and IBM, where she has led the design of clinical decision support systems, autonomous pharmacy platforms, analytics products & AI-assisted workflows.
Growing up across multiple countries sparked a lifelong curiosity about what shapes our mental models and how humans navigate complex systems and technology, a perspective that continues to influence her work.
UX for Systems We Did Not Design | Supporting Human Agency in Complex Systems
At the start of my career, I believed UX was about understanding users and helping them accomplish their tasks. I began by designing features, then personas and journeys. As the problems became larger and more complex – healthcare platforms, operational systems, AI-enabled workflows, and ecosystems spanning physical and digital environments, the scope expanded. Understanding users was no longer enough. I needed to understand workflows, organizations, incentives, & the forces that shape human decisions. In this talk, I want to share my journey from designing interfaces to designing systems and explore how the role of UX is evolving in an AI-enabled world. The future of UX is helping people maintain agency within systems they did not design, cannot fully see, and increasingly must trust.