Research · Strategy · Service design
I use research, strategy, and systems thinking to understand what people need, where they get stuck, and why — then turn those insights into better products, services, and organizational decisions.
Clients and partners
What I do
I’m a researcher and strategist with 8+ years of experience, and a systems thinker obsessed with clarity. I study how people navigate complex services, make decisions, and build trust.
01
Uncover what people need, what drives their decisions, what builds trust, and where they hit barriers. I design and lead qualitative and mixed-methods research with everyone a service touches.
02
Look beyond single touchpoints to how products, services, teams, and institutions work together. Map the experience, find where it breaks down, and spot the opportunities with the most potential.
03
Take ideas from discovery to concept, prototype, and test. Redesign the journeys, workflows, intake processes, and tools teams use to deliver a service.
04
Bring evidence into strategic decisions. Help leadership teams set priorities, allocate resources, rethink programs, align stakeholders, and turn a shared vision into a plan.
In the room
The people using a service, the teams delivering it, and the leaders making decisions about it. That includes the people who said no or dropped out.
Impact
I help organizations move from understanding a problem to deciding what to do differently.
A matching tool I designed and tested for three community lenders in Milwaukee drew 100+ business owner leads in its first six months.
MKE BOSSFor The People now uses the onboarding blueprint I designed to bring on new prosecutors’ offices, across 60+ jurisdictions.
For The PeopleMy research set the priorities of Cradle Cincinnati’s five-year plan, and the evaluation I led helped leadership sunset two programs and refocus resources.
Cradle CincinnatiA pilot I ran showed where school leaders dropped off and why, and gave a national education board and its funder four costed options for what comes next.
NPBEASelected work
Four projects, and the question behind each one.
Mamas in Bloom · 2026
What I didMapped the journey with 100+ mothers, staff, and partners, and designed the program’s first service blueprint, now its operating model.
Read the case study →
MKE BOSS, funded by JPMorgan Chase · 2021–2022
What I didResearched both sides, and designed and tested a matching tool for owners and a referral tracker for lenders.
Read the case study →
For The People · 2023–2024
What I didInterviewed every side of the system, co-designed with prosecutors and defense attorneys, and built a three-round onboarding blueprint.
Read the case study →
Cradle Cincinnati · 2022–2024
What I didLed research with 250+ mothers, caregivers, and providers, wrote the five-year plan, and evaluated programs against it.
Read the case study →
What I make
Screens, blueprints, journey maps, and plans. Tap any piece to see it larger.
What it’s like to go through a service, stage by stage.
Mamas in Bloom
Who does what, front stage and back, so a team can run it.
For The People
Tested with the people who’ll use them, and written up for engineers.
MKE BOSS
What a program does, what it should change, and how you’ll know.
Cradle Cincinnati
Research a team works through, instead of a report they file away. I drew the illustrations.
Mission College
Sessions where people who see a problem differently work it out together.
Cradle Cincinnati
What people say
“No matter how messy or complex the inputs are, Janvi has this superpower of turning them into something that is desirable to engage with and easy to follow such that clients or users are actually able to act on the information.”
“She worked as a great lead on this project and steered us in the directions we ought to go.”
“Can formalize the chaos that we are. Creates a strategy and executes with a calmness that belies the difficulty of the process.”
“She always keeps people at the center of her work, which led our team to levels of impact and outcomes we simply wouldn’t have reached otherwise.”
About
I’m an industrial designer by training, with an MFA in Design for Social Innovation from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Over the past eight years, I’ve worked at the intersection of research, design, and strategy, helping organizations tackle complex challenges across healthcare, education, financial access, and legal services. Most recently, I spent five years at DC Design leading projects from discovery to implementation.
I’m interested in the space between understanding a problem and making something better — where research meets decisions, ideas become tangible, and different parts of a system begin working together.
Contact
I’m looking for user research, insights, and service design roles on product and strategy teams. Based in Brooklyn and open to relocation.
Healthcare · East Orange, New Jersey · 2026
A free, nurse-led support program for Black mothers had low sign-ups. No one knew whether mothers were turning it down, or getting lost on the way in.
“I thought I owed you money for helping me, so I avoided the call.”
Financial services · Milwaukee · Research and design 2021–2022 · Pilot launched 2024
Business owners of color went from lender to lender, retelling their story each time. Three community lenders had no shared way to refer them, so owners fell through the gaps between them.
“My biggest challenge was, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”
Legal services · Oakland, California · 2023–2024
For The People helps prosecutors take a second look at long prison sentences. Offices hesitated to start, and the program lived in a few people’s heads, so every new office depended on them.
“DC Design pushed us to think differently and be open-minded about different approaches. They did this by really listening to us and those we work with.”
Healthcare · Hamilton County, Ohio · 2022–2024
Cradle Cincinnati works to end infant deaths. It ran many programs at once, and needed a plan grounded in Black mothers’ experiences, plus a fair way to judge which programs fit it.
“Janvi was very communicative and always available to answer questions. She worked as a great lead on this project and steered us in the directions we ought to go.”
Education · National · 2025–2026
NPBEA built an online design thinking playbook for school leaders. Before investing more, its board and funder needed to know whether leaders would use it, and what was in the way.
Out of 100 principals invited:
Most of the drop-off came before anyone made an account, with a second drop after the first phase.
“The method works. The adoption pathway needs investment.”
Community services · East San José, California · 2025–2026
Five nonprofits served the same families in a neighborhood facing displacement, each with its own front door and no shared plan. Families retold their story at every door.
“I really appreciated her facilitation, her approach, and empathy. She came across as dependable and extremely knowledgeable.”
About
From my family’s sheet-metal workshop in Mumbai to research and strategy in New York.
Grew up around my family’s sheet-metal workshop.
Studied industrial product design at the MIT Institute of Design, Pune.
Found research by playtesting SHASN, a political strategy board game, 500+ times. It went on to raise $339K on Kickstarter.
Moved to New York for an MFA in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts.
Joined DC Design.
Led research and strategy for clients in healthcare, education, financial services, and legal services.
A team to go deep with: own research from the first question to the decision, and stay long enough to see what changes.
Design Thinking for Social Impact, BESCY NYC
Nov 2025Stop presenting research. Frame the decision.
Jul 2026How to get research participants to open up
Aug 2026How to turn research insights into something useful
Aug 2026Ask five people how a program works, get five programs
Sep 2026Work
Newest first. Six have full case studies.
Found where a free maternal health program was losing mothers, and designed its first service blueprint. Case study
Designed a day for 116 people from 83 grantee organizations, with a workbook to take home.
The first shared plan for five nonprofits in East San José, linking emergency cash support with longer-term paths to adult learning, income, and ownership. Case study
A three-month pilot of a design thinking platform for school leaders, and four costed options for what comes next. Case study
The onboarding model For The People uses to bring on new prosecutors’ offices. Case study
The research behind a five-year plan, and an evaluation that helped leadership decide what to stop. Case study
Research with 66 students became a reflection workbook for college leaders, with illustrations I drew. I narrowed the scope from every program to four.
A matching tool and referral tracker for three community lenders, launched as a pilot. Case study
Led research with 94 students, parents, and physicians, mapped the path into medicine from middle school to residency, and sorted 37 opportunities by impact and effort. It informed AAMC’s Action Plan 4.
A design thinking course for 100 teenage scholars, ending in a final expo of their projects.
Synthesis and a report from a convening of 40+ organizations working on veteran suicide prevention.
Designed and playtested a political strategy board game: 500+ playtests, $339K from 4,209 backers on Kickstarter, and the IndieCade Europe Social Impact Award.