Garry Kapoor | Senior UX Leader & Strategist

01 — Strategy

Strategy begins where the brief ends — with the question the brief never asks: what is this person actually carrying?

I connect business objectives to that weight. The KPIs follow from closing the gap between what the business needs and what the person needs. When both are clear, the path between them is the strategy.

What is worth doing?

Before the workshop, before the feature list, I write the weight sentence — the specific weight of a specific human at a specific moment. It becomes the acceptance criterion for everything that follows.

ValueExpectationsFeasibilityCompetition

What solution are we creating?

As facilitator, I ensure everyone is aligned before any work begins — feature set, functionality, and the why. Consensus isn't optional; I'm accountable for the end result.

FeatureContentPlatform

What user value will it provide?

I gain empathy by understanding responsibilities, needs, and desires — then map those pain points to business strategy to create valuable, motivating outcomes.

RolePain-pointsDesiresValue

Value unlocked beyond the original brief ($K)

Cross-functional workshop voices

Phases of the experience arc — first touch to advocacy

02 — Design Process

Six stages. The first three get the question right. The last three keep us from losing the answer.

Process is not a sequence of steps. It is a series of decisions made before the user arrives — and a discipline for catching the ones that drift after they do.

Sit with the Weight

Observe. Name the human moment.

I begin where the user begins — not with their job title, but with what they're carrying the moment they open what we made. What is this person carrying while they try to use what we are about to build? That sentence becomes the acceptance criterion for everything that follows.

Ask the Real Question

Define the problem underneath the brief.

The brief in hand is rarely the real one. I run a Clarity Sprint — fifteen focused minutes against three questions: Who is the specific person? What moment are they in? What's the one thing that must be true if everything else fails?

Map the Leverage

Separate what we were asked to build from what the project controls.

The brief is the 100K. The 600K is what this project actually controls if the vision holds all the way through. My job is to make the 600K visible before the first sprint begins — so the team builds toward it, not just at it.

Build the Feeling

Prototype for emotional fidelity, not just functional fidelity.

A prototype is how a vision becomes felt before it becomes built. The test is not does it work — it's does the person feel more capable holding it. The room can argue with words; it cannot argue with what it has already felt.

Catch the Drift

Test, validate, and run the weekly review.

Drift arrives as small, reasonable decisions that compound until the product points where nobody chose. I run the EAR every week — Edge, Vision, Loop, Arc, Exit. Thirty minutes that prevent eighteen months of drift.

Own the Exit

Refine, ship, and stay in the room.

The handoff to engineering is where the work gets tested by gravity. I stay through implementation review, design QA, and the first weeks after launch. The ship date is a milestone. The return is the metric.

04 — Author

Beyond the screen, I write — books about what people carry, and what no machine can feel for them.

A philosophy of designing for the human on the other side of the work. The life that taught me to see them — a boy from the slums of Delhi, following his father's colors all the way to the horizon. And a forthcoming field guide to the practice behind every WOW.

The WOW Instinct

What AI Can't Feel and You Can

The part of us that knows something is true before we can explain why. It cannot be manufactured. It cannot be prompted. It can only be earned. Seven parts move from the fear that AI will replace you, through the philosophy that equips you — Vision, Clarity, Delegation — to the tools that let you act on Monday morning.

"The person who has seen the colors can only make a colorful picture."

Design & LeadershipFirst Edition · 20267 Parts

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Cry But While Smiling

Grief and joy, in the same breath

Not smiling despite crying — smiling while the crying is still happening. A man past 45, still carrying his father's colors: the slums of Delhi, a chandelier in a Gurudwara at 2am, a ball that jumped when he pressed the spacebar, and the table he always dreamed of setting.

"Black and white is not the absence of color — it is the absence of light. He was the light, and these pages are what he left behind when he went."

MemoirFirst Edition · 2026Thirteen Weights

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Upcoming · 2026

In the Air

The Practice Behind Every WOW

A man sat at a desk with no computer in 1996 and typed on a keyboard that did not exist — A, S, D, F, Space — building muscle memory for a machine he could not yet afford. The WOW is not made in the moment. It is made in the air. The follow-up to The WOW Instinct, this is a field guide to Human-AI creative practice for design leaders — five parts that teach your hands where to go.

"Your hands are already in the air. This book teaches them where to go."

Human-AI PracticeComing 20265 Parts

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I design for the person carrying the weight — and hold the vision through every handoff.

Strategy begins where the brief ends — with the question the brief never asks: what is this person actually carrying?

What is worth doing?

What solution are we creating?

What user value will it provide?

Six stages. The first three get the question right. The last three keep us from losing the answer.

Sit with the Weight

Ask the Real Question

Map the Leverage

Build the Feeling

Catch the Drift

Own the Exit

Discover how I transform ideas into impactful digital experiences.

Autonomous — Digital Twin

HMI — Site Manager

Web — ROI Dashboard

Web — Sentient Building

Web — Connected Buildings

Farewell Gift

Beyond the screen, I write — books about what people carry, and what no machine can feel for them.

The WOW Instinct

Cry But While Smiling

In the Air