UX and qualitative researcher. Fiction writer. Cultural decoder. Still figuring it out.
Hi, I’m Radhika Venkatarayan — a qualitative + UX researcher, cultural decoder, and writer working at the intersection of behavior, belief, and interface.
This site is part notebook, part field report, part chaos. It’s where I gather my work, words, and the questions I’ve stopped trying to resolve neatly.
What I Do
I lead foundational and strategic research across generative AI, e-commerce, automotive UX, and digital culture. My focus is on translating human nuance into product direction.
I’ve worked with a diverse mix of Indian and global products, helping teams understand how people think, adapt, and make decisions. I also teach digital ethnography and research storytelling at MICA, and I speak at conferences about culture, emotional infrastructure, and the future of AI.
What I Write
I write fiction that explores identity, ambition, family, and fate, often set in the rhythms of Indian domestic life, told with absurdity and tenderness. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Out of Print, Punch Magazine, New World Writing, Little Old Lady Comedy and more.
I also write essays and humour. My series How I Did Not Meet Your Father (11 episodes, now complete) is a part-memoir, part-satire on modern love, arranged marriage, and near-misses.
In 2025, I launched The Empire Laughs Back, a South Asian humour magazine publishing satire, parody, and comic essays from the subcontinent and diaspora. Think of it as a WhatsApp group that never sleeps, but instead of dubious cures for maladies, we forward jokes.
I’m currently (still) writing my first full-length novel, and hoping to finish it before the AI overlords do it for me.
What You’ll Find Here
- How to Not Write a Novel — part writing journal, part controlled meltdown
- Published fiction, essays, and humour — from lit mags to satire pubs
- How I Did Not Meet Your Father — the full series, in one place
- Research methods, case studies, and cultural decoding
- Occasional dispatches from conferences, classrooms, and strange corners of the internet
Also Me
I love kitsch, crafts, stories in all forms, and the faint chaos of DIY. In another life, I’d be a stand-up comic with a sharp eye and terrible stage lighting.
I still hum 2000s Hindi soap intros and advertising jingles that haven’t aired in decades. That brief career in TV writing? Let’s call it “method research.”
I live in Bangalore, but dream of a city by the sea. If home is where all our attempts to escape cease, I haven’t found mine yet.
Get in Touch
Want to talk research, writing, something in between, or adjacent?
Email me at radhika [dot] venkatarayan [at] gmail [dot] com, or connect on LinkedIn, or check out my Medium page.
If you’d like to pitch me a humour piece for The Empire Laughs Back, write to me at telbsubmissions [at] gmail [dot] com
I occasionally take on 1:1 sessions to support researchers, writers, and founders navigating complex questions, story drafts, or user messiness. You can learn more or book a session via Topmate.
→ Start here
Read some of my work
Dressed for Silence A piece on wardrobe, memory, and other soft rebellions. On what I wore, what I refused, and what I reached for instead.
You’ll also find stories from a half-lived love life, a not-yet-written novel, and various fragments of writing that resist neat conclusions.
This site is part notebook, part field report, part chaos. I’m glad you’re here.
Primalsoup 