The Process
Our Approach
From the start, I advocated for a user-centered design approach. I encouraged the team to dedicate the first 30 minutes to developing personas, crafting user stories, and defining a clear problem statement. This early alignment gave us a strong foundation we could refer back to throughout the process, keeping our decisions focused and intentional.
As we moved forward, I helped the team strategically manage our time, suggesting we reserve the final hour for presentation preparation rather than adding new features. This decision allowed us to deliver a clear, confident pitch that resonated with the panel and and helped us stand out from the competition.
Our Day
- Personas & User Stories / Defining the problem
- Team Ideation (Diverge)
- Deciding on Key Features (Converge)
- Designing Mockups
- Team Ideation on Supplemental Features (Diverge)
- Deciding on Supplemental Features (Converge)
- Designing Mockups
- Preparing our Presentation
My Biggest Challenge
Since I was the only UX Designer working in a cross-functional team, my biggest challenge was persuading my teammates to spend some of our presentation time discussing our personas & user stories.
In the end I was able to show my teammates the benefits of this, and after the presentation two of my teammates told me they thought it helped us win the contest. When we won the contest, the judges praised us for "clearly addressing the problem" and "focusing on the user."
