Product Designer
1 Product Designer
7 weeks (March 2024 - May 2024)
Figma, Ideation, Affinity Mapping
The spring of my freshmen year, I took my first steps towards a career in product by signing up for a 2-credit course: Intro to Digital Product Design. Though I would later go onto TA this course, that spring was my frist introduction into iterative design and product thinking.
We were tasked to conduct a case study for one app of interest. Over the course of seven weeks, we walked through a structured design journey, attending weekly critques with our Teaching Assistants and working with peers to practice brainstorming and analyzing user needs.
My case study focused on the Google Tasks app. By the end I had:
Through out this case study, I attended weekly critiques hosted by my TAs. While critiques can often lead to hard-to-swallow feedback, talking through your design process with senior mentors not only improves your product, but also strengthens you design thinking. This mentorship motivated me to become a TA for the course the next semester.
During this case, I redirect my focus completely when I realized it would be more productive to work on Tasks than Google Calendar. While this shift set me back 3-weeks in my design process, it was essential for creating designs that were truly impactful to my user group.
Intro to Digital Product Design place incredible emphasis on recruiting non-designers for the brainstorming portion of this project. Though it was difficult to find peers will who were willing to spend 3 hours writing on post-it notes, having their diverse perspectives truly drove my case study.
