I have just returned from the Infocomm show in Las Vegas. I didn’t just go to test touchscreens and connected surfaces; I was also there to present the creative process, as well as the resulting project that helped me win the Tata Communications’ Design Challenge.
Design Challenge
This past May 28-29, Vincent Primeau (UX designer at TP1) and I were invited to participate in a hack-a-thon-style challenge for 15 selected designers from Montreal’s creative community. The goal? Propose a digital solution that will improve the future of collaboration.
Cinq teams, cinq projects
Organized into five groups of three, teams had to learn to work effectively, despite the different professional backgrounds of each member. After the teams were formed, and after multiple brainstorming sessions, failures and victories, the five teams wowed us with the richness of their ideas and how they handled the more complex aspects of design, including maintaining a holistic vision.
But what actually happened in these 24 hours? What did we learn during this creative sprint? To better tell the story, we created a user journey that illustrates our fluctuations in productivity during the challenge. What’s interesting is how the 24-hour process ends up looking like the arc of a long-term project, with the same highs and lows: from creative block to the euphoria of the final reveal.
Without further ado, I present the adventures of Cynthia and Vincent at C2Mtl!
So what did we learn from this adventure? Needless to say, Vincent and I had quite the roller-coaster experience, one that required us to tap all our resources. Without further ado, here’s what we learned:
1. Do not underestimate the power of food. Whenever we were tired or distracted, eating something had an extremely beneficial effect.
2. When faced with a big challenge, trust your partners. I didn’t have time to see everything being done. They trusted me to create a great presentation and I trusted them to create an incredible interface.
3. Out of 29 hours, I was only truly productive for 5 of those hours, during which time I worked hard and exclusively on design. This wasn’t a bad thing.
4. Forcing the team to choose a direction – even if we didn’t know whether it was the right direction – helped us during this challenge.
