A(n Honest) Review of UXResult, DC’s First Annual Design Hackathon
A recap from the Consulting Design Team’s first hackathon
This posting expresses the views and opinions of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yext and its affiliates, employees, officers, directors or representatives.
On December 7, the Yext Consulting design team competed in UXResult, the first annual UXDC Design Hackathon, supported by various agencies that are involved in the DC design community.
The Challenges
In total, there were 13 different UI/UX challenges presented by real clients that offered a wide variety of prizes. The hackathon was graciously hosted at Optoro, which aimed to accommodate a whopping 215 registered designers for the day, and was coordinated by Vlad Korobov, Organizer with UXDC.
The Process
Because the team sizes were limited to 4 people, we split into 2 teams to tackle different challenges. We picked based on the intrigue of the challenge and the corresponding allure of the prize it offered. Since most of us have never participated in a hackathon, let alone one curated specifically for UX and UI, we were excited to get our hands dirty and see what kinds of innovative solutions we could come up with. After a thorough discussion and brainstorm, we went through the list and took a vote before deciding on 2 of the challenges: Benten Technologies and WeatherBug. Over the course of 5 hours we designed a solution for each challenge and presented our deliverables to the client expert and a panel of judges.
Benten Technologies
See the challenge and our solution here!
WeatherBug
We ended up winning in this challenge! Natalie Mandriko, WeatherBug representative and Product Manager, was really excited about our proposed solution, which implemented a map view to organize snowfall data that was visually easy for users to comprehend. Usually our best recommendation is to avoid maps on mobile, but given that the app supports so much data, we believed that a map view would be the best experience for the user. Read about it here!
The Review
Amazingly, the hackathon was free, which enticed a ton of people to sign up. The downside of that was that allegedly many participants ended up dropping out the day of the event, either due to sickness or personal reasons. This didn’t particularly impact us as a team, and actually increased our chances at winning a prize, but was likely bittersweet for the coordinators, and of course teams that were dependent on free agents. I think that since this inaugural hackathon was such a hit, they won’t have any trouble charging participation dues for future hackathons.
Since so many people signed up, there was also a capacity issue with the space. The office was only able to safely hold 140 people: just two thirds of the registered designers. The day before the event, we were encouraged to find public spaces nearby to work, such as Starbucks or the hotel lobby, which can prove tricky for mass hordes of collaborating designers who are meeting each other for the first time and need WiFi for collaboration and research.
The remedy for this virtual experience was Telegram, an instant messaging service, wherein each challenge had a corresponding group message that you could join. Each client expert answered questions that arose in the chat, but it appeared that remote teams were at a significant disadvantage since they were excluded from in-person Q&A and direct feedback at the office. In hindsight, it would have been nice to have equal treatment among teams — whether we were all there or virtual, but I’m sure future UXDC hackathons will better account for space.
One point of contention was that the challenges were released the night before the event, giving some teams the chance to get a headstart on their solutions. More importantly, although we were made aware that they would be released the night before, there was no announcement at the time of their posting. There were grumblings about this over the Telegram channels, as well as during certain presentations: there were those that were deemed “too good” to have been finished in 8 hours.
At the hackathon venue, each group had to present in front of their client expert as well as to a group of curated judges, made up of UX Experts. The client solutions were not evenly distributed (since each team was allowed to choose a challenge, and some were subjectively “more fun” than others), so a few client lines were filled with people while others were empty, leaving many client experts and participants standing around with nothing to do. It also pushed back the timeline significantly, not allowing for final voting until another hour into the evening.
At the end, each challenge winner was announced, and each panel of judges selected 1 favorite to be in the running for the grand prize. There’s undoubtedly a better structure to more fairly move from the first round to the final round; I wonder if having each challenge winner move to the final round would have made more sense. The finalists presented their solutions in front of everyone, and after deliberation, the main winner was announced and awarded $1,000 in cash.
The grand prize was awarded to Hasnia Bekkajda and Amina Maameri, who presented a creative solution for Benten Technologies involving a live demo of an AI-chatbot. Congratulations Hasnia and Amina!
I know I’m listing all the negative parts of the hackathon, but in truth, we had a ton of fun. We all worked remotely, blasting zen music and eating cheese and crackers at Ashlyn’s place in the city. Vlad worked tirelessly to send participants daily emails and updates, introducing every judge individually and responding quickly to emails. Although joining a team as a free agent or having everyone work in the same office space would have provided more robust networking opportunities, we still got to meet impressive designers from the DC design community, and participate in its first annual design hackathon. It was a privilege to be able to compete against such talented and innovative creatives, and we can’t wait to come back next year and find out what new problems need solving!
