Lessons from A Design Hackathon. This past weekend, I participated in my…
By: Stephanie Gnatek
Tags: UX Design, Hackathons, Design, UI Design, First Hackathon

Lessons from A Design Hackathon

This past weekend, I participated in the UX Result Hackathon, an online, fully-remote event, with three other designers. We chose the Leverege challenge, which involved developing the UX & UI of a mobile app that supported a smart IoT dog collar.

I’m really proud of what we accomplished in just 15 hours, but there are definitely some things I’ll do differently the second time around. Here are some lessons that I learned from this experience that might help you prepare for your next Hackathon!

Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash

1. Prepare and understand the challenge

Our team prepared for the Hackathon by meeting and discussing our strategy and design process ahead of time. This helped us get ready, and on the day of the Hackathon, we were able to start working right away.

As with any other design project, you’ll usually have a brief, client, and possibly other stakeholders. Typically, you’ll have time to ask your client and stakeholders questions about the brief to understand their constraints and expectations better. Before the event, make sure you have a clear idea of the client's expectations regarding deliverables. I would recommend making a list of potential questions to ask the client and attend any information sessions the event provides.

2. Use your design superpowers

With time and efficiency being the name of the game, it can help to identify the design ‘superpowers’ of each team member before the event. If one person is great at visual design, let them take the lead during the hi-fi mockups and prototypes. Someone else is great at research? Let them guide the survey and user interview design. This can help ensure that your team’s time and resources are being allocated most effectively.

3. Prioritize and don’t try to do everything!

This is the biggest lesson that I learned during the Hackathon. The very limited timeframe of a Hackathon makes it impossible to do everything you’d like to. This is where setting a strict timeline can be a lifesaver. Ensure you have a clear idea of what you want to prioritize and how long you want to spend on each task. Once the time is up, move on to the next task no matter what. Easier said than done, but this will help you stay on track and make it to the finish line.

4. Leave ample time for presenting

This might not be relevant for many in-person Hackathon events, but for remote events, you might need to record a video presentation of your project for the judges. Ensure you block out a significant amount of time to do this (at least an hour) to ensure that you can finish the presentation on time.

5. Things might go wrong but try not to panic

Due to technical issues and other factors, our team ended up being late on submitting our project. We took full responsibility for this situation, sent an email to the organizer, and pushed through and finished our project. In the end, our submission was accepted. This was a tough situation, and we could have easily fallen into a state of panic. I was so proud of everyone on my team and our ability to stay calm and focus on our next move.

6. Have Fun!

Overall, my first hackathon was an absolute blast. The challenge was fascinating, my teammates were wonderful to work with, and I was excited to put my design skills into practice.

I look forward to sharing more about my Hackathon experience and our project in future posts.

Have you ever participated in a Hackathon? If so, which one and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it?