Web Development & Design

The Designathon is an annual product design competition hosted by Wellesley In Product. This year, Wellesley in Product partnered with MIT Design for America to co-host the Designathon, and they needed a website that could organize competition and registration information while matching the aesthetic vision of the competition's theme: RIPPLE.

I was appointed Team Lead for the design and development of the RIPPLE Website and managed a team of three other student designers. I created a Figma mockup of the website, and we critiqued it together until we were happy with the projected outcome. I then spent a week building our desktop- and mobile-friendly site on GitHub using HTML and Tailwind CSS. We managed to complete the entire project in two weeks, just in time for the Designathon Registration launch date!

For GEL Design Thinking & Innovation we were tasked with creating a system or product that solves a current issue for MIT or Wellesley Students. My teammate and I decided to build an accurate and efficient website for Wellesley Students that would simplify degree tracking and planning, as Wellesley College currently lacks an official system for managing degree progress. I led usability testing and designed the framework and flow for our final demo, final presentation, and project brief. My team partner and I are in discussion with Wellesley College to share our tool with the student body.

I was initially hired by ClickPlays.com to build a “Quick Start Guide” for new users to the platform. I worked on a Google Document and converted it to HTML so it could be styled appropriately to match the site's theme. Later, I was tasked with addressing customer issues and remediating malfunctions with tools, features, and website flow. One of my primary tasks was finding a way to integrate tags into the existing Play Card structure. I utilized Figma to wireframe all of my design recommendations and presented my work to ClickPlays for approval.

We were given the semester-long task of pitching, planning, and laying the groundwork for a startup we would present to our class and investors at the end of the semester. I pitched a startup idea to the class and recruited a team to build BrightSpot, a platform for visual artists to display portfolios professionally and find their next gig. I held the role of CEO, prepped our weekly slide deck deliverables with a consistent theme, designed our logo, and wireframed our example site on Figma. We received positive feedback and high marks on our final presentation from our class and our investors.

For my two-month summer course in Human Computer Interaction, I was assigned to a team of three other people with the task of creating an app that would increase public civic engagement. We narrowed down our intended demographic for our app and then conducted market research with that demographic to better understand what they needed from our app. TownH@ll was created to serve as a community chat space where local news could be discussed, town hall meetings could be streamed and accessed, and users could be rewarded via Kudos points to continue to interact with the app's interface. We performed a series of usability tests with our low and high fidelity prototypes. I was in charge of choosing the app's colors (blue = trustworthiness, yellow = optimism) and led wireframing efforts on Figma.

My first year, I was invited to join a teammate on her Designathon team. I had no experience with software or app design and had never wireframed before. With my teammate, and several of her friends, our team had 48 hours to research, design, and wireframe an app that would bring joy to its users. At the time, there was a lot of interest on campus around growing and maintaining dorm plants. We decided to frame our app around apps and thus Baesil was created. Baesil is a social media platform for people who enjoy growing, keeping, and sharing updates on their plants with their friends.

I designed our app logo and chose our product colors. I also spent a significant amount of time with my teammate (shoutout Shannon Li!) learning how to operate Figma's features so I could wireframe my own projects in the future. Although we didn't win the competition, this experience was extremely transformative for me. I realized that I enjoyed product design and that interest led to to declare as a Media Arts and Sciences major. Below is the walkthrough video we submitted to the judging board: