SwampHacks X
Designed a Hackathon Website for SwampHacks, UF's largest student-run hackathon.
Role: UI/UX Designer & Researcher
Date: Jun. 2024 - Aug. 2024
Tools: Figma
Teammates: Helen Alvarez, Hana Checketts, Thomas Kaw, Lena Nguyen, Maya Rudo
PROJECT CONTEXT
SwampHacks is the largest student-run hackathon at the University of Florida. It is a 24-hour event where people collaborate to create technology solutions. Each year, more than 650 participants from all over Florida gather to build something innovative. Participants can work in teams or individually.
PROBLEM
In honor of their 10 year anniversary, SwampHacks wanted a completely new design that would pay homage to the early days of technology. The SwampHacks committee then called upon designers at Gator User Design to create a website prototype that would increase user accessibility and event interest, while simultaneously displaying the creative and fun nature of the organization.
RESEARCH
We began production with market research, reviewing the top university hackathons across the US to get a better understanding of what the committee was looking for. In addition, this helped us identify patterns in the designs that were most successful in fostering website engagement and receiving high volumes of event participants. In doing so, we were able to narrow down the best features and begin low-fidelity wireframing.
IDEATION
In order to maximize our time, each member in our design team created a low-fidelity wireframe of the homepage based on our market research findings and design requirements communicated to us by the SwampHacks committee. Below is my iteration of the homepage, where I combined elements of classic technological interfaces with clean design.
WIREFRAMING & PROTOTYPING
Throughout the production of this project, we consistently had meetings with the SwampHacks committee to receive feedback on our designs. Client feedback and communication drove our iteration process, and allowed us to refine our designs in a timely manner. The committee wanted our designs to reference early MAC OS interface, so we used this as inspiration for our final designs. Below are my iterations of the FAQs page, which is the section I primarily worked on.
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FINAL PROTOTYPE
The launch of the website resulted in over 700 applications and 200+ participants at the 2024 SwampHacks X event. Click here to view the live website!
