Committing to victory in the Hero CoLabs Global App Challenge -By Hafis Sayed from IIM Raipur

I remember that moment when I refreshed the website several times just to make sure that it was real and not a fictional dream I'm looking at! As some friends and relatives had put it, 2021 was definitely off to a flying start for me. Congratulatory messages kept pouring in and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction for the fruit of the hard work I had put in for the competition.

The path to success

My interest in UI/UX design attracted me to the Hero CoLabs Global App Challenge. The fact to be a part of such a prestigious challenge motivated me to the next level. I became interested in UI/UX design during an internship I did with a leading Singapore-based tech accelerator. During that internship, I was tasked with creating a UI/UX design for their new product. Although I had zero experience at that time, I took it as a challenge and learned UI/UX design from scratch, experimenting with software like Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch. Eventually, with feedback and experience, I became good at it. This internship experience really helped me identify my new found interest in UI/UX design. I was scouting for UI/UX competitions when I saw the Hero CoLabs Global App Challenge on D2C. Without any second thought, I registered immediately.

Eyes on the prize

I prepared for Hero CoLabs Global App Challenge by doing a thorough research of the problem. I downloaded the existing Hero app, installed it, and used it to find out the user pain points. I also used the feedback and reviews on the Google Play store for this purpose. Then I made a list of the features I wanted to incorporate in the new app. From then on, I started with the design process and incorporated the information flow into the menu design. I also looked at similar apps to get a sense of what the competitor apps were offering and how to do better.

It was a month-long process, I started the work as soon as I was done with the registration. We had to submit 3 screens with a 3-minute video. The most challenging part was managing this in the midst of the placement process and classes. Since I was totally engaged in the day hours, I had to work on the competition at night. I remember working on the design late at night and realizing that the night had passed when my morning alarm used to go off.

Not starting means never having to quit

Sometimes I was confused with the placements of certain components on the wireframe and prototype. I used to get this resolved by asking for feedback from family and close friends. With their inputs, it was easy to select one and go ahead. After all, a good design is one that improves usability and removes clutter. I found that most times users have common like points in designs and in general, like minimalistic designs that get the task done.

My internship experience taught me a great deal in UI/UX design. I am also a freelance web designer and developer in my free time. So that experience came in handy to design the buttons and layout. More than anything, I would say it's my desire to learn and the curiosity to understand the why's and how's of everything was my forte. My experience in participating and winning national competitions like TVS Credit Epic IT Challenge season 1, Ideafest, Prothatlitis, and others definitely helped me in understanding how to approach the problem and present the solution.

It is also about being competitive and willing to battle it in numerous competitions that stead me in good stead. I think doing an MBA from IIM definitely is an opportunity to improve oneself especially in terms of competitiveness and problem-solving skills.

Conquering over other challengers

The competition was entirely virtual and consisted of two main rounds. This enabled the competition to be open globally and people could submit designs from anywhere in the listed countries. The idea of submitting a video along with the presentation allowed participants to explain the design properly to the judges and convey the idea behind the design properly.

There were 46 people who were shortlisted for the final round. There were many experienced UI/UX designers on the list and some of them were experienced designers working in the corporates. Being a global competition, I could see that there were also promising designers from Bangladesh and Peru who were prying for the win. The fact that there were experienced UI/UX designers who were experienced in the field, slightly irked me but eventually, I got over it and took it as a source of inspiration to compete with the stalwarts in the industry and motivated myself to go forward.

The competition was judged by stalwarts from the industry and the jury consisted of top management from Hero Motorcorp. Looking at the other winners and special mention, I feel they had done a good job in selecting the winners. All the designs were top-notch and world-class.

Lessons and moments to never forget

I have learned a lot in terms of UI/UX design especially how to achieve minimalism while considering the vast number of features to be incorporated. It also taught me what to avoid and how to priorities feature sets when designing an application, how to prepare user research and information flows. In short, it was a tremendous learning experience and I learned a lot from it.

Also, my deadline for submission was coinciding with my last round of interviews with my dream company. I had to shuttle between the various interview rounds and work on the design on the last day of submission. In hindsight, I feel this tremendously helped me in the interviews as I was interviewing for product manager and I could ace some questions on product design and UI/UX as I was working on the same for the competition. It was a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction to have hit two birds with one stone!

Check out other winning stories:

Hafis Sayed - IIM Raipur

2019-2021

Currently a second-year student at at the Indian Institute of Management IIM, Raipur, he is specializing in Marketing and Operations with a minor in IT.