After missing the first week of the internship due to “life circumstances” I made a rigid decision to ensure that I was present in the remaining part of the internship. I hate to brag but my Team scored 85% for the JobFlex application we designed for our week 2 task.
From the beginning of the internship, my team had agreed to meet twice a day which is 9 am and 9 pm. The basic idea of this is to keep up with the task and to discuss and ensure we are all on the same page. This has been a good routine for us all as it has helped us to catch up and ease up the tension that comes with doing research and designing multiple screens. Starting the meetings was a bit strange to me because I had never had to work in a space and a team like this before. However, the experience has been worth it, our Team leader Olushola Fatoba and assistant Team leader Adedeji Adepeju played their role with so much prowess. This helped the Team a lot more and made the task even easier, especially for those with zero experience in Product Design. Eg me.
The third week of the internship had arrived and I had already missed the first meeting. Don't blame me, ok, it was a long Sallah weekend. Regardless of whether you miss the meeting or not, the Team leaders had already assigned a task to all team members to be presented at the next meeting.
The next meeting wasn’t brief as we had to go over our tasks individually. The team leaders wanted to ensure we were all on the same page.
The assignment was;
Design a music player. Consider the Controls, placements, and imagery such as the artist or album cover, etc. Also, consider the device type that's playing the music. A dashboard in a tour bus, a smartwatch, or via a web browser. Each device type would have different requirements, features, and restrictions to consider.
Looking at this assignment with my unskilled eyes, I was pretty confused already. The meeting was good for me as it gave me more insight into what the task was all about. As usual, when the meeting ends we first do a case study. The case study allows us to know what we are working with, the competitors we have as well as new features to be added to the music application. A few features had already been alighted in the meeting.
The case study task was assigned to everyone Tuesday morning, no meeting was held that morning because we had no progress report yet.
The task was issued as follows;
Problem Statement & Possible Solutions - Olusola Fatoba
Design Brief and Channels - Adedeji Adepeju
Competitive Analysis - Daudu Rihanatu
User Persona - Chioma Omokwe
Empathy stage - Eseoghene Agbake
User Flow & Information Architecture - Adebayo Oluwaseun
Quantitative Research - Precious Aroyame
User Journey Mapping - Ilawole ObaFadekemi
Project Timeline & Design Processes - Aremu Gideon
Research had started Tuesday and everyone was ensuring that their task was being done. The presentation was at 9 pm on Tuesday for the case study and we had to be done before we could move into the next phase of the task which was screen designing. Screens had been also assigned to team members that same Tuesday.
Screens issued included;
Splash & Onboarding - Adedeji Adepeju
Sign in & Sign up - Olusola Fatoba
Verification, Checkout & Music Preferences - Daudu Rihanatu
Notification, Search & Home - Chioma Omokwe
Library & Playlist - Adebayo Oluwaseun
Genre & Listening to - Eseoghene Agbake
Profile & Edit Profile - Precious Aroyame
Find Friends & Settings - Ilawole ObaFadekemi
Album & Artist - Aremu Gideon
At the end of the Presentation on Tuesday night we had come up with our designs for the case study, the placement, font sizes, screen sizing, colors, arrangements, application names and grids to use for the screens. The color was a bit of a challenge but we finalized on Green Black and white since we were only designing for dark mode.
By Wednesday we had started designing low and mid-fidelity screens. Meetings were packed this week as almost all of the team members were present. We had a bit of a glitch due to the inconsistent power supply we had to be subjected to. During this phase, I was very frustrated because at some point I didn’t know what exactly I was doing. But looking through other team mate’s work I was encouraged.
A glimpse of our case study design.
Designs had already started coming together. Pictures of samples from other music applications were sent to the group chat so we could all be consistent with our designs and icons. Questions were being thrown right, left and center. Most of our team meetings Wednesday and Thursday were to ensure we were on the same page. By Thursday night I was struggling with my design. I wasn't sure what I had to do and I didn't want to look like the only one lagging. Design colors were still being delegated. Seun seemed like the only team member sure of the colors so he was assigned to do the finishing touches.
Some screen designs.
By Friday everyone had started pasting their work in the appropriate places for placements and arrangement. The goal was to ensure we could round off and have our final meeting by 9 pm. By 9 pm the meeting wasn't exactly how we expected it to be. We had not finished designing all the screens and according to the information architecture some screens were missing so we still had a lot to do. It was a setback for the team because unlike last week we were now working under pressure. The team leader and assistant gave some corrections on some people’s designs so we know where our weaknesses are. This was relevant to me because I am super new to design and knowing my weakness was a way I could get better at my work.
After a long week of brainstorming and hard work, we brought Our task to a close on Saturday morning and it was ready to be submitted. Team members were satisfied. I don't know how the last week of the internship would be but this week was my best week so far. I have learned a lot and I am lowkey in love with my team members. Also, shout out to our team leader for consistently making us laugh. Especially me.
I hate to brag but I probably have the best team so far for this whole side hustle internship.
Thanks for stopping by. Here is a link to our task.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/169482433/Music-Player-Case-Study