5 Month experience as UI/UX Designer Intern at ADS Digital Partner based in Research Lab Surabaya.

Working with a small team of 3 UI/UX designers, a technical writer, a frontend developer and 2 data analysts to develop the MitraPanen mobile app.

ROLE

UI UX Designer Intern

DURATION

5 Month, 18 Aug July-30 Dec 2022

PROCESS

AGILE framework with Scrum method

TOOLS

Figma, FigJam, ClickUp, Discord

! DISCLAIMER !

All documents from the work process that I have done in this internship program become the exclusive property of PT. Adma Digital Solution. So I can not share any images or related documents. Here I will explain the work process, how to communicate with team members and other development teams, and also what lessons I took from this internship program.

INTERNSHIP OVERVIEW

This internship program use AGILE work environment with Scrum method. I joined the UI/UX designer team which is responsible for the development process of the ‘MitraPanen’ mobile application as our main project. During the program, each of us was also given the opportunity to work on other side projects such as redesign requests or making website designs for clients, under the supervision of UI/UX Designer mentor.
What is ‘MitraPanen’? ‘MitraPanen’ is mobile application that provide a digital ecosystem that is integrated with each other from the upstream production process to the downstream sales and marketing processes in the agriculture, fisheries, livestock and small business (UMKM) sectors.

DAILY ACTIVITIES

This Internship Program is a hybrid program, there is a WFO schedule for each team. Every morning, our UI/UX team does a daily scrum via Discord led by a Technical Writer. The daily scrum is carried out to report the progress of the work that was carried out yesterday and also the work plans that will be carried out today. After that, we continued our individual work in Figma. Sometimes we also have discussions with the team or mentors about the flow of applications and others. Every 3 weeks our team, the UI/UX team 'MitraPanen' holds a meeting with stakeholders, mentors, and other development teams to explain updates on the progress of the 'MitraPanen' application UI design. Through these meetings, we received feedback regarding the UI design and flow of the 'MitraPanen' application.

HOW WE COLLABORATE?

In this case, we as UI/UX designer team have strong collaboration and communication with the technical writer. We do a lot of discussion from the beginning of the program until the last day. The technical writer gave us a lot of feedback about the application flow and small things that we sometimes missed it. Technical writers also be our bridge to communicate with front-end and data analysts. Sometimes we do communication with the front end to explain the interaction design and gave them feedback on their slicing results. Also with data analysts, we often asked them what data the user must fill in and whether it is also possible to calculate like this, and so on.
As explained above, we also have collaboration and communication with our mentor. Sometimes we asked her about the application flow, the purpose of the application, the visual appearance of the UI design, and so on.

MitraPanen MOBILE APP

The process of creating the 'MitraPanen' UI design became the main project for me and the team. The process of making the 'MitraPanen' prototype was made using a design thinking approach. The 'MitraPanen' UI design this time is UI design version 2. You could say that the process this time is a redesign process from the UI design 'MitraPanen' version 1 which was carried out by the previous team. From the empathy process to defining the problem that has been done, we have improved the application flow and also the UI design with version 1 as an example.
In week 1 we conducted an empathy process to obtain research documents and an empathy map. In weeks 2-3, a define process is carried out to compile problem statements and obtain user persona documents, user journey maps, and how might we ask questions. Until the ideate process for creating user flow documents, information architecture, and Low Fidelity Images (wireframe).
In week 4 we focused on working on a prototype from the process of creating a system design which was carried out iteratively with the creation of High Fidelity Images (HiFi) for car applications (android). The prototyping process is carried out until the 3th month of the internship program. Because we get a lot of feedback from mentors and stakeholders. So we made several changes to the layout and flow of the application.
For the slicing process, we communicate a lot with the technical writer and frontend to explain the flow and also the interaction designs that we make. We also communicate with data analysts regarding data that must be filled in by users through the 'MitraPanen' application.
But until now, the application hasn't been released on the google play store yet. Please look forward to it! :)

MitraPanen ADMINTOOLS

After the UI design for the 'MitraPanen' mobile application was almost complete, we worked on the website for the 'MitraPanen' Admintools in the 4th month of this internship program. This website is intended for admins that managing the 'MitraPanen' application. We jump right in to prototype making, because there is already an Admintools website for other applications. So we immediately adapted the flow and appearance for this admintools website. We spent 1 month to complete this website. During the process of working on this website, we get help from technical writers who understand more about this field, making it easier for our team to carry out the website appearance design process.

UNITREND

In the 3rd month, I received an offer from a mentor to work on a unitrend.id website redesign project. So this project is my first side project in this internship program. I worked on this project with other designer friends outside the 'MitraPanen' team. I also worked on this project at the same time as working on 'MitraPanen'. We finished the UI for this website in 2 weeks. And you can check the result through this this link

SHAREKUY.COM

In the last month of this internship program, me and my team got some briefs from the stakeholders about this new website related to 'internet buzzer' called ‘Sharekuy.com’. So we try to make mapping the brief and jump right in to prototyping process. We almost finished this project in 1 month, we finish the flow, LoFi, and HiFi.
But until now, the website hasn't been released yet. Please look forward to it! :)

WHAT I LEARNED?

The design system is the most crucial thing in the prototyping stage. So the design system must be made with very neat, detailed, and complete variants to simplify and speed up the HiFi creation process. Because during the project, we spent a lot of time making HiFi using a system design that was not neat and incomplete. So we took one step back to tidy up the system design.
Working with the development team has made me, as a UI/UX designer, understand that the design process does not only prioritize interaction design and visual aspects. However, the design must make sense, so the slicing process can be carried out by the development team. It would seem like it would take too much time if our team created pleasing visuals and design interaction, but in the end, it's difficult for the development team to continue the slicing process of this mobile app or website.
From this internship program, I learned how to convey my work progress to my stakeholders and mentors. I also learned how to accept and give opinions to my colleagues.
Overall, I really enjoyed this internship program. During the 5 months, I learned a lot of new soft skills and hard skills, which I may not be able to explain all here :). Even though I am more interested in doing the UX research process, this program is more inclined towards the UI designer process, each day always has a different challenge and it feels special to me.