Hackathon Platform
Redesign.
A web platform supporting hackathon participants before and during the event. The goal of the redesign was to bring the most important user activities into one place instead of redirecting users to external tools such as Discord, Twitch, or Google Forms. An important part of the project was also simplifying the event sign-up and team-joining flow, as well as unifying the interface.
Project Snapshot
My role
I was responsible for the entire design process — from research and information architecture, through flow and interface design, to prototyping, user testing, and collaboration with developers.
Tools
Outcome
Through iterative prototype testing, I was able to simplify the key user flow and make it more intuitive. In the final version, most participants were able to complete the happy path without getting lost.
Lessons Learned
Some participants did not realize they had to join a team in order to take part in the event. To solve this, I introduced a persistent banner and the ability to join or create a team directly in onboarding — before the user gets full access to the event space.
Why it mattered
Before
Team participation rules were easy to overlook during onboarding.
After
Team prompts now appear during onboarding, so users join or create a team before getting full access to the event space.
Pre-redesign user flow
Before the redesign, participants had to switch between multiple tools to complete one event journey. This map shows where users stayed on the platform versus where they were sent outside it.
Step 1
Event enrollment on event page
Step 2
Fill out Google Form
Step 3
Create or join team
Step 4
Go to Discord server (teammates)
Step 5
Watch opening ceremony on Twitch
Step 6
Submit project on platform
Trade-offs
Faster launch vs full rebuild
To ship the MVP quickly, we attached the redesigned experience to the existing platform instead of rebuilding the entire event stack. The benefit was faster delivery; the trade-off is that users still begin on the legacy event page and enter the new experience after clicking enroll.
Integrated experience vs engineering effort
Replacing Discord and Twitch would have created a more unified product, but it required too much engineering effort for this iteration. We chose to embed both tools, prioritizing feasibility and timeline over complete ownership of those interactions.
Selected Screens
Event page
Onboarding
User profile