Amazon
Project Overview
In the summer of 2023, I embarked on an exceptional journey as a UX Designer intern at Amazon's Seattle headquarters. Throughout this experience, my central objective revolved around enhancing an internal software tool. This solution was dedicated to creating a new flow that would allow employees to book conference rooms for their upcoming existing meetings more easily.
While I'm bound by a NDA that prevents me from showcasing the specific work accomplished, the visuals presented here is my own outside work to better picture my experience.
Roles:
UX Design Intern
Team:
Manger - Technical Product Manger
Mentor - UX Designer
Onboarding Buddy - UX Designer
Timeline:
12 Weeks
Tools:
Figma
Quip
Chime
Discovering & Filtering out the Right Participants
Research Phase
A core UX principle I firmly uphold is that "Design is inseparable from research." Throughout a significant portion of my internship, ensured that the individuals I selected for interviews aligned with my precise proto-persona, crafted in line with the project objectives.
As a result, I sometimes had to forgo interviewing participants solely for the sake of quantity, prioritizing alignment over sheer numbers.
Getting my Hands Dirty!
Conceptual Design Phase
My mentor accurately predicted that this phase of my internship would be the most demanding, and she was absolutely right! This phase turned out to be the most extensive part of my internship journey.
I invested a substantial amount of effort into brainstorming various innovative design solutions that were rooted in the pain points identified through customer research.
Evaluating my Work & Trusting my Judgement
High-Fidelity Design Phase
This project and experience has exposed me to how much control a UX designer can have as your staying within the project’s constraints. However, it led me to a pattern of consistently seeking a bit too much guidance from my mentor at times. While this approach was beneficial at times, I found it impeding my ability to exercise independent judgment towards making my own design decisions.
This realization prompted a shift in my approach, making me more intentional when I seek guidance from my mentor in the latter half of my internship. For example, I started taking more thorough notes after meetings and reviewing them. This way, when I have discussions with my mentor or manager, I ensure that I've thoroughly considered all the feedback and ideas they provided.
That’s a Wrap!
Final Presentation
In the last few weeks of my internship, I was crafting my final presentation for my project. I had the opportunity to showcase my design solutions to our cross-functional team, including UX designers, product managers, and engineers. The feedback I received from my manager, mentor, and the rest of the audience was overwhelmingly positive.
It was truly gratifying to walk through my design rationale with leaders, particularly with the engineering team, because I constantly reminding myself that I need to make sure my design are feasible enough to build throughout the project.
Learnings
Amazon’s Leadership Principle #3: Invent & Simplify
During this journey, each time I introduced a design concept that seemed headed in the right direction, my manager and mentor consistently encouraged me to explore alternative approaches to simplify it. Whether it involved reducing the number of clicks or reducing the amount content overload presented to customers, they challenged me to think critically about enhancing the user experience.
Design Process is Not so Linear
In school I was instilled with the conventional design process, often depicted linearly as empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. While I wholeheartedly embraced and applied a similar methodology during my internship, I discovered that, when deeply immersed in the intricacies of my project, I frequently needed to backtrack from the research and conceptual design phases.
This allowed me to ensure alignment with project constraints and customer objectives. I came to terms with the fact that this back-and-forth movement is an inherent aspect of real-world industry projects.