ux design
ui design
hackathon 2nd place ⭐
Timeline
1 day (8 hours)
Role
Product Designer
Collaboration
1 PM and 3 Developers
Overview
The tech ecosystem in Vancouver struggles to position itself as a leading international tech hub. Our community events are often siloed, with knowledge-sharing and networking scattered across disciplines. Inspired by Pokemon GO and Queering the Map, we built [van]quest - a web app that gamifies tech networking. Our product won 2nd place at Vancouver Tech Week Hackathon 2024.
how might we
How might we make the Vancouver tech community more unified?
Solution
I co-created a centralized gamified platform that makes tech networking fun and engaging, scalable across cities.
Networking
How might we make tech networking in Vancouver more rewarding and valuable?
Mentorship
How might we foster more meaningful mentorship in the Vancouver tech industry?
Job Searching
How might we consolidate tech opportunities in Vancouver for higher visibility?
how might we statement
Networking Focus
How might we make tech networking in Vancouver more centralized, rewarding, and valuable?
solution
[van]quest — a centralized gamified platform that makes tech networking fun and engaging for Vancouver, scalable across cities down the road.
empathize
Mindful of time constraints, we did our best to budget time for user research and product ideation. We conducted 3 quick user interviews and gathered quantitative insights from polls that reached 30 tech workers in Vancouver within an hour.
Surveys
Fragmentation
30/30
of users find that networking events are fragmented across many platforms
Lack of motivation
20/30
of users feel unmotivated to attend networking events frequently
launch
Drawing deep inspirations from Pokemon GO and Queering the Map, we dreamed up a solution where networking is completely gamified - users could explore the Vancouver tech world, go on "quests," collect tokens, and level up to show up on the leaderboard.
Within 6 hours… we built [van]quest.
outcome
What did we accomplish?
Placement
2nd place
Deliverable
within 8 hours of development
Shoutout
Best business solution
Special thanks to the people that dreamed together and made this hackathon so memorable.
Photo credit goes to Amy Lu at Vancouver Tech Week.