The Unparalleled Design Internship

Written by an Intern turned full-time Product Designer.

Gianna Burgos
Inside Bowtie
Published in
5 min readJun 2, 2023

--

I never earned a degree in design, psychology, or business, nor did I attend a UX design bootcamp. In fact, I struggled to memorize the colors of the rainbow and didn’t learn until I was 14 years old that blue and yellow make green. Initially, becoming a designer wasn’t on my career radar. However, the opportunity to build products that have a significant impact on people’s lives opened my eyes to the power of design, and I’ve been passionate about it ever since.

Let me first introduce myself. I am a Product Designer at Hong Kong’s first digital health insurer. Although I majored in Computer Science at university and was initially set to be a Software Engineer, I quickly realized my passion for UX design after developing web and mobile apps and encountering poor UX design practices.

In 2020, amidst the pandemic, I took the opportunity to self-study UX design by attending online workshops, and conferences, and competing in hackathons. I made the transition from software engineering to UX design before graduating and was fortunate enough to have secured an internship at Bowtie.

I quickly fell in love with the energetic and warm culture at Bowtie and was later converted to a full-time Product Designer role upon my graduation from the University of the Philippines. Looking back, I am grateful for the opportunity to pursue my passion and contribute to building products that have a positive impact on people’s lives.

What does a Product Designer at Bowtie actually do?

There isn’t a fixed definition of a Product Designer but for the purpose of this piece, let’s refer to David Hoang’s definition:

A product designer is responsible for working with product development teams to understand customer problems, evaluating the opportunity for the company to solve customer problems resulting in outcomes for the business. The product designer is responsible for driving the process from concept to delivery and leveraging team members and resources to deliver.

In simpler terms, I have to be great at understanding human behavior and building products that are impactful to the customer which in return, generates income for the company.

At Bowtie, we take pride in being our users’ best friends. Our work involves conducting regular user research, applying UX principles, and practicing design thinking to ensure a seamless user experience. Joining Bowtie has taught me what it truly means to be a thoughtful designer.

I’m actually reinventing insurance

When I first joined Bowtie as an intern, I didn’t fully understand the company’s mission to “make insurance good again”. As a novice in the field, I was entrusted with leading challenging design projects, with the constant support of our talented design team and my mentors Chris and Nick. These projects ranged from automating the underwriting question creation process for our internal Operations team to improving the internal Claims assessment flow to create a delightful online claims submission experience for our customers. Through these projects, I was able to do real, hands-on work that benefited the people of Hong Kong, and it felt great to be able to make a tangible impact. My journey at Bowtie has been like being thrown into a pool to learn how to swim, but with the support and guidance of my team, I have been able to thrive and grow both personally and professionally.

I’m actually doing design stuff

A breakdown of how designers allocate the 6-week cycle

At Bowtie, we follow Basecamp’s 6-week cycle as our product development framework. Our weekly rituals include stand-ups, design thinking workshops, and design critique meetings with designers, engineers, and product managers. These meetings serve as opportunities to identify problems, pitch ideas, give feedback, and explore solutions. As a young designer, these meetings were pivotal in developing my industry skills, which were rarely taught in school. Each week, I would soak up knowledge like a sponge, spending up to five hours learning from my colleagues, who each had their own niche backgrounds, ranging from problem-solving and data analytics to project management, Webflow development, illustration, graphic design, UX research, UI design, and more.

Through these experiences, I have learned to empathize with users’ needs and pain points and design solutions that exceed their expectations. At Bowtie, we are committed to creating products that have a positive impact on people’s lives, and I am proud to be part of such a user-centric team.

I’m actually part of a team

If you’re from Hong Kong, you’ve likely seen Bowtie’s bright pink posters plastered on minibus’ and MTR walls. The company’s vibrant branding reflects its energizing and warm culture, which is what drew me to Bowtie in the first place.

Building an exceptional product takes a village, and I am grateful for the collaborative and motivated team at Bowtie. From day one, we are encouraged to be proactive and take initiative, which I later learned is an essential skill for designers. As designers, we have the power to turn user insights and problems into real-life solutions, and this requires great initiative and active listening from our teammates.

(Left) Designers and engineers conducting an on-site user interview (Right) Design system for our internal enterprise system

My motivation to work towards design initiatives grew from this culture, and I took on projects such as building a design system for our internal enterprise system to ensure consistency in design and user experience. I feel especially fortunate to have open-minded engineering teammates who value user-centric ideas and regularly hold design thinking rituals such as 45-minute ideation workshops on Miro. These rituals lead to valuable discussions that help us identify potential issues and develop solutions more efficiently than usual.

Being part of such a supportive and innovative team at Bowtie has been an incredible experience, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such talented and dedicated individuals.

My journey at Bowtie has been nothing short of eye-opening. As a self-taught designer, I never imagined myself working in the field, let alone at an innovative and forward-thinking company. Joining Bowtie has given me the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally, allowing me to pursue my passion for building products beneficial to people’s livelihoods. I am grateful for the collaborative and motivated team that has supported me every step of the way, and I look forward to continuing to reinvent insurance and doing real design work at Bowtie.

--

--

Inside Bowtie
Inside Bowtie

Published in Inside Bowtie

Bowtiers sharing about their lives, work, and anything interesting!

Gianna Burgos
Gianna Burgos

Written by Gianna Burgos

A 20-something Product Designer based in Hong Kong who sometimes likes to vent her feelings and thoughts to the internet.

No responses yet