The Fastest Product Development Cycle
…is a hackathon. I appreciate a weekend where focused teams collaborate to turn ideas to products. Here are two highlights from 2015.
Hacking Journalism: Data Hackathon. July 2015.
At the hackathon focused on data hosted by Washington Post, we took a look at metrics produced in the newsroom, such as page views and click origins. We sketched out an article experience based on where the viewer came from.
Our assumption was that user engagement level increased with their click origin and visit counts. As a result, the social sharing options and call-to-actions associated with the article would change. We also mocked up the data schema that would help the implementation.
It was very helpful to collaborate with a social editor from the Post and a data scientist from Chartbeat. With suggestions of what the metrics might imply, we were able to zoom in onto the user experience quickly.
Comedy Day Hackathon #8. May 2015.
At this satirical hackathon, our team produced a chrome extension that turned wordy news articles into images and GIFs, dubbed Forcefeed. With a team of comedians, designers and developers, I worked mainly on the visual design and some UX elements. Our tagline? Words are hard and reading takes time.
