Things I discovered during my product design internship
After graduating from high school with a science major, I feel lost and I have no clue what I want to pursue in my next stage of life. I like mathematics, but I don’t love it enough to pursue that major at university. I don’t excel at nor enjoy any subject to the extent that I can enjoy doing it every day. Because of that and some personal reasons, I chose to follow my friend’s path and study hospitality, despite never having imagined I would do so. Studying hospitality for six months made me realize that again, I don’t enjoy it.
Thus, I tried to explore and learn various fields that seemed interesting to me. Long story short, I found UI/UX design, a field that made me not only love the output but also enjoy the process. I didn’t have any knowledge or skill in UI/UX design before, but I am always excited to dig more simply because I enjoy the process, despite all the challenges. “Enjoy the process” is such a strong variable that made me come to the decision that I wanted to pursue this path. With all those “mistakes” that I made after graduating high school, I made up my mind to take responsibility for my future and decided to take a leap of faith to drop out of the hospitality major and find the direction of my future, UI/UX design.
July 22, 2022 was one of the best days of my life. After months of hunting and lots of mentally-exhausting moments, I finally received the good news I’d been waiting for: a product design internship offer. I can still remember vividly how happy and grateful I was after that last call with HR that confirmed the offer. Exactly a month later, I officially started my journey as a product design intern at tiket.com. This is my first internship experience, and I am forever grateful that it helped me discover valuable lessons.
Hence, I want to share things I’ve discovered during my internship at tiket.com and I hope it can also bring some insights to those who relate to my experience.
Product design is not the same as UI/UX design.
Before becoming an intern, my only focus when designing was user, user, and user. My decisions in designing are solely based on users’ needs only. We indeed have to represent the user when designing, which means we have to empathize with the user and understand their problems and needs.
But in addition, we also need to consider business needs. Product design goes beyond UI and UX. Before jumping into solutions on Figma right away, we need to spend some time understanding the background and objective of the project from the user and also the business side, validating the problems, finding relevant insights based on data, and making sure the impacted metrics of the project that are given to us. We can always collaborate with other stakeholders (usually Product Managers) to understand more about the business and product context in order to be aligned.
Understanding the design process.
For those who are interested in UI/UX, we are already familiar with Design Thinking or other design frameworks, which usually start with empathizing and end with testing. These frameworks can help us as a guide in our design process. However, we must remember that each project has a different objective, scope, resource, and timeline. The design process in each project may not be as systematic and linear as we imagined.
A design process can start at one point, jump to another point, can be iterative, and maybe we don’t have to do all the steps from a framework. Therefore, we can’t just stick with existing frameworks or methods. We need to adjust each existing framework/method according to each project. We can try to critically consider what steps can be done with low effort, but high impact to help us deliver the projects.
Communication is a crucial skill.
Having the skill to communicate your design intention is as important as creating the visual design itself. Other than designing on Figma, in our day-to-day activities, we need to communicate with stakeholders to discuss our current projects (brainstorming, updating progress, design critique, presentation, and so on). I believe communication skills are critical to convey our intentions clearly and help us deliver projects smoothly.
We will inevitably encounter unexpected challenges and obstacles during the project. There were some times that I hesitated to clarify and ask for help whenever I encountered blockers. After days or even weeks of being stuck in the same confusion, I encouraged myself to communicate and ask others for help. As a result of communicating with others, I always found that light in the tunnel, and this made me wish I had communicated it earlier.
Through that experience, I learned to be more initiative and communicative by following up regularly with our respective stakeholders. If we have any confusion, don’t hesitate to clarify. If we encounter a blocker, ask for help. In the end, a design that’s done quickly is a design that is communicated proactively.
Always make sure you have valid reasons behind your design.
The process of designing involves dealing with people’s opinions and feedback. Everyone can give their view about your design. It can be subjective or objective comments. This kind of conversation might be familiar to designers;
“I don’t like that placement. Why don’t you put that element at the top?”
“Why do you use the primary button instead of the secondary?”
In order to be able to answer those questions, we need to consider the valid reasons behind all of our design decisions with regard to project objectives.
The reasons behind your design can be obtained from various sources: any UX rules or best practices, internal qualitative/quantitative data, competitor analysis, and even your assumptions (that can be validated later). Having valid reasons is useful when explaining your arguments, especially when you are having a discussion or presenting to stakeholders.
Embrace mistakes as part of the learning process.
As interns, we are given the opportunity to drive our projects individually. This made me realize that being a designer means dealing with decisions frequently. As time went by, new knowledge was gained. Many times I wish that I had done things differently than the way I did. I should have made different decisions. I had a lot of “I should have” moments.
“I should have used these components for that project”
“I should have made sure of the reason why I decided to put that element there”
“I should have done (this) before (that)”
Thankfully, at tiket design, we are surrounded by supportive and humble peers. We can always take the initiative to ask for advice or ideas and they are always ready to help us. In a 1on1 session with my former manager, I raised my concern about this on my current project and he reassured me that it is totally okay. There was a reminder from him that really helped me:
“There is always a first time for everything. You can always learn from your mistakes. It is normal and totally okay not to know everything. You’ll eventually be better at it once you discover things more.”
With that in mind, I slowly began to be able to accept those mistakes and move on with the lessons learned. In this regard, I am extremely grateful to my former manager, Kak Fawwazy, for reminding me at the very right time.
The catalyst for my growth is getting out of my comfort zone.
I was the type of person who would order the same menu from the same restaurant because I was afraid the other menu would disappoint me. I would listen to the same music all day, all year because I preferred to listen to something that I knew I liked instead of trying other music that I wouldn’t know whether I would like or not.
Upon reflection, I discovered that I am not comfortable stepping outside my comfort zone. I am not comfortable trying new things because I am not a fan of the word failure and I am afraid of making wrong decisions. Even though I know that I need to get out of my comfort zone in order to grow, I still struggle with it. Fortunately, during my internship, I discovered many challenges that helped me to be more comfortable getting out of my comfort zone.
Various circumstances have led me to join various teams at tiket design. I got the chance to work with the Discovery, Acquisition, Accommodation, Payment, and Loyalty product teams. It was challenging for me to adapt to the new set of teams and to gather the context of each product.
Nevertheless, this opportunity helped me to get out of my comfort zone and eventually helped me to grow and discover these valuable learnings:
- The experience of working on different product areas allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of tiket.com’s products and the context within them. I became more aware of what tiket.com offers in a product, where is our product direction, and what is the OKR of each product.
- Working on different teams with different colleagues and stakeholders helped me to build connections with more people. At first, I found it hard to connect with people because I work remotely most of the time. However, tiket design provides a fun environment where we usually take time to have fun with each other and have team-building activities (online or on-site). We have quite a lot of outings or having dinner together. I feel grateful that the interactions with each one of them have taught me a lot, professionally and personally.
Apart from the “changing-team” experience, I learned a lot because tiket design environment offers a wide range of learning opportunities. We can always learn what we want outside of our regular jobs. There are a lot of learning activities, such as reading sessions or sharing sessions. Besides, mentors and managers are very supportive of the growth of their mentees. They encourage me to find what I want to learn and improve. They challenged me.
One of the challenges that I took was publishing this article. Writing has always been something I wanted to try because I know writing can help us think structurally and I enjoy sharing what I know with others who can benefit from it as well. However, the idea of writing or sharing anything about myself with the public was not comfortable for me initially. Therefore, my mentor challenged and encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone and publish this article. I learned a lot from the process of writing my very first article.
Epilogue
Being a product design intern at tiket.com has helped me to grow as a better product designer and as a better person in general. In summary, here are some of the valuable learnings I’ve discovered throughout my internship:
- Product design is not the same as UI/UX design
- Understanding the design process
- Communication is a crucial skill
- Always make sure to have valid reasons behind our design
- Embrace mistakes as part of the learning process
- Being comfortable with getting out of my comfort zone in order to grow
A year has passed in the blink of an eye, ending my internship journey. I thank God for this memorable internship experience.
As my internship comes to an end, I’m thankful that the team had faith in me and offered me the opportunity to join tiket.com as a full-time employee, allowing me to keep learning and contributing. I’ve recognized that there’s ample space for me to grow and improve, so I’m eagerly looking forward to expanding my knowledge on this exciting new path!
I am also forever grateful to my mentors. managers, and colleagues who have been very supportive and helpful to me: Kak Adit, Kak Arta, Kak Eveline, Kak Fadhil, Kak Faisal, Kak Fawwazy, Kak Jessica, Kak Joan, and all other colleagues who cross paths with me.
Lastly, a special thanks to Kak Alvin Niza, the mentor who always supports, encourages, and challenges me to grow! I am amazed by his willingness to mentor juniors and I learned a lot from him, especially about visual design and communication skills.
That’s the end of this article. Thank you for reading! Feel free to hit me up to ask or give your opinion about anything on LinkedIn 👋
