Wish Hosts a Design Workshop
Students get a glimpse of our design process through an immersive experience
Here at Wish, design is essential to our business. Designers are encouraged to share inventive ideas and pursue them from concept to completion. As discussed in our last post, employees at Wish make a huge impact right from the start. Designers, analysts, engineers, interns — all have a voice at the company.
Bringing an Idea to Life
We love opportunities to encourage excitement about design. So, when I was approached by the design club¹ from my alma mater² about a potential visit to Wish headquarters, I wanted to make it happen.
The student-run design club hosts an annual trip to the Bay Area to tour companies and meet with design leaders. These visits were incredibly impactful to me as a student — they gave me a peek into what working in the industry was like, and helped me better envision what life could look like as a designer in tech. I wanted to do my best to provide a similar experience for these students.
In addition to lunch and an office tour, I thought it would be engaging for the students to participate in a design workshop. Although I’m a new graduate and have been at the company for less than a year, Wish was open and receptive to my suggestion. Within two months of my initial ask, the design workshop came to life with the help of the entire team. Wish didn’t hesitate to give me the resources and support that I needed, and entrusted me with the responsibility to lead and plan the entire workshop.
The Design Workshop
We divided the 12 university students into groups, each facilitated by a designer on our team. Then, we presented them with a design challenge. From there, groups brainstormed ideas and produced high-level design solutions. Mid-challenge, each group was presented with a different “plot twist.” This was an unusual roadblock to the challenge that forced them to think outside the box and design creative solutions to the problem. The plot twist forced groups to pivot from their initial idea — much like working designers have to do in the real world.
After the students presented their solutions, we went through a real-life feature critique session with the design team at Wish. Additionally, the students were treated to a presentation by a current Wish designer about her career journey. She also discussed how Wish pairs user feedback and data with creative solutions to inspire design.
It was an energizing, rewarding experience to plan this design workshop. I couldn’t have done it alone — I was supported by the entire Wish design team, our wonderful recruiting team, and of course, the talented university students who took part.
We spoke to some of the students about their experience, and here is what they had to say:
Aman
3rd Year University Student
Majors: Cognitive Science — Human Computer Interaction
“It was cool for me to see alumni from my school and my organization who are in industry applying things they learned in school, and backing up the things my club teaches. It showed me that what I am learning is useful.
[The design workshop] let us leave the school bubble and validate our knowledge. I saw that although the five designers at the workshop had wildly different backgrounds, we could all agree on the source of truth for design — the design process. When you’re learning the process in school, you’re not really sure if it’s just how your school does design, or if it is widely applicable. I was able to see that the process works at Wish, and it got rid of any doubts I may have had.”
Kai-Chin
3rd Year University Student
Majors: Cognitive Science — Human Computer Interaction, Economics
“Lorna’s critique was very eye-opening. I got to see a designer’s perspective, which is really what I wanted to learn about when I came to Wish. It was different than other talks that I’ve heard. It was interesting how they do a lot and move quickly. She talked about innovations they attempted to introduce. While they didn’t work, they still went through the design process to test it out. We hear in school about failing quickly and failing often so that you can get to the success point faster, and Wish provided real-life understanding of that.
When we gave feedback during the critique session, Lorna took a lot of time to listen to what each of us had to recommend and broke down what was or wasn’t feasible, what users would or wouldn’t like, how it would work out financially, etc. That was a cool, theory-put-into-practice moment. We learned about how you would negotiate a feature and implement it.”
Kaila
3rd Year University Student
Major: Cognitive Science — Human Computer Interaction
Minors: Marketing, Design
“Before coming to Wish, I knew that it was an e-commerce company, but I didn’t really know about the company culture or how design fits in. It was interesting for me to dive deep into how Wish does design and critiques. It was extremely interesting and insightful to learn about how Wish is unique in the fact that Wish designers are involved at all levels of the product cycle.
I appreciated that Wish is user-centric, from a design perspective. They are constantly making sure that users are engaged. They dynamically change their app to meet different market needs, business needs, trends, etc. They are flexible and adjust to meet user needs that span internationally.”
We are so grateful for the opportunity to show university students what design at Wish is all about. We hope that this experience will be invaluable to them in the years to come.
Did this workshop sound interesting to you? If your group is interested in participating in a similar design workshop, feel free to send an inquiry to design@wish.com. Another great way to get involved is to check out our new grad jobs and internships — view all current openings here.
- Special thanks to Vincent Liaw from Design at UCSD for making the initial ask.
- The University of California, San Diego, Design at UCSD and The Design Lab are not affiliated with Wish.
