Welcome to "Creative Matchup"
presented by Adobe,
where designers go head-to-head
in an all-out creative battle.
Your challenge today is to design and prototype
a new feature for a mobile app in under four hours
using Adobe XD.
Each designer must use the client's existing branding
and color palette to create a feature
that will impress the judges
and satisfy the client.
Our competitors today are:
All right, guys, are you ready to meet your client?
- Yeah! - Yes!
My name is Amulya Kunati.
I am Girls Who Code teacher.
Girls Who Code is a national non-profit organization
that is working towards closing gender gap in the tech industry
by equipping girls with the computing skills they'll need
to pursue the 21st century job opportunities.
What we're looking for today is a new profile experience
for our mobile app,
Girls Who Code Loop.
We want our sisterhood to be able to share
more of their experience and their personality
in their profile so they can use it to help them
apply to college or future jobs.
Are you guys ready to get started?
Well, let's put four hours on the clock
and the time starts now!
Four hours is a realistic time frame
for me to get through unread Slack messages.
I feel a little nervous
and at the same time I feel really excited
and I feel really up to the challenge.
Four hours is a short window of time,
but also, I don't know if I've ever designed,
like, four hours straight before.
So, I mean, maybe I'll get more done than I thought.
While everyone's getting to work,
let's meet our first design competitor.
My name is Jordan Smith
and I'm a product designer at Khan Academy.
I'm really interested in fostering collaboration
and community.
I helped found a networking event
for women in tech called Ladies' Night.
One of the things we established from the very beginning
was that we were not competing
with other women-based organizations,
that there was more than enough need for all of us there.
So I wholly identify with Girls Who Code.
Let's meet our second design competitor.
My name's George Kedenburg.
I'm a product designer and I work at Facebook.
So, for me, Girls Who Code is really important.
Working with a diverse team of people at my day job is key.
Having more interesting and different and diverse people
on a team means that they're gonna bring
their own perspectives and their own ideas to the table
that I probably won't think of
because I have a very specific view of the world,
and they have a completely different view,
and the more views you can get into the room, I think,
the better the outcome is.
And the third design competitor...
Uh, I'm Jeany Ngo of House Ngo, first of her name,
the protector of the pizza, the unstarved,
Khaleesi of the couch,
breaker of phones,
uh, mother of designs,
and I'm an experience designer at Airbnb.
I have a much longer version of that, I'll say.
I think Girls Who Code is such a great cause
because I didn't work in tech,
and I--that was always something I wanted to do,
but was never a path that was given to me,
and I feel like Girls Who Code gives opportunity for girls
in a safe space to be who we are and learn--
like, gives them the resources to learn these things, so I--
I--I'm really excited about it.
Oh, my gosh.
Jeany and that whole Khaleesi thing--
I'm wearing a dress, but scared the pants off me.
Uh...
What's up, Jordan? Okay.
How's it going so far?
Going pretty smooth.
You know, XD's working great so far.
Adobe XD is a design and prototyping tool.
I use it currently on various projects.
You know, it's really convenient for me to, like,
quickly make things to just show to my coworkers
and prove my concept really quickly.
Adobe XD is a great tool for designing
any sort of digital experience,
whether it's mobile or on the web
or anything that you kind of need to see on a screen.
Adobe XD has quite a few features that do streamline
a lot of your process.
So things like the asset panel, as well as symbols
and the repeat grid, and being able to, like,
pop things into--like pop images into the repeat grid,
like, creates components so fast.
Stop the clock!
Everybody, put your hands in the air
and off your computers.
You all have been working very hard
and we know that you're well underway into your projects,
but it wouldn't be a "Creative Matchup"
if we didn't mix it up a little bit.
Now the client has requested to add a new feature to the app.
They would like this feature to allow girls
to find and connect with other girls who code
all over the world.
We're gonna give you 30 minutes to accomplish this goal,
and one of you will be eliminated
based on your design.
Four hours is already a ridiculous amount of time;
30 minutes is an even more ridiculous amount of time.
If I wasn't nervous before, I'm definitely nervous now.
And your time starts now!
This is off to a bad start.
Just kill me by dragon already!
30 minutes is really quick.
It's gonna be dirty, not pretty.
I just kind of went with the most straightforward idea
that came to mind--
big map, list of people.
At the heart of the mini-challenge,
I want to create a way for women
to connect with one another
that isn't just through social media icons
or an inbox.
Oh! Just 15 minutes left.
Keep it going!
I totally have no idea what I'm going to do.
I'm using pre-existing UI a lot
to help me get as many screens prototyped as possible.
All you really can do is a very straightforward concept.
What's the most basic thing that we could make right now
and get out and get data back from?
I don't know if I have, uh, enough stuff on the board,
and now, uh, I'm panicking.
Two minutes, designers!
Just two minutes left!
If I don't make it through this mini-challenge, it's gonna suck.
I'm super-panicking.
I don't know if I can finish this in time.
Everything is just a mess.
Five, four,
three, two, one!
All right, everyone, stop the clock.
Hands off your computers.
Whoo! Now, I know that wasn't easy,
but sometimes we just need things when we need them.
Now let's meet the judges and see what you all created.
Our judges today are:
I'm really confident about the idea I came up with.
I think it's at the heart of what Girls Who Code
would want to do.
So one of the things I integrated was the ability
to save user profiles.
And then we have, like, this little tag that says, like,
"This person's interested in mentoring."
I, personally, love, you know, talking to other women
and being able to be vulnerable and show your true self,
and be a little less formal.
Um, so I invented a little system called Claps,
uh, where other women can give praise to one another.
And when a user selects it, they're able to send a message
or send a clap, or they can send a video message.
So I wanted to bring, like, a Snapchat, Instagram story-like
communication method to it.
Cool. I really like the fact that you're really aware
of, like, UX trends and the fab is a big one,
and it helps the user move faster.
Good job.
I really like the "available to mentor" icon.
Mentorship is really important for girls,
especially for Girls Who Code, so I really like it.
I'm not sure if 30 minutes is fair enough to judge someone
on their work, especially their design work.
I felt like I couldn't even get my thoughts down on paper
and I--like, I just started to come up with, um,
different entry points into connecting with people from here
and right now when you click on them, nothing happens.
Like, it's not a clickable state in the app.
And I was thinking you can go into members
and take a look at the list of people who are in this.
Uh, I also thought about a secondary way.
And so what I did was add a search button.
If you go to search, and then it would automatically generate,
um, results.
To be honest, I feel like,
um, I didn't put as much as I wanted to here,
but I tried my best.
What I like about it a lot is how simple,
you know, it is.
You know where you're going and what you're doing.
You got in your head a little bit
and your inclination to go to the connectivity,
um, you couldn't really run with that as strong as you wanted to.
I'm happy with what I presented to the judges.
So I basically-- I took "Saved" away,
um, and replaced that with "Connect,"
which I think is a super important feature
that deserves kind of top level nav real estate there.
Um, so yeah, so you just tap into Connect here
and it takes you into kind of like a local view.
You can see who's nearby and who's around you,
which I think is probably the most important thing right now
is if you're coming in here to connect with people,
it would be great to actually be able to meet those people.
And if you're really looking for someone specific,
you can come in here and filter,
and that gives you some-- you know, some basic options
on how far away these people are,
what programming languages they're proficient in,
and the join date-- so basically all the stuff
that you're kind of highlighting there.
So starting quick and small and kind of scoped in
is a good place to, uh, to kind of learn
what people really want in this space.
Yeah, I really like the fact that you took the challenge
very seriously.
It's really easy for girls to connect.
I really like your approach.
I love this Connect feature
where you can connect with the coder in person.
That's really good.
Walking up to the judges, I feel pretty good.
I'm really confident about the idea I came up with.
So know that we are fully aware
that 30 minutes is not a lot of time.
All the projects, we thought,
were fantastic,
but the clock did work against you
and two of you did shine over the others.
The person that we have to eliminate is...
Join us next time to see who the judges choose
and for more "Creative Matchup."