Hackathon Portal
3 months
UI/UX Designer
1 Designer, 3 Engineers
Project Overview
An end-to-end event management platform tailored specifically for hosting large-scale hackathons and innovation challenges.
Business Background
The client, a major tech community organizer, was running 50+ hackathons a year using a chaotic mix of Google Forms, Slack, and Excel, leading to administrative nightmares and poor participant experiences.
The Problem
Managing team formations, project submissions, and live judging for 5,000+ participants manually was prone to errors, bias, and delays.
Objectives
- Automate the team formation and submission process
- Digitize the judging and scoring rubric
- Provide a central hub for all event communications
Success Metrics
- ↓ 80% reduction in administrative workload
- Host 5,000+ participants smoothly
- Achieve 100% automated judging flow
The Challenge
Designing a dual-sided platform that needs to be "hype" and engaging for developers, while being rigidly structured and data-heavy for organizers and judges.
Discovery & Research
Kickoff & Audit
Interviewed previous hackathon organizers and past participants to map the 48-hour event lifecycle.
Reviewed the client's previous workflow, identifying the "Friday Night Team Building" phase as the highest friction point.
Key Pain Points
- Solo developers struggled to find teams.
- Participants frequently missed announcements lost in noisy Slack channels.
- Judges were overwhelmed by spreadsheets, leading to rushed or biased scoring.
Opportunities
- Create a "Tinder for Developers" team matching interface.
- Implement a centralized announcement timeline.
- Design a streamlined, rubric-based digital scorecard for judges.
Research Methodology
Surveys to 200 past participants. Prototype testing with 5 potential judges.
Key Insights:
Personas & Journey
Sam, Frontend Developer
Participant
Goals
- • Find a backend dev to team up with
- • Win the UI/UX prize
Behaviors
Highly competitive, values aesthetics and smooth UI.
Dr. Chen, Engineering VP
Judge
Goals
- • Evaluate 30 projects fairly in 2 hours
- • Identify recruitment targets
Behaviors
Time-poor. Needs everything on a single screen.
User Journey Shift
Before
Register via Form -> Find team on Slack -> Submit via email -> Judge uses Excel -> Wait hours for results.
After
Register in app -> Match with team via UI -> Submit via portal -> Judge scores in-app -> Instant live leaderboard.
Design Execution
UI Exploration
Typography: Space Grotesk for a "tech/hacker" aesthetic combined with Inter for readability.
Colors: Dark Mode by default. Neon Cyan and Magenta accents to emulate a cyberpunk/hacker vibe, appealing to the target demographic.
Design System Components
Final Design Execution
A high-fidelity look at the final polished interfaces, components, and key interactions that were successfully handed off to engineering.
Final Outcome & Impact
The portal completely modernized the client's event operations, creating a scalable product that could be white-labeled for other organizations.
Key Learnings
- •Designing a submission form that is completely idiot-proof for developers who have been awake for 48 hours.
Future Improvements
- •Integrate GitHub API to automatically pull commit activity as a metric for judging.