Hack the North – Shaping the project submission experience for 1,600 hackers
Hack the North is Canada's largest hackathon and one of the largest in the world. I was a product designer for the 2021 event and moved to sponsorship in 2022. Then, I led the sponsorship team in 2023, bringing the event back from the brink of bankruptcy in the worst economic conditions tech has seen.
In 2021, the event was held hybrid in-person/virtual – to accommodate, I designed the project submission tool which processed over 450 projects.
Context
During the fully virtual 2020 event, the project submission experience was handled by building a Discord bot. it was the quickest solution the platform team could implement in the limited time available given the sudden transition due to COVID.
Problem
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Hackers didn't understand how to submit their projects by talking with the bot. Additionally, when it came to judging, the team was lacking necessary data because hackers weren't told what to submit.
Solution & Key Design Decisions
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Guiding principle: the experience of submitting a project is the highest, most positive point in the hackathon for hackers!
1. Form design
By making it clear what inputs were required, it was guaranteed that our team was able to properly coordinate judging logistics, and submitting a form is much more familiar to hackers than submitting via a chatbot.
Visually, this form could've been improved by combining the headings of each team member’s respective Discord and email input to create stronger visual parity between related inputs.
2. Error states
Depending on the type of error, there would have to be a different visual indicator letting the hacker know SPECIFICALLY what’s wrong – something the Discord bot couldn’t do!
3. Post-submission experience
As designers, it's our job to care about the holistic experience, not just at one point in time. Allowing them to edit their submissions in case they made mistakes and providing quick access and clarity on their judging information was vital in ensuring hackers could be at ease with their submission.
Learnings
Always understand the ripple effects of your decisions
Design decisions have costs – it's important to communnicate your decisions to let others know about the impacts or identify gaps in your thinking.
Recognize your limits
Self awareness is important, especially knowing when you're burnt out – life happens and any good team should be able to adapt to accommodate for shit that happens.
Have fun :)
At the end of the day, Hack the North is a student-run org. We're all kids trying to figure life out, so embrace the ability to be dumb college students and have fun!
