Duration
8 weeks, Jun - July 2018
My Role
UI/UX designer
Modana Indonesia
During Summer 2018, I had the pleasure of working at a fintech startup in Jakarta, Indonesia called Modana.
When I arrived at Modana, I was only the 5th person hired. We had a really close knit team, and since everything was still in the process of getting figured out, I had a lot of opportunity to explore during this internship. My main role was a UX designer, and my main task for the summer was to create a high-fidelity prototype of their website.
Unfortunately, I am unable to share specific details about my internship publicly. Feel free to contact me to learn more or the password to the project overview found below!
What I learned
Although my time with Modana was short, I learned 3 main things:
Feedback is key
During my internship, feedback from our users caused us to re-evaluate our approach to the information architecture of our app. We had failed to take into account some technical limitations, and as a result, we had to completely redesign some parts of the app. I’m glad that we were able to catch the issue before our app went live, but getting feedback more frequently could have prevented a lot of work.
Learn how to deal with frustration
As mentioned previously, user feedback is essential, but may cause you a lot of revisions. While frustrating, I learned that it is important to keep users in mind. These revisions are done for a reason, and the end result will be better despite the frustration it caused.
Be able to communicate and speak to the business side of design
One of the biggest things I learned during this internship is how to work with more business-minded stakeholders. As a designer, my goals may conflict with business goals. However, I learned how to better communicate the business side of design, and appeal to stakeholders that may not have the same goals as I do. This lesson has helped me appeal to stakeholders to this day.
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to intern with Modana. Especially having joined their team so early in my journey as a UX designer, the lessons I learned from this internship have followed me as I have grown. Thank you to Vijay and Marcio for mentoring me through my internship.
Thank you to the Modana team!