Bits of Good: Design Bootcamp
Leading a free 12-week course teaching Georgia Tech students the fundamentals of ux research and design
Timeframe
2021-2022 academic year
2021-2022 academic year
What
12 week course with weekly lectures and homework, a semester-long case study project, and interactive workshops.
12 week course with weekly lectures and homework, a semester-long case study project, and interactive workshops.
Co-instructors
Simon Zhang (Spring ‘22)
Michelle Hou (Spring ‘22)
Kimberly Do (Fall ‘21)
Mira Dhingra (Fall ‘21)
Simon Zhang (Spring ‘22)
Michelle Hou (Spring ‘22)
Kimberly Do (Fall ‘21)
Mira Dhingra (Fall ‘21)
Skills used/acquired
Leadership
Collaboration
Visual Design
Storytelling / Presenting
Leadership
Collaboration
Visual Design
Storytelling / Presenting
Bits of Good, a Georgia Tech organization that connects student volunteers with non-profits to build web apps, was struggling with a lack of students trained in product design.
What is Bits of Good?
Bits of Good is a student run organization at Georgia Tech (GT’s chapter of the national Hack4Impact organization) that educates and connects students with local-nonprofits to create powerful web apps.
After a year working as a product designer for Bits of Good, I noticed two problems:
1.) Bits of Good lacked a consistent pipeline of students skilled in product design
2.) Many of my fellow Georgia Tech students also wanted to become product designers but lacked formal UX design classes and resources.
To help bridge this skill-gap, Mira, Kimberly, and I volunteered to lead a bootcamp covering the fundamentals of user research and design. The Design Bootcamp trains and equips students to later join Bits of Good as Product Designers where they can use design to serve non-profits✨
💡 Our goal was to facilitate a pipeline of students equipped with design skills from the bootcamp into becoming Product Designers to work on Bits of Good’s non-profit projects.
View the syllabus
1.) Bits of Good lacked a consistent pipeline of students skilled in product design
2.) Many of my fellow Georgia Tech students also wanted to become product designers but lacked formal UX design classes and resources.
To help bridge this skill-gap, Mira, Kimberly, and I volunteered to lead a bootcamp covering the fundamentals of user research and design. The Design Bootcamp trains and equips students to later join Bits of Good as Product Designers where they can use design to serve non-profits✨
💡 Our goal was to facilitate a pipeline of students equipped with design skills from the bootcamp into becoming Product Designers to work on Bits of Good’s non-profit projects.
View the syllabus
IMPACT
Graduated over 40 students from the bootcamp and created a pipeline for training and securing product designers to volunteer for Bits of Good’s non-profit projects.
I am passionate about breaking down barriers to design education and building community—as a Design Bootcamp Instructor, I was able to merge both of these passions! Additionally, my impact included:
- Delivering lectures and interactive workshops
- Providing feedback and critique on students’ work
- Communicating with execs and advocating for my students
- Organizing class bonding events (boba🧋 + protfolio jams)
- Facilitating project showcases to increase students' visibility
🔁 Improving semester over semester
Before
⏰ Last minute projects
Several students waited until the last few days of the bootcamp to do the bulk of their semester-long case study project work.
The case study required user research, low-fi design, usability testing, and a final high-fi design...none of which could be effecitively rushed into 2-3 days of work.
After
✅ Multiple project check-ins
This set-up check points to keep students on track, accountable, and completing their projects in a timely manor.
Before
🗣 Lecture-heavy classes
A piece of feedback we recieved from students during the first semester was that many of our bootcamp sessions were too lecture heavy.
After a long day of Georgia Tech classes, students are too fatigued to stay engaged for another 2-hour bootcamp lecture in the evenings.
After
✅ Engaging interactive compontents
Incorporating the student feedback into my semester planning, I decided to cap bootcamp sessions at 30 minutes of lecture time and to fill the rest of the time with critiques and hands-on activities.
This intiative proved to be a huge success in increasing student engagement and allowing students to practice course concepts while recieving guidance from instructors.
Before
💬 Scattered communication
Between multiple Slack channels & DMs, Notion pages, Figma, and Bluejeans video calls, students expressed being overwhelmed about where to look for information about about bootcamp sessions, events, projects, and homework.
After
✅ Course hub
The implementation of the Bootcamp Hub was a success and has been replicated in newer additions of the bootcamp.