Goal

The Design Lead is responsible for supporting and improving the design facet of Hack4Impact. Naturally, doing this will support part of the product-side of the org as well.

One of the reasons why there has been a push for establishing this role is because of the challenges associated with the lack of a product- or design-oriented Co-Director in the upcoming semester. However, we have seen a need for further supporting designers for the past few semesters and see this role being long-term. A few current pain points include designers feeling a lack of support and designers feeling isolated from the rest of the org and even a lack of respect.

Requirements

• Product Designers with at least 1 semester of experience in the org or Product Managers who were previously Product Designers will be able to apply to this role. In the future, we may shift the requirement to 1-2 semesters as a Product Designer or as a Product Designer and then another role.
• The expected time commitment for the role will be 3-5 additional hours/week on average, on top of being a Product Designer (preferable) or Product Manager in the org.

Responsibilities

The list below, in no particular order, encompasses an overview of the responsibilities this position has — it does not limit what you can do. If you see blind spots or areas in the org where you believe you can bring value to and improve, we would love to work together and bring your ideas to life! You are encouraged to understand the current state of the org (internal and external), find areas of improvements, prioritize, plan, and execute.

• Evaluating the state of design in the org and exploring how to improve design and design experiences on project teams and more broadly in the org (e.g. 2 designers per team, pairing designers on 2 different teams to brainstorm together at the beginning of the semester). This will require frequent conversations with and observations of designers and all those who interface with designers on project teams.
• Rehauling internal design documentation and consolidating core documentation (e.g. how a PM should interface with the designers and how the designers should work with one another).
  • Note: Supporting those outside of the org should be low priority in the context of all other goals here. There are advantages to sharing some documentation to the broader UIUC design community and other Hack4Impact chapters, but this should be done carefully considering the content on each document that is being shared.
• Leading designer recruitment. The Design Lead should be focused on refactoring the design take-home challenge if someone is reapplying to the role facilitating design delibs, etc.
• Onboarding new designers. (e.g. through organizing a meeting with a small group of current and previous Product Designers and Product Managers. It would likely be helpful to have previous designers share their learnings and how they go about their design process in Hack4Impact. Topics of conversation can be user research, user testing, collaboration with other designers, PM, and engineering, design to engineering handoff, etc.).
  • Note: Onboarding format can be organized as seen fit (e.g. multiple mini workshops vs. roundtable-style discussion or both).
• Running design critique and iterating to improve the process (e.g. pivoting to splitting off into two groups of two teams), taking feedback from members and drawing external inspiration.
• Increasing engagement with the design community leading up to recruitment and collaborating with other RSOs (e.g. design-oriented ones like Design Innovation) that are more well-known in the design space to host events (e.g. designathon)
• Organizing designer bonding throughout the semester to foster a strong design community. Some of these bondings can also include previous Product Designers and/or Product Managers, but most of them should be smaller and more tight-knit. Designers should feel comfortable enough with being vulnerable with the work that they share and in giving others feedback. The private semester design channel should be leveraged as well.
• Supporting designers who are interested in pursuing design as a career (e.g. organizing a talk with a current designer in industry from a sponsor company, portfolio feedback session).

Other Notes

• The External Director and committee should be handling the outreach and other relevant aspects of the responsibilities highlighted above. These should not fall under the role of the Design Lead, who should make sure that their focus is always centered around supporting design.
• Having a design committee would be overkill, but the Design Lead should leverage any support from members who are interested in helping out. However, they should be weary of how many eyes are seeing things before they happen because it can slow down processes. The rule of thumb is to validate ideas and what is being done, but make sure that things are moving fast. The Design Lead should not be afraid to ask someone to push something to later or scratch something. They are the central point of contact for anything design in the org.