Learnings from my remote UX Design Internship at Samsung Research
Early in March 2021, I was delighted to receive this email from Samsung Research Institute - Bangalore, the largest R&D Center outside of South Korea and a key innovation hub in the Samsung group. I would be joining the Visual Experience team as a UX Design Intern. I was informed that my Internship for the next 6 months would be entirely remote due to the pandemic; this was a management decision taken to ensure everyone’s safety and well-being.
It was an interesting experience, doing a virtual Internship. As expected, I learned a lot — about the field, about Samsung, about remote work, and, more generally about being a successful intern.
During my Internship, I worked as a User Interface and Motion Designer, but I will not be disclosing the project I worked on, or what I designed due to confidentiality and respect for the company and my team. I will rather, be focusing on what I learnt.
This brings me to my first learning which was;
1. The Importance of a clean and tidy workspace
If you’re not used to working at home, it can take some effort to convert a corner of your room into a working space. I found that when my workspace was clean and organised, I was a lot more productive compared to when it wasn’t. Working from home taught me to have a specific day of the week (mine was Saturday) where I would clean my entire room and workspace in preparation for the upcoming work week. It was also an important learning to be organised with work and schedule any meetings or presentations in my planner, so I could plan ahead.
2. Communication is key, and IT Professionals are your best friends!
Working remotely involved facing many technical issues. It taught me about the importance of communication, especially with the IT team, and how to get things done. It also involved me learning the technical terms used when trying to communicate what was wrong to another person when they were not physically present next to me.
3. User-centred Design process
Studying UX key flows and seeing them come to life in the UI helped me really understand the workflow between UX and UI designers, and how even though they are different roles, how interconnected they are. So even as a UX designer in the project I worked on, my mentor often asked me to think of the reasoning and user needs, wants, or motivations before making a design decision.
4. Ask yourself “Why?”
In design school, we were often used to creating a product and then justifying the reasoning behind why certain decisions were made. At SRI-B, I was encouraged to ask myself “Why?” throughout the design process. I learnt that in the real world it’s not about defending your decisions, but rather making sound decisions based on user research and technical considerations.
5. Best Practices for Designer-Developer Handoff
This was my first time working alongside a team of designers and developers, and I learnt that the designer has a 100% responsibility to deliver accurate information and any error can affect the product, the developer’s time and create rework. I learnt about the best practices for design handoff along with how to export the JSON code from After Effects for the Motion Designs I created. I got to understand the process of creating a guide for a developer so they would know how to execute the design in the most efficient way possible. It also taught me how teams bring developers into the design process early, encourage regular discussions, and incorporate the developers’ ideas into brainstorming and prototyping sessions.
“If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.” — Charles Kettering
6. Making use of Ideation Frameworks
Design thinking has long been considered the holy grail of innovation and the remedy to stagnation. This was my first time making use of such a method of Design Thinking, and my mentor suggested that I read Thinker Toys, which is a book by Michael Michalkothat talks about and explains various ideation frameworks that can be used during brainstorming.
I learnt how to make use of frameworks like Mashup, False Faces, SCAMPER and Alternate Uses, which helped me to consider ideas that may seem unusual at first, yet could lead to exciting innovation.
“Be fearless and explore- the more you enjoy, the better the results!” — a quote from my mentor which helped me be more confident with my Design skills.
7. Being Intentional
I learnt to be more thoughtful and intentional with anything I designed, whether it was the kind of photos I was using in the design or the copy. I also got to try my hand at UX Writing, which was something I really enjoyed, as I was interested in creative writing when I was in school.
8. Good design is collaborative
This was one of my beliefs from the very beginning of becoming a designer, but seeing it in practice in one of the largest R&D Centers was a great learning experience. I got to attend meetings across teams such as Design, Development and Product Management, and learn how any team needs to collaborate to work successfully. No matter your discipline, I believe we get better each day as individuals by engaging in challenging conversations with each other. This, in turn, creates a much stronger, more powerful team.
9. Being proactive; there are no stupid questions!
In a period of 6 months, I participated in lots of creative sessions. I joined brainstorms, sketched scenarios and made prototypes on a daily basis. I organized brainstorming sessions with other Interns which was super fun and helped me feel connected! I also invited team members to reflect on my work, so everyone would be aligned with the vision they had for the project. I am super thankful to everyone I got to work with and learn from, especially my mentor, who became an amazing friend and guide.
10. Enjoy work, and enjoy play!
Throughout the Internship, there were regular team catchups where we would hang out and talk about how our days were, or about anything we found interesting in the world of design, or life in general. In the beginning, I did not expect to be part of such team hangouts, but I’m really glad I got to meet the team virtually and connect with them on a more personal level.
Reflecting on the past 6 months…
Looking back, I have grown so much as a designer, and even as a person. The way I approach design problems is very different from when I first started the Internship. I am grateful to SRI-B for this wonderful learning opportunity, along with the entire Visual Experience team for their guidance.
Special thanks to my mentor, Zunaira Naqvi, my manager Debayan Mukherjee, and my guide, Swadha Jaiswal for their feedback and guidance throughout the duration of my Internship.
