Divami Design Hackathon

In the days leading up to the Divami Design Hackathon, I truly did not know what to expect from the experience. I was imagining pictures of us turning into zombies because it was announced that it was a 24 hr hackathon. I was not sure if we would really be able to solve the problem and let alone go from research to UI screens in 24 hours!!!

Now that I am on the other side of it, I can say for certain that it was an amazing rollercoaster ride. Here is how it all started…

At Divami, we are all about crafting memorable experiences while humanizing technology– for the stakeholders, for our clients, and the end-user.

Ensuring this, the Design leads at Divami created teams based on the designer’s expertise and then assigned a random problem statement to all of us. We went ahead and named our team ‘The Space(bar) Cowboys’ who fly through the digital land of pixels. Our team consisted of 3 designers, 1 UI Designer, 1 UX Designer, and 1 UX UI Designer.

The topics were quite intriguing and my mind is still itching to know how I would have solveed the other problem statements (even 1 week after the hackathon). We were expected to design the screens of 2 major workflows of the users, and also follow the UX research process to ensure that the problem of the user is actually solved and that the assumptions made are logical.

Our topic was to design a platform to help financial managers and CFOs to log, monitor, and manage cash flows for their companies. We immediately understood that this was a Horizontal B2B Saas platform that could be implemented across multiple domains, not only the one mentioned in the problem statement. With this assumption in mind, we got started.

First, we really had to nail down a strategy to make sure we are all not asleep in the second half of the hackathon. So we broke down our tasks, and while the UI designer set up the styling and approach for the platform the UX designers started on the domain research and understanding of the underlying concepts of cash flows. As we had discussions the UI designer was also involved to give him a sense of the users of the platform, so that he can nuance the designs accordingly.

To do the research process, we interviewed the finance manager of Divami to understand the Cash Flow concept and process and the pain points he faces on a routine basis. Based on this understanding, we also spoke to other secondary people who are involved in the finance side that can give us insights into the workings of the platform from a secondary observer’s point of view. This also gave us some insights which we could not get from the primary user.

Following the research, we brainstormed some ideas for features, identified the personas, and then made multiple iterations of wireframes. This was the most time-consuming aspect as we had to make multiple iterations of the interactions to ensure that our design was still catering to and solving the user’s needs. Simultaneously we followed an agile process where the UI Designer worked on the UI screens for the wireframes that are finalized.

In total, we delivered three major UI screens, a dashboard, a listing page for cashflows, and a canvas view for the cash flows. We proposed AI-based features for the platform where it would suggest ideal positions for specific invoices to be cashed to ensure that all the expenses are made on time without any major impacts.

Apart from the design challenges, there were some notable moments that I want to cherish. First is staying up all night with a couple of red bulls, only to crash in the morning for a couple of hours due to sheer tiredness. The constant motivation and support provided by the leads who were awake with us all night. The variety of snacks and drinks we had to fuel our minds and bodies. And last but not least the excitement and anxiety of being able to submit the deliverables on time. I even loved the last part where all teams presented their projects.

We are still waiting on the results of this hackathon. May the best team win!

Update- The Spacebar Cowboys (i.e, our team) won. Here is the official announcement.