Empowering Shared Expression for 100+ UCSD Designers From 0-1
Role
Design Lead
Timeline
Feb - Apr 2025 10 weeks
Team
1 PM (me!) 3 Designers 4 Developers
Skills
Systems Design User-generated Content Prototyping
Try it out at df25.ucsddesign.co and have some fun!
TL;DR
I worked to challenge event website conventions by designing for community involvement.
I've made my fair share of event websites as the Design Co at UCSD's Creative Director. But for the 2025 website for Design Frontiers, our annual design-a-thon, I wanted to take things further and make the site itself an experience - a living showcase of our community's collective creativity and presence. Over weeks, my team and I explored and built this experience from the ground up, battling scope creep and pioneering a unique information architecture. In time for the event's unveiling, we shipped a delightful, personalized canvas of user-generated CTA cards.
Get the gist of Design Frontiers, Design Co's annual design-a-thon, on a CTA card. Enter it to view more details.
Expanded cards maintain the style of their bite-sized counterparts.
Create and save up to 3 cards, each with a fun design!
Make your best work with a plethora of customization options, as well as a straightforward contrast checker.
Highlights
Established a novel information architecture from the ground up
Because this was a completely new experience, I had to advocate and map out the flow and logic from scratch. Visual flows and prototypes aided in this process.
Shipped 3 customization features that maximized user retention
Over the course of the website being launched, I kept seeing more cards get created, even from those not signing up. The experience was more engaging for our community: users would come back to the site to create and view cards.
Crafted a deliberate design system with detailed handoff to developers
This project was an incredible opportunity to improve Design Co's creative team organization. We segmented features, flows, and components, and ensured devs knew what was experimental and what were the sources of truth for production.
Understanding the Scope
As I got started, I worried: "Is it even possible to allow user-influenced content with minimal moderation?"
We explored wild ideas - each concept was exciting, but came with technical and practical hurdles.
We wanted users to express themselves, but without sacrificing quality or visual polish. We explored many ideas: live site interactions visible to all, a collaborative design canvas where drawings transformed into assets, and customizable components that users could build within the site. Each concept was exciting but came with technical and practical hurdles.
The A-ha moment
With interactive prototypes, I was able to sell the idea of a user-generated CTA card experience to my team.
Solution Space
User-Generated CTA Cards
Compact, expressive modules that could lead visitors to detailed event info while maintaining quality and visual hierarchy.
Flexible Customization
Allowing users to express themselves within defined boundaries that preserve the overall site experience and quality.
Performance-Optimized Expansion
Creating an expansive feel through infinite scrolling while carefully balancing repetition and performance considerations.
Quality Control Challenges
How much customization should extend to event details?
We needed to balance user expression with maintaining quality and accessibility, especially with so many hands on the design.
How to maintain visual hierarchy and distinction
We had to create clear hierarchical distinction between card UI and top-level site UI, determining where and when to use what.
Balancing performance with expansiveness
Infinite scrolling promised expansiveness, but required careful balancing to avoid repetition and performance pitfalls.
Iteration and Refinement
With the event pushed earlier, we were forced to tighten the scope while maintaining our vision.
Authentication became a puzzle. UCSD email login made sense for centering the experience around our core users, but we didn't want to exclude judges, family, and broader audiences.
Infinite scrolling promised expansiveness, but required careful balancing to avoid repetition and performance pitfalls.
The challenge was more about conceptual rigor than technical complexity.
We explored wild ideas: live site interactions visible to all, a collaborative design canvas where drawings transformed into assets, and customizable components that users could build within the site. Each concept was exciting but came with technical and practical hurdles.
Figma's comment system proved limiting, so we developed a checkpoint workflow.
Developers tracked progress intrinsically, rather than waiting for pings. This created a more efficient and reliable development process.
Reflection
Developing something truly unique is risky, but invaluable for growth.
This challenge was more about conceptual rigor than technical complexity. This was a pivotal moment for my understanding of the product design process, and how it's so much more than pushing pixels.
Current accessibility standards have gaps that need addressing.
WCAG covers the basics, but not aesthetic usability or 'qualia.' Two cards might technically pass, but only one truly works. I'm really interested in pursuing this further in creative tools.
Personalization and user freedom is not an excuse for bad design.
As we move toward more dynamic and personalized interfaces, there will be many more opportunities to make things look… questionable. I think as designers we have to be vigilant and give people tools that allow for expression, but also make it foolproof to maintain tastefulness and accessibility.
Selected work
Like what you see? Let's connect!