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In the beginning

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When I started working on this project back in 2017, Mettl had 2 major offerings. The Assessment Platform and the Proctoring Platform. To create a more end-to-end solution and a more seamless way to hire Tech talents, we planned to create a Hackathon platform that leverages the features and functionalities of the existing system. Like the assessment and proctoring platform and the industry's best coding simulator. This would give HR an end to end control of the hiring process and a single tool to manage them all

Solution

We created a solution that would allow for an end-to-end and seamless experience for all the 3 types of users:

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1. Participants - Made it easy for people to participate in hackathon and track their goals and progress.

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2. Organisers - Made an end-to-end experience for Organisers to easily organise and conduct Hackathon both as a stand-alone event or as a part of hiring initiatives.

 

3. Assess - Made it easy for assessors to easily evaluate and score a participant or a group in an unbiased way and also allows for checking of Plagiarism and Duplicacy to evaluate with ease

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Understanding users

Qualitative and Quantitative Research

We first did some generative research to learn about the problem space and our target users. I was actively involved in all parts.

To quickly get on board with this domain, we utilized a wide range of resources, including friends who have participated in Hackathons, online videos (Youtube), as well as asking our colleagues to participate in Hackathons on renowned platforms like HackerEarth, HackerRank etc. We quickly learned lots of jargon, which helped us to communicate with our interviewees later.

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User Interview

We interviewed our target users as well as 22 stakeholders.

Knowing who some of our target users are, we interviewed them as well as we interviewed stakeholders and proxy users to understand the need of Organizers and Assessors. A technique we used with extremely busy interviewees is to bring pre-made artifacts like customer journey maps for them to correct.

We learned about the organizer's and assessor's day-to-day work, like people they work with, a typical workflow, and their digital workspace. The key user needs we identified includes: consume information rapidly and collaborate/evaluate efficiently.

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Observations

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We observed the hackathon organized internally in our office. While observing, we used the AEIOU framework to focus on activities (A), events (E), interactions (I), objects (O), and users (U).

 

We discovered several pain points that were not revealed in our interviews. One manager even directly tell us "If you can make evaluating and generating reports easier, I'll be VERY happy." 

Brainstorming & Storyboarding

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We brainstormed after reviewing all our previous findings, and decided on 3 topics with multiple ideas for each, along with 3 other ideas that can solve crucial problems. The 3 topics are: "grab attention", "drive action", and "customization". The 3 other features are: "report building", "smart searching", and "easier collaboration".

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Then we separately sketched our ideas for each topic and compiled them into a user story. Through an internal critique, we integrated our parallel designs into one set. Storyboarding not only helped us validate the ideas in the context, but also helped everyone in the team be on the same page.

We tested our prototypes with Developers, Assessors, and Product Managers.

 

This helped us narrow down the designs (e.g., the floating box minimized view versus the sidebar design.), and fixed details that needed more work (e.g., Grading Hackathons and summarized reports). In general, the feedback validated the needs we identified previously.

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Solution

We gained our understanding of the problem space and target users through 30 interviews and shadowings. Combined with the abundant case studies we did in different domains, we generated our design ideas.

 

Through 3 rounds, in total 22 tests, we refined and validated our design guidelines and prototypes.

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For Organizers

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  1. Create Event: Specify the timelines, list the venue, display prize details, and other relevant team details.
     

  2. Customize Event Page: Inspire candidates to participate, display rules & rewards and other significant information, directing them to sign up.
     

  3. Define Multiple Stages: Clarify all the mandatory details for multiple rounds of assessments, add challenges either by picking our tests or your own.
     

  4. Specify Evaluation Criteria Define certain parameters for evaluation to evaluate on and send invitations to respective judges.

For Participants

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  1. Landing Page: Make them learn about the hackathon event, read the rules and specific timelines at one place, and register for the event.
     

  2. Team Creation: Let them create their team with full liberty to the leader and members to delete or dissolve it anytime before the event starts.
     

  3. Submissions: Let them easily make their submissions for multiple rounds by just uploading the file and publishing it.
     

  4. Accessibility: Provide them with access to their live ranking, important reminders & mailers, and any operational, technical or logistical support.

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For Assessors/Evaluators

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  1. Track Submission: Allow judges to track the team status explicitly, actions and scores of the assigned team along with all the completed or ongoing event.
     

  2. Assess & Grade: Let judges effortlessly download the submission, assess and grade as per the guidelines and share feedback with the team.

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