Overview
During my last semester at AU (Spring 2021), I held an internship with Gifted, a startup company based in Arizona. The company was looking for someone with knowledge in both the design and technical realm to serve as a bridge between the two areas. Founders Alex Larson, Mertay Dayanc, and Michael Matus discovered me on LinkedIn. After meeting with them and learning about the startup, I wanted to get involved and help in the way that I could.
I collaborating with both the design team and engineering team on the UI/UX of the company's mobile application and website. In terms of development and coding, I participated more on the website. I had joined the engineers working on the website after they had already been working on the website for a few weeks, so I had to get caught up on the current progress and help get it to completion.
Collaboration
Because the startup is based in Arizona and I am located in the DMV, we communicated through virtual means. Each of the divisions would hold separate meetings. Both the design and engineering teams met up every two weeks using Google Meet. For quick, spontaneous meetings with just a few members of the team, we would use Zoom.
For consistent communication, we used Discord with several different channels for different purposes (Design, Engineering, Business, Branding, Website, App, etc.). We also had group chats for immediate communication and the engineering team used Github as our version control system.
Roles
UI/UX Developer - I would work with the design team, consisting of Ashley Bates, Asli Bulut, and myself, giving my input on the wireframes of the mobile application, color scheme, graphic designs, and branding materials. I would then relay the designs and branding information to the engineering team so they can build the mobile application and website based on it. I teamed up with Shiv Patel and Joeseph Ferland to develop the website.
Deliverables
My main deliverable throughout my internship at Gifted was to work with the engineering team to develop the website, following a particular template chosen by the founders.
Tools and Technologies
React - framework for building the website
TypeScript - language used for the frontend code
VSCode - IDE
Roadmap
The founders had chosen a template that they wanted the website engineers to follow. The purpose that the website holds is as an advertisement for the business and mobile application.
By the time I started working with the website engineers, they had already worked on some of the sections of the website. They had decided that Typescript React would be the smartest framework and language to develop the website. However, because the template was not available in Typescript, they decided to translate it from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to Typescript React.
At the time, I had no experience in React or Typescript, so I looked into the documentation and the code that the website engineers had already written to get sense of the structure and syntax of the framework and language. I helped continue the development of the website, while ensuring that the design was also consistent with the branding (color scheme, fonts, designs). I also tested the interactive elements of the website to establish a good user experience.
Final Product
Potential Add-Ons
Some ideas that I have for future add-ons to the website include more responsive elements and a greater variety of interactions, such as underlining, borders, color changes, scaling, and shadows. On the template, there was a blog feature that the founders wanted to omit for now, but I believe that a blog feature is a great idea for the company to share and share news and ideas.
Conclusion: Key Learnings
This experience exposed me to React and Typescript for the first time, which I find to be very useful and fun tools for website development. This was also my first internship, first time working for a startup, and first time building a website for a business. Knowing that internships are only for a limited period of time, I wanted to positively influence and help the company as much as I could using the skills I have.