Capital One
While Summer 2020 had been a very isolating summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was happy to be a Design Development Program Intern at Capital One. Over the 10 weeks that I interned remotely, I learned tremendously from my coworkers and other interns. The project that I worked on is currently in the process so when I started, I was able to focus on the ideation phase of the design process. Since this project isn’t currently out in the market, some graphics include Lorem Ipsum text.
Design Process
Since I started my internship right after my team had finished design research, I mainly focused on the ideation phase of the design cycle.
Ideation
My team conducted an abundant amount of qualitative and quantitative research to start out the design process. From research findings, they were able to pinpoint key segments that they wanted to focus on. The main methods used were surveys and in-depth interviews over video chat due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From the research, key opportunity areas appeared for us to ideate around.
Visual Design Task
In order to start conducting ideation sessions, I was tasked to create a visually appealing design for a slide deck that would attract our attendees. At the beginning of each ideation session, we wanted to inform them with background information revolving around the project.
Current Problem
Information is very dense
No graphics
How might we make the information less overwhelming?
Need a plug-and-play structure we can adapt as needed
Hypothesis
Flywheel build to show all the opportunities that were found during the design research phase
Make the slides more captivating, more visually appealing and scannable
Less dense and more impactful for the team, product partners and attendees from different places
Final Designs for Ideation Sessions
Allows attendees to view a highlighted portion that discussed a specific opportunity
Blank blue avatar heads to allow attachment between a quote and a person
Content aims at the key question for ideation sessions, quotes from research
Ideation Sessions
My team and I decided to manage three weeks of ideation sessions. In order to be successful, it was important to designate tasks, dates, times, and attendees. This spreadsheet was used for planning all of these key components to make sure a remote ideation session would be inviting and engaging.
It was important to utilize design activities that truly supported the opportunity our attendees were going to ideate on. This mural board allowed us to collaborate all at once! My team and I
created three work areas: an initial idea swarm, a first pass at generating ideas, and then refining ideas using a specific design activity.
Initial Idea Swarm
The Initial Idea Swarm served as an invitation into the ideation session. We wanted all of the attendees to get excited and in the right headspace.
First Pass
All of the attendees had their own workspace. There were several idea boards that consisted of their idea name, what the idea was, and why it would be a winner. This section was typically around 10-12 minutes where all of the attendees wrote down any idea that they had without any guidance.
Flare, Refine
The last section was around 30 minutes and we asked for all the attendees to follow a design activity. We used one called combine and mash where the attendees were invited to engage with all of the other ideas and add a sticky note with something that could make that idea even better.
However, the design of the mural board was a bit constricting in terms of flowing ideas. Throughout the sessions, we received various feedback in that all of the attendees felt like they were confined to their own workspace and it was challenging to bounce to other ideas. We evolved the design of the mural board into a garden of flowers and our attendees acted as “bees” by pollinating each flower with their ideas. The center of each flower was a key theme we wanted to focus in on for each opportunity.
I conducted a few ideation sessions with my team members, stakeholders and other Capital One employees. To stay organized, I created notes for myself during the session that would help me stay on track. It was important to stay within 60 minutes and cover all three sections.
Synthesis of Data
After finishing 15 ideation sessions, it was time to synthesize the raw data. I created a spreadsheet where I divided all of the ideas into each of the opportunities. After dividing, it was time to go through each idea to see if any were similar that could be combined to get a better gauge at the numbers of ideas per opportunity. In total, there were 392 ideas.
My team will continue to go through the ideas and rate them on factor scales. After that, they may conduct more ideation sessions or step into wire framing and prototyping some solutions.
MPWR Logo
While I was fully immersed in my main project, I carved out some time to create a new logo for Capital One’s Mainstreet team. Employees voted on the best logo and mine won! This team connects Mainstreet, Walmart and Partnerships together so they are now called MPWR. They also meet biweekly and wanted to introduce this logo in one of the meetings. In order to start, I needed to consider some guidelines that I wanted to include.
MPWR Meetings
Biweekly program connecting MPWR across the Zoom airwaves
An informal yet informative block of time
Make sure our information resonates with one another
Capital One Mainstreet colors
Why not a microphone?
Reflections
Designers don’t have to focus in just one area, they can be pulled in various directions to make meaningful impacts on product development.
It’s fun to network and you can build relationships for the future.
Being proactive is key. Be bold and reach out.
Absorb as much information as you can when you are given the opportunity to do so.