Ascent Global Hackathon
At Ascent Global Logistics, I joined a three-week internal Hackathon where teams competed to develop innovative solutions for the business. As the designer within my cross-functional team, I helped design the UI for a blockchain platform to track company assets—improving transparency, security, and lifecycle management. We pitched our concept to a panel of judges that included the CTO and product managers. At the end of it all, my team won 1st place!
Role: UI Designer
Tools Used: Figma
Project Duration: June 1st - June 22nd, 2022
Goals
Group Goal:
We set out to design a blockchain system that would lower operational costs, improve asset tracking accuracy, and boost security and transparency across the asset lifecycle—even during network issues. The goal was to streamline maintenance and data sharing, creating a smoother, more reliable experience for users.
Personal Goal:
My goal was to design an interface that made our blockchain platform easy to use across Ascent’s diverse teams—blending familiar design patterns with a modern look that reflected the innovation behind Web3.
Ideation
Blockchain Requirements:
I focused on designing a blockchain platform that made essential tasks—creating assets, logging maintenance, mining, listing, and tracking asset history—clear and approachable for users likely unfamiliar with blockchain technology.
Research:
Since we had limited time for fresh research during the hackathon, I leaned on insights from past user interviews and testing data from Ascent’s PEAK platform, which would share the same audience as our blockchain.
PEAK:
I leveraged the design elements and features of the PEAK platform as a means of informing my own creative decisions. This helped me prioritize usability, ensuring that familiar patterns and language guided the design.
Web3
At the same time, I aimed to give the platform a modern, Web3-inspired aesthetic. I took cues from ongoing design experiments at Ascent, like incorporating dark mode, and paired cool dark backgrounds with vibrant accent colors to create a sleek, forward-thinking look that felt both functional and cutting-edge.
The Designs
Conclusion
On June 17th, 2022, my team presented our blockchain asset-tracking platform to the panel of judges, answering questions about design, functionality, and business impact. Though the UI wasn’t fully polished due to time constraints, the product worked—and we won first place! I’m proud of how our team pushed to learn and create something entirely new together.