Design Challenge
How I tackled and drew important lessons from a 2-hour design challenge.
Visual design
The challenge
I recently had the opportunity to complete a 2-hour design challenge as part of a 4-stage interview process. Long story short, I did not make it through to the 4th and final round — but the experience became one of my most insightful learning moments.
Once the challenge was over, I knew I could learn from it and chose to re-attempt it on my own shortly after. This time, I gave myself just one hour and a fresh mindset. What follows is a reflection on what I learned by doing this.
The brief
Designing an MVP auction page
in 2 hours
The task
Design a new “Auction House” feature for the company’s internal Employee Portal Website. The goal was to highlight the company’s charity initiatives in a way that:
Drives high engagement
Reflects the company’s values through visually compelling listings
Deliverables (within 2 hours)
A detailed Auction Item Page featuring all relevant content (item, bidding history, user bids, etc.)
Requirements
This included a list of things that needed to be included in the Auction items details page, ranging from the item itself, to its bidding history.
The company also included some reference pages for their employee portal:
My approach
What I did — and what I'd do differently
Time breakdown
My approach
I did a quick search for some auction pages, to understand how they structured information and what kind of information they prioritize.
🟡 Spoiler alert 1: The ones I found weren’t designed that well, which made things a little confusing to dissect in such short time.
I then started to sketch out a low-fidelity wireframe of based on what kind of information I needed to included and how this could be structured.
🟡 Spoiler alert 2: A low-fidelity wireframe took away my time, and in hindsight I should have jumped straight into hi-fidelity.
After a 2 hour time slot that felt like more like 20 minutes, this was the design I ended up submitting.
What I learnt
After submitting this assignment, I knew that there was room for improvement.
I had approached it as a UX challenge — trying to understand how users want to engage and understand information and based it on existing auction websites. My UX instincts kicked in — but focusing too much on reinventing the structure made the design feel out of sync with the existing portal.
Maybe this had overcomplicated things, and my approach could have been a little different. How can I design something to reflect the brand image of the company and their existing employee portal?
THE iteration
A 1-hour self challenge
Determined to improve, I reframed the challenge with a new mindset:
“What if this was primarily a UI challenge, not a UX one?”
I gave myself 1 hour to iterate, without giving it any prior thought and re-attempted the challenge with this new mindset. Here is what I did differently:
Narrowing down on inspiration
To simplify things, I solely used the company’s reference pages as inspiration instead.
Not knowing the outcome
I didn’t spend any time thinking about the final design or outcome, instead I just created it section by section in hi-fidelity. If I wasn’t sure about a section, I left it blank and circled back — keeping momentum over perfection.
Here is what I designed:
Final thoughts
An opportunity for growth
💭 Adapting my design mindset
What initially felt like a setback became a reminder that mindset matters just as much as skill. By approaching the challenge with a UI-first lens, I created a more aligned, scalable design.
Rather than overhauling structure, I reused existing patterns creatively. For instance, I used their employee pictures and turned it into an interesting way to present the bidding history.
🔮 Trusting my instincts & the process
Designing under pressure helped me realize I can piece things together even without a detailed plan. For example, I initially left the section beside the item image blank and then later pieced it together and added real-time updates for the top bid. I learnt to trust my gut and trust the process at the same time.
💡 Turning feedback into growth
Most importantly, I learnt how to turn feedback into growth. I initially was unsure about repeating the challenge by myself. Could I actually think of anything better? And I did! I trusted myself and my ability to grow and learn, and created something I was proud of.
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Living and working in Tkaronto, an area that has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Huron-Wendat for thousands of years. I come with respect for this land that I am on today, and for the people who have and do reside here.
