My Summer as the First Content Design Intern

Would you belief an intern to assist design a distinguished piece of your product expertise? Salesforce empowered me to do exactly that. This summer time, I used to be Futureforce’s first intern on the Content material Design group. I arrived on the Salesforce Tower filled with vitality and so many questions: Was I going to have the ability to truly make an influence? Who was I going to satisfy? How was I going to benefit from my time right here? Would I drown in intern “grunt work”?

However from day one, it was clear that this is able to be a summer time of studying – and actual contributions. My group inspired me to hunt out initiatives that I used to be all in favour of and to get entangled with them. Though my internship was structured, I nonetheless had the liberty to observe my curiosity. I primarily started working on Salesforce Starter, designing elements of Starter’s house web page. As a central a part of the consumer expertise, this was an ideal alternative.

Exploring a breadth of design expertise

It’s possible you’ll be questioning what content material design is. Good content material design helps customers on the proper time with the suitable language. Think about baking a cake with no directions or obscure ones. That’d be fairly troublesome. The content material on a web page ought to information customers to simply accomplish their targets – or full their jobs to be accomplished.

My group initially gave me initiatives the place I might work on completely different elements of the design course of. As soon as I realized extra about our product, I proposed redesigning the onboarding expertise primarily based on stakeholder suggestions. Finally, I obtained the possibility to work on a variety of initiatives that coated completely different areas:

• Person analysis and testing: I offered a Figma prototype to customers and analyzed how they interacted with it. This validated my analysis focus and led to sudden findings that impressed my redesign venture.
• Aggressive evaluation: I assessed different merchandise to find out what their consumer expertise was like and urged methods to enhance our product.
• Designing textual content and visible content material in Figma: Created a wide range of content material for onboarding walkthroughs, welcome modals, selectable playing cards, and fee flows.
• Redesigning the onboarding expertise: Impressed by the earlier analysis, I explored alternate designs for the onboarding course of to assist customers get began as rapidly as potential.

Engaged on content material taught me the worth of writing good copy, which is usually missed. In actuality, the phrases on the display screen are accountable for setting the tone of the product. Additionally they have an effect on accessibility for customers with a variety of wants. Importantly, the phrases be certain that customers get what they want after they want it. And that helps construct belief with our prospects.

By engaged on a number of elements of the content material and UX design for our product, I realized to adapt to altering priorities and shortened deadlines. I additionally realized methods to obtain and incorporate design suggestions. From product managers to designers and engineers to management, I’m grateful to my co-workers who by no means doubted my skills to contribute insights and findings.

Constructing relationships with every kind of designers

Outdoors of my group, I used to be capable of meet many proficient designers all through Salesforce. I realized the ins and outs of our design system, noticed design critiques, and made priceless connections to individuals who supported my questions, curiosities, and aspirations.

From these experiences, I found methods to scale programs and realized extra in regards to the technical facet of design from our proficient engineers. I met designers of various backgrounds from design programs to Information Cloud to Commerce Cloud.

It was refreshing to be amid such variety of thought, and I really worth the recommendation I obtained. A standout second was when a colleague inspired me to be opinionated as a designer and advocate strongly for customers. In any case, the perfect consumer experiences are a results of sturdy discussions. 

Extra suggestions for future design interns

To Futureforce design interns – or anybody who’s getting ready for an internship – right here’s how I made essentially the most of my time at Salesforce: 

1. In the event you get to work or go to the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, get the iced matcha latte on the fifth ground cafe (and make associates with the baristas, who’re tremendous pleasant).
2. When you’re caffeinated, Slack as many individuals as you suppose are fascinating (belief me, there are so much, so that you’ll wish to do that early on).
3. Don’t take into consideration your position an excessive amount of. Genuinely be interested by something and all the pieces that’s occurring round you. If there’s a cool venture that pursuits you, ask about it! If there’s one thing you actually wish to work on, do it (together with your supervisor’s approval, after all).
4. Be open-minded. I liked attending completely different workshops and city halls and speaking to PMs, engineers, designers, researchers, technical writers, and other people on varied groups.
5. If you wish to get into content material or UX design, get began with these useful studying modules: Writing for Internet Accessibility, Designing for Internet Accessibility, and Person Expertise Fundamentals.

Trying again, I’m far more geared up with data than I used to be on my first day. I’ve a greater understanding of methods to steadiness a number of elements of the design course of analysis, technical constraints, and enterprise targets whereas crafting an optimum consumer expertise. I’ve additionally contributed insights that knowledgeable actual design selections for our product. The cherry on high? I met some very shiny folks alongside the best way. Thanks to my group and the remainder of the Ohana for supporting me. Good luck to the entire potential Futureforce interns – you’re gonna kill it!