Swaptivity

At the start of my second semester at UniMelb, I found myself with some free time and a desire to stay busy. I noticed the Design Blitz by CISSA was coming up at the end of the month, so I decided to challenge myself by entering the design hackathon.
I was ready to go solo, but a strict rule required participants to be in a team. Having missed the opening ceremony, I thought I was doomed.

Luckily, that night, a team posted in the group chat looking for a third member because they weren't familiar with Figma. I jumped at the chance. Being with a team that lacked Figma experience motivated me to lead the design execution and see how far we could go. My expectations weren't high at first, but they had already ideated a unique concept on a whiteboard.

One thing that stood out was their use of circles. Coming from a frontend background, I was initially skeptical, but I figured that since it was a design competition, we should be experimental. The shapes reminded me of gacha balls or bubblegum in a machine.
The brief for the hackathon was to design a web-based platform to empower skill-sharing.

We immediately thought of creating a dedicated social media platform focused on sharing what you are currently learning or doing. Our team agreed that platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram often create a "fear of judgment." People often feel discouraged from posting because they worry about likes or follower counts, feeling their progress isn't "valuable" enough if it doesn't reach a certain number.

We decided to scrape all the numbers (metrics) and create a platform dedicated purely to the process of learning. It’s a space to find people who have the skills you need or are looking for the skills you have, facilitating a true skill exchange. Additionally, we included features like Communities, Offline Events, and a key feature called Online Swap Sessions—a video-based live podcast where you can tune in and join the conversation in real-time.

For gamification, we integrated the bubble concept into the user profiles. Your posts are represented as bubbles categorized by skill; the more diverse your skills, the more bubbles you have. Furthermore, the bubbles grow larger the more you post about a specific skill, making your profile a unique, visual representation of your diverse interests and expertise.

Ultimately, our curiosity and openness to experimental insights—driven by a team with diverse backgrounds in Arts and Data Science—is what made our solution so unique. By blending these perspectives, we delivered a design that successfully carried a data-driven, artsy, and deeply philosophical message.