Colorado STEM Ecosystem

https://www.msudenver.edu/colorado-stem-ecosystem/

UI Design & Mobile App Development

Summer 2024 Internship

Organization Background

The Colorado STEM Ecosystem 2.0 (CO STEM) is a statewide grassroots coalition housed at Metropolitan State University of Denver that works to uplift successful STEM initiatives and foster cross-sector collaboration across Colorado. As part of the national STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice, CO STEM connects businesses, educators, policymakers, nonprofits, and other stakeholders to improve access to high-quality STEM learning for all students throughout the state.

Project Overview

During my internship, I served as the UI Design specialist on a two-person team tasked with developing a POC mobile application. This project aimed to showcase potential functionality and design for a member-facing app that would help connect the diverse ecosystem participants and visualize the statewide STEM network, to secure additional funding for full development and deployment.

My Contributions

• UI Design & Prototyping: Self-taught Figma to create multiple design options for each app screen, ensuring visual consistency with the organization's existing website and brand identity

• Stakeholder Presentations: Collaborated on creating demo videos showcasing different design options for stakeholder review

• Design Implementation: Translated approved Figma designs into clean, well-documented Dart code

• Responsive Design: Ensured the application displayed properly across various mobile devices and orientation changes

Outcomes & Learnings

My design for the main landing page was selected by stakeholders for further development, though project priorities ultimately shifted toward code handoff rather than design implementation. This pivot provided valuable experience in adapting to changing project requirements in a real-world development environment.

This internship sparked my passion for UI/UX design and gave me hands-on experience with the complete design process—from conceptualization through implementation. I developed a deeper understanding of accessibility considerations, including color contrast and text readability principles that I've carried forward into subsequent projects.

Additional Development

Concurrent with this internship, I developed a personal version of the Colorado STEM Ecosystem mobile app using Kotlin and Android Studio for my university mobile application development course, further strengthening my mobile development skills. This parallel project allowed me to explore alternative implementation approaches while reinforcing concepts learned during the internship.

Code available on GitHub: https://github.com/8-Bit-Whit/Android-App-Project