I really appreciate learning about designing an app. I absolutely enjoyed each day and getting to meet new people. Something that I learned throughout the past three days is clustering ideas when brainstorming, and I will be sure to use that in the future.—Stephanie Wu

The User Experience Workshop with Salesforce sparked some real interest among the forty-two Enterprise youth that attended. Over the course of three days, youth learned about the user experience journey while working on teams to create an app prototype. Led by Salesforce staff volunteers, youth practiced brainstorming, collaboration, and providing constructive feedback to their peers. Each group chose between three topical themes for their app design—COVID-19, housing, and air quality. With guidance from UX experts, youth ideated, sketched, and presented their own ideas. After each student presented their ideas, the teams collaborated to cluster their ideas and select the desired app features to create a cohesive, powerful application.

The workshop provided insight into an increasingly popular and in-demand field of UX/UI design. Many of the youth came into the workshop knowing little about design thinking, but came out with a deeper understanding of the concepts and hands-on experience in the app design process! Some youth expressed interest in a future career in the field: 

This was a very special experience and this could be something I might do in the future. I learned a lot about UX and what people do in this sector.—Jonathan Wong

I learned so much from this experience and I hope I’m able to put this work to good use in the future.—Madison Billones

The young people in the workshop were delighted by and appreciative of the opportunity to learn from professionals on the Salesforce Design team. They expressed their gratitude to Enterprise staff and the Salesforce volunteers and recounted how much they enjoyed the workshop. 

I had an amazing experience getting to learn more about UX design. I learned so much and realized that I was able to do things that I thought I couldn’t do. It was a really fun experience and our group really worked well together. I had a great time and designing the app was so much fun. Thank you for all your time and work!—Angelina 

The staff at Salesforce were also impressed by the students in the workshop. One Salesforce employee, Jeannette Mizono, stated, “It was really awesome to see their work come together. They had been pretty shy, but all super smart and thoughtful with their responses and work. Looking forward to doing more workshops with your organization.”

Salesforce has been a strong partner for Enterprise. Salesforce staff volunteer their time and share their expertise with Enterprise youth. For the past several years, Salesforce has led professional summer camps for youth called Salesforce Summer that offers a variety of experiences including networking, coding workshops, and UX/UI panel discussions. Of course, this year looked a little different as the course moved to Zoom. We’re honored to partner with Salesforce and to be able to offer young people the chance to see what goes in a major tech company like Salesforce. Enterprise relies on our partnerships to offer youth connections and exposure to a variety of professional fields. Youth are also excited by these opportunities in which they can engage and learn from professionals. “I look forward to all future opportunities with Salesforce!,” says student, Jennifer Guan.

Enterprise is proud to see the accomplishments of the youth in this short workshop. Youth were constantly reminded that in the real world they would have a lot more time to establish a new app design. It’s impressive to see what the youth accomplished in their small breakout sessions. The below screenshots show the brainstorming process, youth presenting their sketches, and the final outcome after one group selected their most desired features and collaged together their sketches into a final prototype.

By Margan Mulvihill, Associate Director of Development and Communications