Starting today until the 30th of April, Truppr, your favorite (or not) fun and fitness platform is running a design challenge open to designers around the world.
The challenge is simple. Redesign the web platform at www.truppr.com
Visit: http://bit.ly/TrupprDesignChallenge for more information.
Not sure how I feel about this though. You want to redesign your website. You’ve pegged the remuneration to $1,000. Instead of doing your diligence and picking the best person for the job, you go the competition route… with $1,000 - no other perks whatsoever. I don’t know, ccHub membership free for a year? Truppr swag? Any other random stuff you can set aside for the winner…
Considering all participants are expected to put in their best, what do they get in consolation for not being crowned? I guess all I’m trying to understand is why this was made into a challenge. A bland one at that.
I thought of saying just this, but then I retracted. This sort of thing is done with creative people a lot.
So Mr X spends 100hours building. Along with say other 50 Mr Xs around in the hope of getting $1000. You select the best. The best, if the project had been contracted out, will probably cost more than $1000 because it was built in the spirit of contest.
Now because you will use one design, 50*100 man-hours wasted. Meanwhile, a few hundreds $ saved for Truppr.
This is not good. My opinion.
EDIT: I think this was probably done because of what Truppr is. And not with some ulterior motive.
I was actually surprised they went the design challenge route given that they are a for-profit business but perhaps they see it as a tool, albeit a poor one, to recruit designers for their team.
Having said that, we learn everyday and I think there are a couple of learning points here that stand out.
Design challenges for for-profit businesses usually come across as bad taste, and in most cases it throws away the very fundamental idea that design is a problem solving endeavor.
Following a proper design process that includes: understanding the identity and goals of the business, baseline analysis of the current internet presence to see if there is consonance with the identity and goals, user-* research, content and data analysis, etc is always more effective.
In this case, the tips provided are hardly enough to solve any problem effectively, so you have many designers chasing shadows, wasting time, and entrenching the wrong outlook towards design and design process.
Homepage: Focus is on promoting the mobile apps (iOS & Android) but the design needs to show users they can explore events in their respective cities.
Messaging: Think threaded messages – instant messaging or chat.
I doubt this challenge will solve any problem effectively but the truth is that younger designers will see it as an opportunity for cash and a portfolio incentive, so I would encourage the organizers to find a way to make this an opportunity for them to learn proper design process.
I’m sure you’ll find a way. Good luck!
Hi Udezekene,
Keep a takeaway gift for all participants and it surely can act as a motivation to participate and present their ideas on the redesign.
Thanks,
Smruti Ranjan
Be sure they won’t get the best “value” for their money here. I dont think any serious minded development will want to enter this challenge, I for one won’t. But the point is there needs to be a winner. So the most preferred, even if he is not good enough must be picked.
I am still trying to figure out the purpose of this.
This is a good idea. It’s not about not wanting to do the picking of the right dude for the job. The truppr guys are good at mobile but not where they want to be with the web and they come up with a way to get people to throw out a lot of thoughts and design. As a CEO I’d approve this move. It’s not about the best design, it’s about how many angles and perspectives their interface could be viewed from. So they might eventually be able to fuse in designs from various submitted designs into their final pick and it’s a way to challenge people. If you’re too busy or too rich to bother then just don’t bother instead of comply about how one person runs their business. These are the kind of things people do without being asked, if you go on dribble on behance you would see stuff people designed for big companies, and these stuff actually do look and feel better. Here someone is offering over 300k and we are go the NAIJA way: minding none of our business
No No No, Man. Don’t start
What happens if the company decides not to pick a winner? If this isn’t a marketing stunt then the best approach is to go via a trusted platform - see 99Designs
You’ve said all that was needed to be said. 
We recently announced the winners here.
Challenges like this are typically divisive - understandably so.
Thanks to everyone for the comments. We listened and your feedback was invaluable and in lots of ways shaped our final process.
To be honest this was a learning opportunity for me 
, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the last time we’ll be doing a challenge such as this.
Huge thanks to everyone who participated too - owing to the competition I know at least 7 “new” designers, for me it’s a HUGE win.
Just thinking along the same line. I have designed so many graphics work on freelance sites for contest like this , but will still find my design been used by the same people.