After a year in the design program, Lily Lei and Michel DeBauge spent a summer interning at Concur, a Bellevue headquartered company that offers a streamlined approach to business travel accounting.
How did you decide to apply for an internship?
Lily: Erik Fadiman made a post for a web design internship available at Concur. I decided why not. It doesn’t hurt to try. So I compiled a quick portfolio, wrote up a cover letter and resume and submitted it to Genessa the Senior Web Designer at Concur.
Lily worked on the first three modules of the homepage released this summer.
What was it that you liked about Concur? What do they do?
Michel: I was drawn to the internship because I had a really good talk during my interview with my hiring manager. We had a nice chat about technology and design and the way he talked about the type of work I’d be doing seemed really cool and exciting and hands-on which is exactly what I wanted, rather than just getting coffee for people. The company focuses on business travel and expense management, mostly for larger corporations but they are also used by smaller businesses as well. They do a lot of their tracking on their mobile app these days, so that business travelers can write expenses for purchases on their trip right on their phone and be able to submit them.
Michel’s work from the labs.
Michel’s work on task flows.
What type of work do you do there?
Michel: I am in the R&D department on the Mobile team. I work on a team of interns consisting of a bunch of developer students, a human-centered design student, and an interaction designer. Our task for the summer has been to come up with, experiment, and develop new ideas, functions, and services for the mobile app. Some of these services might be very practical for the Concur app and could be incorporated into the product in the future and some of them might be a little outlandish and wouldn’t really ever make it to the light of day…but the idea has been to just experiment and make stuff and push the envelope a little bit. It’s been interesting, we’ve developed a few neat spin-offs for the app and even messed around with voice commands and using the Apple Watch.
Michel’s work exploring new and better applications.
What do you think this experience will specifically effect your final year of design school?
Michel: I think my experience is likely to affect what I focus on in Special Topics. I like coding, and web stuff, and interactive pieces, and I’d like to go a little deeper into that stuff, if possible.
What type of work do you do there?
Lily: I am redesigning their App center page, designing the executive page, working on finishing up the home page. I create wireframes and mockups. I also design hero/banner ads for the pages.
Lily’s work on the UK site.
Looking forward to seeing the work of these designers in the future!