Conclusion: Lessons Learned
Going into this project, I knew this would be an ambitious challenge for a young designer. What I didn’t know was just how intricate and all-encompassing that challenge would be.
I learned that working on a highly publicized and highly beloved product comes with a lot of external pressure and internal emotions to do right by (seemingly) everyone: power users with fierce attachment to existing structures, new users who can’t fully experience the nuance of an audio app as a static prototype, and the small but mighty Clubhouse team, who are actively iterating their product on a weekly basis, potentially launching imaginative solutions themselves for the same challenges I’m working on, or others I haven’t even imagined yet. Against a constant stream of public conversation over an exciting product that felt almost ethereal, I’ll humbly admit that there were times where this pressure got the best of me and I felt like a total imposture who bit off way more than she could ever chew.
The biggest lessons this project taught me were the delicate balance between perseverance when faced with complex challenges, grace in the wake of perceived failure, and when to be okay with “good enough” (for this iteration, of course).
In the end, I’m extremely proud of what I was able to accomplish with this project at this stage in my design journey, and often reminded myself of my favorite mantra that led me to product design in the first place:
“All I wanted was a job like a book so good I’d be finishing it for the rest of my life.”
Product design is that job for me, and I’m proud to say that while this project (and all my others) will never be fully finished, I breathed as much life into it as much as I could — I hope you enjoyed it!