IMG_0122
TCOTCO19

TCO19 UI Design Finals Recap

The second day of TCO19 Final at Houston was just getting started and the result of the RUX 2 challenge finally came out. Some design finalists looked really nervous, especially those that got an orange bracket due to a loss from the previous RUX 1. 

wGkApu3HThzdk_ynFRsIrSa0-ziLe8nSuX0lVLZs8_6fr80_555ZGm2ElW0Byo3xeJXjCuVtDWwliDXiEG9ipcd5FPj12QQFzRI9B5HKRcwMRt-prayJ2zRW6G0OjQSxWhgIi9Tc

Once the results appeared, it showed that two Indonesian finalists, Yoki and Eriantoongko, got eliminated and were not eligible to continue to the next round (UI Finals 1). I’m not really surprised by the result because both finalists actually just came back to competing in Topcoder after taking a break for a few months. When competing at the top level/world-class competition like this, you’re gonna need to be at the maximum level, your head needs to be sharp, and your reflexes need to be ready for action. You need to push all the knowledge within yourself by doing tons of online challenges, and they just didn’t have enough exercise to get back in shape yet after taking a long pause from doing competitions.

But that’s fine, eriantoongko and yoki accepted their defeat very calmly, and surprisingly, they continued supporting another finalist to keep doing their best. What a lovely community, isn’t it?

When the “TCO19 UI Design Finals 1” challenge started, it showed a different set of requirements again. This time, all finalists were asked to design a dashboard for the DPC (Desktop only). The dashboard would be what the user sees when they first login and it needed to show a high overview of the assets state and the entire application activity. The client was expecting to have an interactive dashboard too, and that could have been a problem because the finalists only had two hours to work on the challenge.

And guess what, iaminfinite and iamtong met again in this round, so it’s a re-match! I’m so excited to see this duel! These two are champion candidates and really have a great sense of design, so it’s very exciting to see these guys having a head to head duel with each other. 

All finalists did good in this round, probably because they’ve worked on a ton of challenges that asked for dashboard requirements. By the end of the two hour submission phase for this round, all finalists were able to complete the dashboard. Some had great features on it and really paid attention to the details, and some of them looked really basic. I have a guess about which designers will be able to advance to the next stage, and I mentioned this in the LIVE broadcast with Nick and Will when the UI Design Finals 1 was still happening after looking at their designs. Will my guess be correct? Let’s find out tomorrow!!