Summary
Shades is seeking User Experience Interns to work closely with the company's Chief Product Officer. These interns (current U.S. college undergrads) will conduct user interviews, identify themes of what Shades users like and don't like about the product, run surveys, analyze data, and extract insights.
A major goal of this unpaid internship (which you can complete remotely and on your own time during the school year) is to train and expose students to user experience research (UXR) and generally to the operations of a contemporary Silicon Valley technology startup. There’s room to work on a number of different projects and to tailor aspects of the internship to your particular goals and interests.
You'll be the face of Shades in your immediate communities, using the best approaches and methods to engage with users, understand their experiences, and synthesizing a large amount of qualitative and quantitative data into actionable insights that will inform the Shades product development roadmap.
As part of this internship, you'll position yourself for a potential full-time job down the road as our product undergoes rapid growth as the new way to consume news.
Company description
Shades is a high growth, venture-capital-backed startup, and the first news app made for today’s generation. We have been backed by some of the most important investors in the world. Our company mission is to unlock the potential of online information, and to create a news source that reflects this generation’s potential, perspectives, and positivity.
It’s impossible to keep up with the range of perspectives that the internet makes available. Shades collects the different takes on everything that’s going on so that you can stay informed: no provocation, no validation, no agenda.
You can download Shades at https://shadesnews.com/. We launched our app this summer, and we've seen that high school and college students love Shades the most -- it's a new way to follow the news, without having to depend on social media and all of its pitfalls.
Role description
As the face of Shades in your communities (friend group, extended family, campus, interest or affinity group, etc.), you will reach out to people to encourage them to check out Shades, and will conduct "user interviews" with people who end up downloading Shades and using it. You'll get on-the-job training by first shadowing Jeff Grimes (Shades Chief Product Officer) as he does a few sample user interviews.
You'll be conducting roughly 8-10 user interviews per week, and writing up notes of each one.
As you conduct more interviews, you'll identify trends and insights, and then it's up to you to think creatively about different ways to probe those insights. You may want to send out surveys, or combine your insights with quantitative analysis of Shades interaction metrics. You may want some participants to keep "Shades diaries" where they record their thoughts each time they use the app. Whatever approach you take, overall, your responsibility is to surface key insights about Shades usage; these insights will feed directly into Shades product development.
Internship logistics
This is a remote, self-paced, part-time internship role. You can complete is at your own pace during the school year, with a minimum commitment of 10 hours/week. Shades will provide necessary equipment for you as needed, based on the ideas and plans that you want to enact.
This internship will last for 12 weeks.
Benefits
Qualifications
What is *not* required
We don't require any previous professional experience, and we don't require you to have a certain GPA or test scores or a resume loaded with amazing extracurriculars. We don't care what your major is. We want to find people who have a lot of hustle, heart, creativity, organization, work ethic, and charisma -- people who can help us understand Shades usage.
