UX design student scores first place in Hewlett Packard internship competition

Abilene Perez at her internship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Abilene Perez, a junior in user experience (UX) design from the City of Manila, Philippines, was awarded first place at the 2017 Intern Project Fair during her internship at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Houston, Texas.

Perez was in charge of managing and organizing the redesign of the website for their storage compatibility tool to improve its user experience. The website’s users are internal Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) employees, partners, and customers.

“I did a lot of user research,” Perez said. “I put together a focus group with bi-weekly meetings. I also had weekly meetings with the website development team, verifying my ideas throughout the design process to make sure we were capable of implementing them.”

Abilene Perez (center), with other student interns at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Perez, who worked as a user experience design intern with 120 other students, volunteered to present the project to HPE executives. They awarded her first place for “Best Non-Technical Presentation.”

“I’m so thankful for all of my amazing UX design professors for mentoring me and guiding me,” said Perez. “I was able to apply a lot of the skills I learned in UX courses at Purdue into my internship.”

The Purdue Pathmaker Internship Program helped connect Perez with the opportunity at HPE. “They're giving Purdue students the ability to work part-time for a company while being a full-time student,” she said. “I really enjoyed my time working for HPE.”

Perez is continuing her work on the project this fall in the HP Satellite Discovery Lab located in Purdue’s Envision Center in the Purdue Memorial Union.

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