UI/UX Competition Champion at UC College Days 2025 | Matt Alexius Merano · Matt Alexius
Shania Jayn Anino, Nathanael Larida, and Matt Alexius Merano won the UI/UX competition at UC College Days 2025 on the UCLM campus in Mandaue City.
At UC College Days 2025 on the UCLM campus in Mandaue City, my team (Shania Jayn Anino, Nathanael Larida, and me) won the UI/UX competition. It came after our win at ICT Congress and showed us that our way of approaching design competitions worked more than once.
The competition
UC College Days is a yearly university event with competitions across many disciplines. In the UI/UX track, teams from across UCLM design and present product concepts to a panel that judges both the design and how well the team explains the reasoning behind it.
What we brought over from ICT Congress
We came into College Days after winning at ICT Congress, with a clearer idea of what to do. We stuck with what had worked: a well-defined problem, user research behind the design decisions, and a presentation that told one coherent story instead of just showing polished screens. Going from Runner-Up to 1st Place came from that experience adding up, and from knowing where to spend our limited prep time.
Communication over perfection
This win taught the same lesson as ICT Congress. At design competitions, the gap between placing and winning is almost always about communication, and rarely about technical skill. Define the problem sharply, design for that specific problem, and explain your reasoning as clearly as you show your visuals.
Certificates
- Certificate of Participation: UI/UX Design Contest, CCS Skills Competition (College Days 2025), College of Computer Studies, UC Lapu-Lapu & Mandaue, February 20, 2025