I had studied Hot Studio’s website, read this very blog, followed the tweets, and heard about Hot's culture and working style from friends. In the course of applying for my internship, I’d even visited the San Francisco office and met a few very friendly—and apparently very busy—people. But there were still a few surprises for me on my first day.

At Hot, I quickly learned, it’s encouraged to draw on the tables (they’re also whiteboards); park bikes in the office (there’s a bike rack near my desk); and crash meetings uninvited (well, as long as I get my work done).

Allocated to a client project as soon as I walked in the door, I wondered what my next surprise might be. We were preparing for several long days of concept testing. The team had created three prototypes with our client. More than twelve participants—real people with very different backgrounds and perspectives—were recruited to give their feedback. These participants would become stakeholders in our design process by offering their points of view on the concepts.

One of my colleagues handed me an envelope. $2,000 in cash.

“Wow,” I thought, “Either they must really appreciate my abilities or they must really trust me.” Both are apparently true, but I should clarify that the cash was intended for the concept testing participants. I counted the cash into envelopes, and prepared to greet our real-world design collaborators.

I felt lucky to be here and was excited to become part of a research and design team who would aggregate data, synthesize findings, and develop recommendations for how to evolve the designs.

Throughout the concept testing phase, which continued for two weeks, I worked side-by-side with Elysa Soffer, one of Hot’s research leads. I observed and recorded the participants’ reactions. I saw what seemed to work well—and what didn’t work—about different design concepts. I watched Elysa’s process for methodically organizing and analyzing all of the data we’d collected. I also got to flex my video editing muscles as we worked to incorporate video clips from more than 12 hours of footage into our findings presentation. It felt rewarding to have facilitated specific connections between the participants, the project team, and our client’s team members.

Now, I kind of miss that stack of $2,000 in cash. But only a little bit. So far my hands-on learning about Hot’s research and design process has been much more valuable.

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As Hot’s new Content and Marketing Intern, I’m going to be revealing more stories through this blog in the coming weeks. Up next, I’m going to spotlight some unique Hot characters—real people I’m working with that have some surprising secrets! I’ll also meet with our talented Program Planning team and will report back with useful tips from some of the finest Producers in the design world.