Making your career transition easier
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OVERVIEW
Problem & Solution
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Career transitioners bring with them years of experience, but determining how that past experience translates into their next role can be daunting. They are struggling to identify and communicate their transferable skills in a way that is meaningful and relevant to the role they are wanting to transition into. This is causing them to feel like they are being passed up for roles that they know they are qualified for, increasing their frustration, and extending the amount of time they’re spending on their job search.
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Skill Transferer provides career changers with an easy way to determine how their past experience transfers into their next role, allowing them to tell their story to potential employers in a relevant and meaningful way.
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Role
End-to-end UX / UI Designer
Product
Mobile first responsive website
Duration
August - September 2022 (7 weeks)
Tools
Figma, Maze, Optimal Workshop
DESIGN
Research Plan
As a career transitioner myself, I have an idea of some of the struggles facing people as they transition into a new career. However, I know my experience doesn't represent every user, so I devised a research plan to learn more about other career transitioners, the challenges they face at various stages in their transition, strategies they are currently using to overcome these challenges, and areas in which they feel they still need help.
I used the following research methodologies:
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Market Research
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I explored the trends associated with the Great Resignation. This research revealed that there are millions of potential users looking for their next role.
47.8
Million Americans left their job in 2021
of Millennials have changed careers since 2020
54%
77%
of career changers have 5+ years of work experience
Competitive Analysis
I researched the services that current career service companies offer career transtioners. Most companies offered a tiered system of support, with prices increasing as more support services were selected. The most popular services included career coaching and resume writing, both of which carry a hefty price tag.
User Interviews and Survey
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7 live remote interviews with career professionals in various stages of their career transition to uncover the struggles that people are facing when trying to change careers, what they’ve found helpful, and areas where they feel like they could use help.
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39 survey responses to collect quantitative data on career transitioners. This research helped me develop a clear vision of my users and the challenges that they are facing.
The struggle is real.
Key
Insight
While numerous pain points were uncovered, I noted many users’ struggles centered around identifying their transferable skills and communicating their past experience in a meaningful and relevant way for the role they want to transition into.
DESIGN
Determining the User
I created two personas that embodied the characteristics of the users I interviewed. Referring back to these personas throughout my design process allowed me to keep my ideas and designs focused on the user.
Generating Ideas
With a clear vision of my users, I developed my point-of-view (POV) statement and “How might we...” questions. These jumpstarted my brainstorming and ideation process.
After numerous rounds of brainstorming sessions, I settled upon two ideas to explore in further detail and created storyboards for each idea. This process helped me focus on which idea would have the greatest positive impact on my user.
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Prioritizing Features
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Keeping my business goals and users in mind, I generated a list of product features and organized them into four categories: must-have, nice-to-have, can come later, and surprising and delightful. This ensured I developed an MVP that would allow my users to engage with a useful and functional product to determine if the product was desirable.
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Site Organization
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Knowing that not everyone thinks and
organizes information like myself, I set up a
card sorting activity to uncover important
thought patterns and get a sense of how users will think about the content and features of my site. I used this information to develop my navigation patterns, construct my site map, and develop my user and task flows.
DESIGN
Developing Flows
I created user flows to document all the possible actions users can take when taking the skills quiz, retrieving past quiz results, and searching for a specific skill. I used the user flows to construct task flows which show the user experience from a design perspective. These flows dictated which screens I would need to create wireframes to conduct my usability tests.
Wireframes
Before diving into the UI, I focused on sketching low-fidelity wireframes. I started off by referring back to my flows to determine which screens I needed to sketch out and then I listed the content and features that would go on each page based on my research findings. Sketching allowed me to experiment with different variations and design descisions without being bogged down by the finer details of the brand.
After determining which sketches I felt had the most promise, I created mid-fidelity versions in Figma to determine what size elements should be and where I could implement repeating patterns such as cards and buttons.
UI Design
While developing the product's brand, I focused on keeping the design simple and functional as to not overwhelm users who may already stressed out by the career change process. I chose a monochromatic color palette and a single font that utilizes visual hierarchy to naturally move the user’s eye through the content on the page.
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Final Product
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Transferable Skills Quiz
With the Skills Quiz being the core feature of the site, it’s prominently placed on the homepage. The quiz is a simple 3 step process that has users enter in their desired role or have roles suggested to them based on their skills, input in their past role(s), and then select their current skills. The results page provides them a list of transferable skills that they can click on and learn more about through a curated list of articles and videos.
Robust Skills Library​
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A searchable skills library allows users to go in-depth with their learning to discover how their transferable skills directly relate to the role they are transitioning into. The ability to bookmark skill pages, articles, and videos, allows users to create a custom learning plan which can be accessed through their dashboard.
TESTING
Prototyping
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My next step was to create a prototype with essential interactions in Figma for my three task flows. I used this prototype to observe how successful users were at completing each task and to get overall feedback on the site’s visual design.
Usability Testing
I tested my prototype with 5 users over Zoom and 1 over Maze observing and recording any confusions, frustrations, or pain points they encountered when completing the three tasks. After the tasks I asked about their overall experience and noted any areas of strength or suggestions for improvement.
The following summarizes my findings:
All users were able to complete the three tasks successfully, however, a couple areas of improvement were suggested:
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Some users struggled with locating the profile icon that was located inside the hamburger menu to log into their profile and view past quiz results. To fix this, I increased visibility by moving the profile icon out of the hamburger menu and placing it directly in the top navigation bar.
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Participants expressed confusion with the “help me discover my role” option under the desired role input field. They were unsure how that option would affect their results based on the skills they already input. One user suggested that asking users upfront if they know what role they want to transition into would help focus users on what type of results they will get at the end of the quiz.
REFLECTION
Next Steps
If I were to continue working on this project my next steps would be to:
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conduct further usability testing of design updates.
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design subsequent screens for career pages, account settings, and bookmarked skill and career pages, videos, and articles.
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explore a design feature that would give users the option to upload their resume into the Skills Quiz to pull past roles/experience and skills.
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Takeaways
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The design process isn’t linear because designs are ever-evolving. Throughout this project I encountered times where my design changed course. I continually had to to go back and review work I completed in prior steps and make updates as needed, always ensuring that the changes I was making would have a positive effect on my user. This iterative process ultimately led me to design a better solution to solve my users' needs.