A web and native app with a mission to enhance university students experience by strengthening their skills and polishing their networking abilities.
Propel
Deliverables
User research, affinity mapping, persona, wireframes, UI/UX, usability testing feedback
Team
Paola
Sheena
Julene
Alex
Tools
• Figma
• Miro
• Google Survey
• Zoom
My Role
• Designer
• Prototyper
• Usability moderator
Timeline
1 month - Springboard Industry Design Project
The Challenge
Canadian university students often don’t have a plan for work while in school or after graduating
OVERVIEW
Client Goal
Propel wants students to:
Connect with hiring managers
Join clubs and attend events to increase student skillset
Feel in control of their skills and their future career trajectory
Outcome
An app that builds university student’s confidence by strengthening their hard and soft skills to land a job of their liking.
Students meet hiring managers through student clubs and events to build on their resume.
These skills are added on the propel platform to attract hiring managers, apply, and land a job.
How might we encourage and boost job and potential career opportunities for students?
OPPORTUNITY
RESEARCH
Empathizing with the user
Primary Research
We surveyed 8 Canadian students ages 18-20 years old from various majors and stages in their university career.
Secondary Research
We looked at student’s perspective on the job market and clients old user testing reports.
Results
Anticipated student loan debt
Volatile work force (especially due to COVID)
Belief in their own abilities
Intimidation of job titles and lack of experience
A need for guidance
Insights and findings
Intimidating Platform
Job titles and job search platforms are overwhelming
Standing out
A soft introduction or connecting with recruiters beforehand
“Interesting” jobs
Leverage soft skills and hidden talent(s) to widen work opportunities
Persona
Sadie is based on our findings. We used this to understand her point of view in navigating through the prototype.
IDEATE
Concept Sketches
Sketches helped us see how Sadie would interact from onboarding to the home screen. We added elements from our research she would want to see to push her along in exploring the discovery screen. Here she can boost her confidence and beliefs about her skills by joining and attending events.
Wireframes
Due to time constraints we moved straight to mid-fidelity designs to start our user testing.
Onboarding
Home & Discover
Profile
Job posts
SOLUTION
Iteration 1
The prototype has the following tasks:
Signing up
Attending an event
Looking and applying to job posts
TESTING
Validating the Designs
1 round of moderated zoom interviews with 3 college students.
Issues
2/3 participants wanted to see job posts and updates on the home screen that matched their skill set
All participants mentioned they wanted to add skills and experiences on the profile screen
2/3 participants wanted to use a search bar on the discovery page to search for specific clubs
Learnings
Show job posts on the home screen to give wider range of options students can engage on the home screen
Have “experience” or “add“ button on their profile and home screen if the profile isn’t 100% completed
Bring up the search bar to the top of the discover screen
KPI’s
How would success be measured?
Recurring club and event attendance
Program’s high and low attendance helps Propel in refining their offerings to provide the necessary programs to sharpen student skills and get a suited job.
An increase in students job applications
Understanding the types of roles students are applying, and if it’s related to their major or not.
Students getting hired
Examine student’s skill development approach and job hunting process to better help others succeed in their job search.
REFLECTIONS
Key Learnings
Group meeting times
Scheduling and working was challenging with my team living in different time-zones. If one of us lead the team, it would’ve changed:
Group dynamics
Meeting deadlines
Work quality
The Big Picture
To see a high level view and understand Sadie’s experience with each task, we could’ve used:
User stories
User journey
User flows
Qualitative Research
To understand what a student does, thinks, and feels daily about graduating and looking for work, we could’ve used:
Diary study
Ethnography study
What we would’ve done differently
Accurate audience
It was challenging recruiting Canadian students due to their summer break and our 1 month deadline. We could’ve:
Asked the client to invest in user interview platforms to gather and work with more accurate data
More User Testing
It was also challenging finding American students to test with. We could’ve:
Done more user testing with the incorporated feedback gained from our first usability test
Test on participants that better fit the target user