ALT+WRK
ALT + WRK = Your Best Career Equation
Overview
Timeline: Setember 2023 - October 2023 (6 Weeks)
Role: Solo Ux/UI Designer, Ux Research, Branding, Student Project
Background
ALT+WRK pioneers a comprehensive career consulting platform, dedicated to guiding individuals towards fulfilling and successful career paths that align with their distinctive skill sets, interests, and values. Our mission revolves around simplifying the complexities of the job market by offering personalized career exploration solutions, empowering users to make informed and impactful career decisions.
The Problem
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Information overload and credibility concerns in the current career consulting landscape.
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Difficulty for job seekers in identifying suitable career paths amidst an abundance of unverified information.
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Decision-making paralysis and uncertainty arising from the lack of reliable resources for career exploration.
The Solution
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A centralized platform offering streamlined career exploration tools and personalized insights.
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Curated and verified career information to minimize confusion and frustration among users.
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User-Friendly App Interface for easy navigation
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Empowerment of users through informed decision-making and credible resource connections.
Design Process
User Research , User Interviews, Competative Analysis, Journey Map , Low Fidelity Wireferames, Mid Fidelity Wireframes, High Fidelity Wireframes, Clickable Prototype
Research Goals
The research focused on understanding the challenges individuals encounter during career transitions and job searches, while also identifying the impact of information overload and credibility concerns on decision-making processes. Additionally, the research sought to determine the effectiveness of personalized career recommendations in addressing these challenges and empowering users.
1. Secondary Research:
Understand the career consulting landscape's challenges and trends by analyzing existing literature and industry reports.
2.User Interviews:
Gather firsthand user experiences and insights, delving into specific challenges faced during career transitions and job searches.
3.Affinity Mapping:
ynthesize interview data, identify recurring patterns, and gain a holistic perspective on user challenges, aiding in platform development.
Secondary Research
Comparative Market Analysis
The Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) was conducted to thoroughly understand ALT+WRK's competitive positioning within the career consulting landscape. By assessing the strengths and weaknesses of prominent platforms like ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, and CareerOneStop, ALT+WRK could effectively identify the gaps in services and market opportunities. Through this analysis, ALT+WRK aimed to leverage its unique offerings, such as personalized career exploration, skill assessment, tailored career path guidance, and comprehensive skill development resources, to differentiate itself and provide a more holistic solution for users navigating career transitions and job searches. Click to view CMA
User Interviews
Interviewing Participants
The decision to conduct user interviews was motivated by the need to gain insights directly from the target audience regarding their challenges, preferences, and expectations related to career transitions and job searching. By engaging with individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, we aimed to understand their pain points, needs, and the specific features they desired in a career exploration platform. The interviews provided valuable firsthand information that helped us tailor the features and services of ALT+WRK to effectively meet the requirements of our potential users..
Participant 1: Age 30
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Mid-Career Customer service rep considering a career pivot.
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Expressed challenges relating to finidng relevant information and a streamlined career pivot process.
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Emphasized the need for a simplified and efficient platform for discovering alternative career options and obtaining guidance on career transitions.
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Participant 2: Age 35
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Director of Project Delivery in a technology consulting firm.
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Emphasized the importance of efficeient candidate identifacation tools for hiring roles within his domain.
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Sought skill assessment and matching capabilities to help identify potential talents more effectively.
Participant 3: Age 35
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Project Manager in medium sized IT company
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Highlighted uncertainties regarding transferrable skills and the struggle to find job listings aligned with his desired career path.
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Expressed the need for skill assessment and matching tools, along with access to job listings in his desired field and guidance on career transitions.
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Participant 4: Age 29
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Registered Nurse
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Expressed challenges in identifying career advancement opportunities within the healthcare field and managing the information overload in job listings.
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Expressed the need for job search filters and skill assessment tools tailored to the healthcare industry.
Affinity Mapping
Interpolating interview findings
Affinity mapping streamlined our user interview findings, uncovering patterns and themes that guided ExerPro's user-centered design process. It distilled complex data into actionable insights, ensuring our decisions aligned with user needs.
Key Themes:
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Career Transitioning Challenges
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Information Overload and Filtering
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Networking and Mentorship
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Skill Assessment and Matching
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User Experience Expectations
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Skill Development Resources
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Personalized career guidance
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Clear and informative career pathways for different profesions
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Streamlined and simplified job search process
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Comprehensie support beyond job listings
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Emphasis on veriefied and credible career information
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Value placed on user-friendly interfaces and intuitive design.
User Personas
Humanize potential users
The development of the three diverse personas was crucial for ALT+WRK's platform design, enabling a comprehensive understanding of user needs and pain points across different demographics. By exploring distinct user profiles, the team gained insights into the varied challenges and aspirations of individuals seeking career transitions and employment opportunities. This approach facilitated the creation of a user-centric platform that caters to the unique requirements of individuals at various stages of their careers, ensuring a holistic and personalized experience for all users.
Problem Statement
How might we create a streamlined and personalized career exploration platform that empowers individuals to identify and transition into alternative or adjacent careers based on their transferable skills, interests, and values, thus minimizing the uncertainty and challenges associated with career transitions and job searches?
Site Map
Navigating Interactions
The creation of the site map for ALT+WRK was driven by the need to establish a clear and intuitive user flow, ensuring that users could easily navigate the platform and access its key features. By outlining a structured hierarchy of pages, including a landing page, dashboard, user profile, skill assessment tool, job search and listings, and skill development resources, the site map aimed to provide a seamless user experience. This systematic approach to organizing the platform's content and functionalities was intended to enhance user engagement and streamline the process of career exploration and job searching for our target audience. Click to view Site Analysis
Digital Wireframes
Wireframing the Solution
The creation of comprehensive digital wireframes for ALT+WRK was pivotal in visualizing the platform's layout and user interface. By outlining the key design elements, such as the landing page, user dashboard, skill assessment tool, job search and listings, and skill development resources, the wireframes aimed to provide a clear blueprint for the platform's functionality and user interaction. This process enabled the team to incorporate user feedback and iterate on the design, ensuring that the final product would offer an intuitive and seamless user experience.
Mid-Fidelity
Hi-Fidelity
Pallet
The components and UI kit played a pivotal role in establishing a cohesive and recognizable brand identity for ExerPro. By defining standardized design elements such as buttons, typography, colors, and icons, the UI kit ensured visual consistency throughout the app. This consistency not only enhanced the user experience by creating a familiar and intuitive interface but also contributed to brand recognition and memorability.
Prototype & Testing
Determining the Effectiveness
PROTOTYPE WITH 3 TASK FLOWS:
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Onboarding: Profile Creation into Skill assessment
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Job Search: Highlighting the job search process from the dashboard
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Skill Assessment update: Existing user updating thier skill assessment.
Usability Test
Does the design work?
The usability tests conducted on the ALT+WRK platform were pivotal in gauging the user experience and identifying any potential pain points or areas for improvement. By gathering valuable insights from user feedback and observations, the team gained a deeper understanding of how users interacted with the platform and navigated its features. These test results played a crucial role in refining the application's design, enhancing its user interface, and streamlining the user journey, ultimately ensuring that the final product would meet user expectations and deliver a seamless and intuitive experience.
At a glance:
Usability test consisted of 3 task flows:
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Sign Up / Skill Assessment
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Job Search
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Dashboard /Skill Assessment
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What Worked:
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4/5 participants generally praised the friendliness of the UI/UX emphasizing that it can provide personalized career guidance.
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5/5 the skill assessment tool was a interesting feature that could be valuable.
What needs to change:
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2/5 participants noted minor issues with the size of a couple buttons
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2/5 felt there needs to be a more interesting interface for the career assessment instead of feeling like a form being filled out.
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Idea suggestions for more features:
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1/5 participants suggested that there sould be a career progression or path recommendation for online courses.
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1/5 participants suggested that there should be a feature for networking opportunities.
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2/5 participants suggested that it would be cool to see fun visuals fo rthe job matchups.
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
ALT+WRK's development journey has been guided by a user-centric approach, emphasizing iterative design, user feedback, and streamlined functionality. The platform offers personalized career guidance, skill assessment tools, and extensive job search resources, catering to diverse user needs. By addressing the challenges of career transitions, ALT+WRK has established itself as an innovative and reliable career consulting firm, poised to revolutionize the user experience in the realm of professional growth and exploration.