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Desktop Image of Woken career coaching platform

Career coaching platform.

PWA (Progressive Web App) that empowers users to forge a career path that they will love.

role

sole-designer

toolkit

Prototyping: Figma
User Testing: Usertesting.com
Graphics: Creative Cloud
Tech Comms: Trello

timeline

  • Feb 2018 - 2020
    2 years

business overview

WOKEN provides tools & coaching to help you manage your career development.

problem

Systematically, young adults are not receiving sufficient guidance, resources, and education to figure out a suitable career path. As a result, we are seeing a reinforcing cycle of work disengagement which leads to incessant job hopping and enduring career anxiety.

goals

To create a functional career coaching platform that empowers users to forge a career path that they will love.

constraints

We had a very limited budget and needed to make a simplified version of the app to reduce the amount of development spend.

The SME process was an exploration first, linear process that was very rigid.

target

B2C: Young adults who are 24-34, moderate-to-high income ($55k-$105k+), college-educated, work in professional services

B2B2C: Outplacement Centers, Coaches, University Career Services, Human Resources

process

research

Process
I began by personally interviewing 25 people with my discussion guide. My goal was to understand users’ process during their job search and to identify similar platforms or features for analysis.
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Questions
What is lacking in the current market of career sites according to job seekers What help have they gotten already that was or was not helpful? Where do people typically find jobs?
DISCOVERY
Through these field interviews I learned that recent graduates had completely different motivations from those who were placed in a role for even just a few months. Users recorded processes that included using LinkedIn and predominately landing in roles through family and networking connections. The users across the board had a negative view of assessments while the coaches believed they helped them understand their clients more. 59% stated that they would benefit from human interaction during the process.

personas

user flow

reflections:
The proprietary coaching process required a complex flow.
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KEY DECISIONS
We decided to implement a coach review and release function.We also needed to make a success page to reward users.

sitemap

reflections:
The process is very linear and the home page needed to empower the user so they felt like the process was moving along.

sketches

iterations

#1: GOOGLE SHEETS
Before finding a development team, we created a fully functioning Google Sheet prototype that over 50+ users we able to test and report feedback on. Users were able to completely fill out assessments, track networking and be guided by our career coaches.

The users loved the idea of the product, they affirmed our proof of concept. They also were very frustrated by google sheets and this was the push that we had to begin develop ASAP.
#2: SKETCH ITERATION
Through the UX design process, I came up with an intial idea for the main dashboard of WOKEN. This was my first iteration on Sketch and proved to be very clunky and was replaced. The feasiblity of certain features needed to be audited by our dev team.
#3: 2019 Platform
In 2019, we switched over our development team and revaluted the design to include more of the stakeholders feedback. We had experienced a ton of difficulty dealing with several different technology leads. Finding the right talent was consistently an issue when the company operated in the most scrappy way possible.
#4: Simplification & Refocus
After countless user interviews and meetings with advisors, the biggest piece of feedback we received was that the platform needed to feed users with bite-size information. I simplified and reimagined all pages.
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Need for Mobile
The stakeholders had apprehension of the creation of a mobile app, however the user feedback strongly indicated a need for responsive screens and on-the-go use.

lessons learned

Desktop Image of Woken career coaching platform
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I learned the importance of the designer's voice as an advocate for the user. By constantly addressing and iterating upon the users’ feedback we were able to produce a better product.

I became comfortable with learning design tools on the fly, doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Working with startups has hammered down on the fact that there is always a way to solve problems with creative, scrappy thinking.