Real-world, career building experiences, and coaching for all.
My role: Lead Designer
Partners: 1 Product Manager
Starting this project, we had already successfully launched our MVP platform and were looking to apply our learnings to a new iteration. I led the user-research efforts and advocated for users in strategy and operation discussions. Being at such a small company, I had to get creative to solve user problems in ways that had high user impact while requiring low dev work.
Get to know our users
80%
workers under 24 are considering a career pivot or change in industry.
58%
millennials want to change jobs for learning and growth opportunities.
27%
college graduates have a job related to their major.
Project goals
1. Increase engagement and completion of learning experiences (LX) on the platform.
2. Build self-efficacy in users to allow them to feel comfortable exploring career paths.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Avery, a recent bootcamp graduate, needs a way to get practical experience in order to land an entry-level position in tech.
Research
While users expressed excitement and interest in working on cross-functional projects through Clicked, we found user behavior to say quite the opposite.
24%
of users were active (applied to a project).
14%
of total users committed to a group case study.
User interviews
I conducted interviews to understand user experience using the platform, what had a positive impact, and what areas needed improvement.
Conversations with users who were hesitant to sign up for projects revealed that while they saw the cross-functional project as a great opportunity, they were afraid of messing up a project that others were counting on using for their portfolios. Users were not confident in their own abilities, and despite expressing their excitement to try out roles, the worry of hurting others’ careers prevented them from signing up.
One member used this analogy to highlight how persevering through the project had given her a huge confidence boost.
It was clear from these interviews that the main blocker was a lack of confidence and concern about letting others down on something that was important to another team member’s career.
For the one team that successfully completed a group project, each member reported feeling nervous at first and having self-doubts that they would end up disappointing their team. However, upon completion, every team member said the project increased their confidence in themselves and their skills. Despite their initial concern, they reported growth in both hard and soft skills through the cross-functional experience.
“You have to run through the fire to feel that you can never be burned.”
Pivot – Gen Z Explorers
At this time, I was told that we were pivoting our target audience away from career Builders and focusing instead on career Explorers as our primary users, particularly Gen Z and late Millennials. The market gap was particularly large for career Explorers, and our marketing team discovered our brand resonated particularly well with the Gen Z and Millennial target segment.
Through interviews, I discovered a curious paradox in our target audience. While our users have a strong desire for structure, it is often through happenstance exposure to other tech roles that they pivot towards careers they are more passionate about.
PROBLEM STATEMENT 2.0
Jael, a gap year student, needs a way to sample possible careers and identify their passions, in order to pursue a fulfilling career direction in tech.
Updated goals
Equipped with the updated persona, I modified my goals:
1. Build our user's self-efficacy in order to let them feel safe exploring high-impact projects outside their comfort zone (cross-functional team projects).​
2. Find the right balance of structure and autonomy so users could explore and discover new tech fields, while still feeling that they were progressing towards a career they love
Due to resource constraints, I discussed options with the product operations and LX teams to utilize existing functionality rather than designing and building out new features.
In comparing the Builder and Explorer personas with the data we had recently gathered, I discovered a huge hurdle for Explorers in signing up for a cross-functional project. While Builders were motivated to sign up for group work to build their portfolios, Explorers lacked the feeling of immediacy to gain experience. For this iteration, I needed to focus on those first steps that happen before a user joins a group project.
I came up with two major changes for the platform:
1. Give users a quick overview of various tech roles and how they overlap. This gives a great introduction to new roles that users may not have known about – and provides the context they need to evaluate whether a role might be a fit for them.
2. Create smaller ‘steps’ the user can take to feel a sense of accomplishment which gives them the confidence they need to take the leap and join a group project.
My solutions changed the user flow from this:
To this:
Solutions
To give new Explorers guidance, we created structured introductions for each role and highlighted a series of three projects that users could follow to explore new roles and dive deeper into a specific role of choice.
I hypothesized that the introduction of smaller easier projects would allow users to build up their confidence and feel more ready for group work.
Start here
Try this
Work with a team
Outcomes
32%
of users were active (applied to a project).
increased from 24%
66%
of users who signed up for a group case study completed it.
increased from 21%
18%
of total users committed to a group case study.
increased from 14%
Reflection
Project work is best suited for more in-depth learning and gaining experience once a user is further along in their career journey. In order to best cater to Explorers finding their passions, we need to provide low-touch experiences that give a good sense of trying out roles. The next stage of iterations will focus on identifying which types of experiences users are drawn to, which have the most user impact, and what can we reasonably support with our limited resources.