UX Hustle

Project Type

Student Project

Duration

3 Months

Role

Sole UI Designer

UX Designer

User Researcher

Tools

Figma

Google Docs

Google Slides

Zoom

Context

During the Winter of 2022, My UX103 Class was tasked with creating a product with UX students in mind. My team of five chose to design a product preparing first-year UX students for life after graduation, as well as post-graduates looking for jobs. The overarching aim of this assignment was not only to engage in the complete UX design process but also to gain experience in fundamental project management processes specific to UX Design.

My Contribution

Project Scope and Plan

At the start of our project, I was in charge of defining our project scope and plan. I outlined what was to be included and not included in our project, created project deliverables, project deadlines, and delegated tasks amongst my team.

Data Analysis

I analyzed findings from our research and created a user persona that would later be used to create a user story and inform many of our design decisions going forward.

UI Design & Prototyping

I designed and built our interactive final prototype in Figma with over 15 pages of content.

Overview

Problem

The paths to a career in UX are numerous. This abundance creates a daunting and confusing process for new students and graduates striving to align their skills and interests with the right career.

Currently, there is no single tool where you can find all the information you need about different UX careers, what skills you need for each position, where you might work, what education you might need, and which companies are hiring. Because of this lack of guidance, it is hard to get a clear picture of what being a UX professional involves.

Challenge

How might we guide young UX Designers in identifying career plans aligning with their skills?

Goal

Create a comprehensive online platform for exploring post-graduate career options in UX, providing clarity on various roles and generating interest in specific fields.

Design Process

Research

Competitive Analysis

We decided to start our research by conducting a competitive analysis. This allowed us to understand what tools were already available to aspiring UX professionals and where they fell short.

User Research

The aim of our research was to identify the resources necessary for guiding UX students in finding a suitable career path.

Through user interviews and card sorting, we aimed to uncover:

The most relevant topics concerning UX careers.

The topics students actively sought guidance for.

The most cohesive format and structure for users.

User Interviews

User interviews conducted on Wilfrid Laurier University graduates revealed it can be difficult to find information on specific skills required for each UX career, and the typical workday of a UX professional.

Card Sorting

Closed card sorting was done to learn how users understand and categorize certain topics and features under different sections. This helped us in creating an information architecture that met user expectations.

Analyze

User Persona

Meet Jacob, a user persona I created based on our research. I created this persona to provide my teammates with a clear understanding of who our users are, what frustrates them, what motivates them, and what they need from our product.

User Story

User stories, similar to user personas, help showcase the user's motivations and frustrations. Our user story also communicates what features users might be looking for.

Prototype

Low-Fidelity Prototype

Testing

Cognitive Walkthrough

Conducting cognitive walkthroughs on our low-fidelity prototype revealed many necessary improvements useful for designing our medium-fidelity prototype.

Prototype

Medium-Fidelity Prototype

Link to Interactive Google Slide: https://docs.google.com/presentation

Testing

Heuristic Evaluation

After conducting two heuristic evaluations on our medium-fidelity prototype, we pinpointed several areas for improvement before finalizing our design:

Prototype

High-Fidelity Prototype

Reflection

What I Learned:

Test your design early on.

Conducting card sorting and cognitive walkthroughs early in the design process provided valuable insights and helped identify issues before moving forward with our design, saving us time later in the process.

How to communicate effectively.

Through this project I learned to support and encourage different ways of thinking, clarify expectations with team members, and seek external help when needed. This led to a productive team environment and a stellar final product.

What I would do differently:

Ideate as much as possible.

The requirements and deadline of this project did not allow for much ideation, but I would have liked to explore different solutions to our problem if given the opportunity.

Recruit more participants for research.

Recruit more participants for research: Most of the research for this project utilized 1-3 participants per method. In the future, I would like to have around five participants for each round of research and usability testing so that our sample is large enough to represent our user base.