ExploreCareers
Helping you discover your dream job.
Roles
Designer, Researcher
Tools & Skills
Figma, FigJam, Prototyping, UI/UX Design
Timeline
January 2024 - April 2024
Team
Tech4Good Lab @ UC Santa Cruz
What is ExploreCareers?
ExploreCareers helps high school students consider potential careers by personalizing information, providing career-oriented TikTok videos, and offering self-reflection activities.
The Problem
High school students lack sufficient and organized information about potential career paths. Students express frustration over the lack of clear guidance and overwhelming amount of information available, often unsure of where to start their research.
This problem leads us to ask ourselves...
How might we design a career exploration platform that engages the targeted demographic and meets their individual needs?
Step 1: Research
How can we cater to each user's needs?
We're aware that high school students vary in the career exploration progress. Thanks to our research, we discovered the Meeus-Crocetti Model. This framework categorizes students by exploration progress, allowing us to tailor resources to each stage.
Meeus-Crocetti Model: consists of 5 categories based on commitment, exploration, and reconsideration:
Pursuing a Direction: Committed to one career after exploration
Juggling Multiple Goals: Interested in several careers after exploration but may reconsider
Tentatively Decided: Committed to a career without exploration, often due to parental/social pressures
Figuring Things Out: Exploring careers while uncommitted
Not Yet Engaged: Has not begun exploring career options
How can we engage high school students?
Our research into youth career exploration highlighted papers advocating for social media as a tool for social and self-directed learning. This inspired us to incorporate "Day-In-The-Life" videos, offering insider perspectives on careers often absent from academic settings. We selected content from TikTok due to its popularity with teenagers and its wide range of relevant videos.
Social Learning: Social media forms an informal, communal environment for learning, allowing users to absorb knowledge outside of traditional lectures.
Self-directed Learning: The appeal of social media for teenagers makes the content more engaging than traditional methods, encouraging them to explore concepts independently.
Step 2: Flow Charts and Planning
With the research and ideas on the table, it was time to organize the user flow of our prototype. This prototype was for a high school seminar, where 10 high school students would user-test our product so we could further improve it from there.
Initial Flaws
Activities should not be only way to find "desired career"
Doesn't make sense to receive identity state after exploration
Career exploration pages are meant for personal research, not immediate reflection
Revisions for Final User Flow
Users receive their identity status first to understand their experience level before exploration
Dashboard acts as the main hub for all resources and activities
Reduced activities from 3 to 2 for purposes of the seminar
TikTok videos relocated to the major occupation page
Since the Figma prototype did not allow typing in text boxes, users are asked to fill out a Google Form for reflections
Step 3: Prototyping
Now it's time for the fun part: DESIGNING THE PROTOTYPE. I was tasked with designing the TikTok pages and Major Occupation pages. Let me walk you through my thought processes.
Previous TikTok Page Design
This is the previous design that past team members left for us. I thought it looked great and was functional. But I thought many improvements could be made....
The size of the TikTok video player is too small relative to the reflection questions beside it
The orange button under each reflection question does not communicate its function
The text boxes for the reflection questions are too big and can make it feel like each question is a paragraph long
There is disconnect between the career research and the TikTok videos
TikTok videos should be found within the major occupations page
Final TikTok Page Design
Relocated under each major occupation page, ridding the need of a "My TikToks" page
Enlarged the size of the TikTok video player because it is the main attraction and should be big enough to view in detail
Added comment icons to indicate that its function is to respond to the reflection question
Created a scrollable interaction between enlargened TikTok videos to engage the user by allowing them to scroll through the web page, similar to the TikTok app
Final Major Occupation Page:
Features and Purpose:
Implemented collapsible information panels to reduce cognitive load based on user's preferences
Extracted career information from the ONET database to reformat the outdated designs and hard-to-find information into a modern user-friendly prototype
Emphasized important, easy-to-understand pieces of information with suitable icons at the top to quickly resolve common questions
Positioned minor occupations at the bottom of the page to establish hierarchy of information between major and minor occupations
Final Minor Occupation Pop-Up Page:
Features and Purpose:
Implemented collapsible information panels to reduce cognitive load based on user's preferences
Extracted similar information as major occupation but condensed and specialized to the specific career
Included question at the top asking for commitment level to the given occupation
Pop-Up feature signifies hierarchy of information
Step 4: Results
After completing the prototype as a team, we left it to the User Research team to user test it with the 10 high school students.
Main Takeaways
Main challenges to career exploration included financial insecurity and lack of mentors
TikTok videos and informational resources were beneficial in addressing the main challenges
Students did not have a preference between TikTok videos and informational resources
Students liked how their interests could be connected to a career that promised financial stability
Students liked the accessibility of career resources
Students believe that accessibility to career resources can make up for a lack of mentorship
Check out the ExploreCareers Prototype
This prototype was customized for a high schooler interested in engineering, business, and legal studies
Reflection
Initially, all the moving parts felt overwhelming. So many design files, research papers, and individuals to work with. But once I became more familiar with the team processes, it was smooth sailing from there. While at times, tasks felt tedious and repetitive, I found pleasure in decreasing the cognitive load on screen into something more user-friendly.
Any questions? Feel free to reach out!
Shout out to Tech4Good and the ExploreCareers team!