About The Project
The website is a platform that provides courses that are more suited to the current demand in the market, which has seen exponential growth with the pandemic since 2020. This platform helps individuals migrate to a different career or help them upskill.
The Hurdles
The main challenge is to guide the customer to select the right pathway to upskill or change career paths. The journey needs to be a seamless experience for the customer to find any required information on the website to reduce the number of calls and emails they receive for more details. And a simple user-centric approach to checkout and enrollment.
My Role
Product Strategy
User Research & Analysis
Person Creation
Minimum Viable Product
Wireframes
UI Design & Prototyping
The Process
Formulate and prove the hypothesis
Ideate with collaborators (Internal Stakeholders)
Build MVP (the most basic version of a product)
Concentrate on research results
Test, Learn & Repeat
Research & Problem
The Hypothesis
Most people employed or in the job market are looking to progress either in their careers, find new opportunities or are unable to find jobs with their current skill set. They either don't know what path to take or even change directions to a different career. Fear plays a big part in this process, as the risk with change is a gamble you don't want to take when you have a regular paying job or are looking for a new job you wouldn't have the experience to show in the new skills you have acquired.
Thoughts
Developing a site with the right content and guidance by addressing the concerns with fear as the catalyst will build trust, which can help the individual progress or find employment by enrolling on a program the site offers. A listing of jobs on the site as a secondary focus can connect people who complete courses highly beneficially.
Research:
I conducted user surveys & video interviews. The online survey was posted to community Facebook groups posting technology jobs in and around the region.
The Personas
In analysing the responses from the user research and the people who answered them, I will be referring to the below two persons throughout the product development process.
I will focus the research on parents aged 35 to 45 with children as the primary group. The reason for picking this group is that they have established careers and are looking at changing jobs for financial advantages or growing in their current position.
And the secondary would be the Gen-Z, aged 20 to 25, either living alone or together. Gen-Z is more focused on being employed and is willing and flexible to change career paths based on personal preferences like location, flexible work hours, and the organisation's culture.
Design Influence
Focusing primarily on each persona's interactional context helped me understand the user's physical, environmental and emotional state at the moment of the interaction. This process has significantly shaped the development of decisive design decisions and crucial functionalities.
Some examples are as follows:
A section of tools
Changing Careers
Finding courses that interest them
Jobs in the market
A job listing based on the courses that interest them.
Based on the Job, a list of courses they can enrol in.
List of free courses on topics related to budgeting, time & careers.
Current market job statistics:
Demand
Salary
Growth
Required Skills
User Stories and MVP
The user research and persons helped me align the users' goals & need to formulate the design decisions and direction required. Which, in turn, is what the user stories and the MVP is based on.
Uncertainty about a career change
Requirements for career growth or being employable
Available Jobs in the market & statistics
Ability to compare and evaluate
Time commitment and planning
User Flow
The research identified that the courses, pricing, or delivery weren't the problems for the lack of enrollments. The courses were the last piece of the puzzle. The main focus was finances, information on career possibilities, and time management. Addressing these needs individually will lead to the same destination: course enrollment.
Design Exploration
Three identifiable sections needed to be focused on, a career pathway, jobs in the market and then the courses. These three sections would be interconnected to reach the same destination, registering for a course eventually. This stage was critical for the design process, as the user feedback helped me find a solution to their pain points. At this stage, the focus will be on the desktop version, and on its success will ride the mobile version of the solution. I ran the first round of user testing with the paper version of the website with users and found the below issues.
