PROBLEM

In a secondary research study by Cameron Write in 2018, 48 percent of students that chose STEM majors switched out of STEM. Roughly half of these students switched their major to a non-STEM field and the other half dropped out of school entirely.

This figure displays one identifiable group of post-secondary students that show exceedingly low confidence in their chosen career or program of study. Similarly, within the Art’s field, many students struggle to commit to their chosen career path or post-secondary education.

CHALLENGE

How might we lower college drop out and program switching rates across Canada, among first year college student?

SOLUTION

Career Journey is a website that will allow Canadians 13 years of age and up to access information on careers within the field of art and entertainment. Skills based tests will lead users to careers within the specified fields, and then onto pages that describe those jobs based on their required skills and responsibilities as well as educational recommendations. They will also be directed to existing online communities to help them connect with current students and student work examples from their educational program of choice.

After seeing their results and connecting with online communities, users will have access to student work in their desired programs, a list of skills they should anticipate to learn, and an educational plan to help them gain confidence in their college or university program choice.

DESIGN PROCESS

EMPATHIZE

Research

To better understand the causes of indecisions and program confidence within this project’s target audience, research was conducted to determine potential strategies and barriers. Research was conducted through surveys and interviews among high school students, college freshman and college graduates.

Key Findings

Limitation to finding “Niche” careers
Specific programs and careers are often found through Word of Mouth
Many participants reported an increase in program confidence upon viewing student work
High school level advisement is often similar in most schools but lacking overall in instilling career confidence

DEFINE

Users

The target users for this study are high school level or returning students within Canada. Specifically, students with an interest in the field of arts & entertainment but also lack the resolve to commit to a specific career or program of study.

Pain Points

High schoolers that had access to co-op experiences displayed strong program confidence, yet these are rare occurances
Participants reported very similar online resources at the high school level, few provided a high level of influence
Learning from one’s own mistakes and switching majors is unavoidable in some cases

IDEATION

Competitive Analysis

After conducting research into existing high school career advisement strategies, a competitive analysis was conducted on existing career aptitude and personality tests.

Key Findings

Results are often extremely broad and not field specific
Tests that are more detailed are very time intensive
Personality tests do little for career advisement but can help towards job satisfaction criteria

Designing a Solution

How It Works

Students first access the site, to discover new career options in their chosen field with the Skill Guide. This simple selection based quiz, allows students to find new and rarer careers within their desired field of The Arts

Once students have found a career of interest, they can learn more about the skills and daily activities found in that career, as well as recommendations for college and university courses that lead towards their career goals

After gaining interest in a specific college or university program, users are encouraged to reach out to the schools or current post-secondary students to view examples of student work in their programs.

This realistic example based approach, provides students with a stronger model for what they should expect in their chosen program, and help them stay motivated to finish their degree.

PROTOTYPE

Mockups

Home

High-Fidelity, MVP mockups were created to outline the final design based on time and development constraints. The mockup highlights the key functions and intended outcomes for the target users.

Skills Guide

Career & Education

Style Guide

Buttons

Titles Freight Display Pro 43pt

Subtitles

What I learned

For this project, I learned about time management, UX research, project scope, and MVP product design.
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Being the sole designer and developer for the project, my visual designs align with what was feasible within the timeframe after researching potential solutions and prototyping a developed product. I also learned how to pivot my design based on scope changes and Evaluative Research User Testing feedback. I developed my skills as a UX designer by incorporating user feedback into the final design and ensuring that all design decisions were both impactful for the user and possible development wise.

This project gave me a much greater understanding of backend requirements and front-end solutions around similar products.

Next Steps

In the future, I want to continue this project by continuing to create my database of student work examples, and explore more community options for connecting high school students with current and graduated college students to provide a new avenue for accessing student work examples.

I want to team up with a developer in the future to ensure that the back end requirements can be met, and to allow for more features such as saving quiz results, which cannot be acquired through front-end coding alone.

Finally, I would like to create a more eye-catching visual design, by adding more imagery to the tests and a more dynamic homepage once I have perfected my front-end development skills.

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