RadicalX

Career Quiz.

It doesn't matter if you're familiar with certain tech fields, or have the experience within one already. Many individuals face the same common dilemma. How do they get into a tech career? What field is best for them within the tech field? And if they’re already in a tech career, what career might be best fitting for them to transition to next? With the issues that are stated above, I worked with a team of 12 individuals in order to create a fluent, transitional career quiz, based on the select group of individuals looking to find the same answers many of us have questioned ourselves.

Project Duration

3 months 2 weeks.

Role

UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher, UX Strategist & Writer

Tools

Figma, Invision, Miro, Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Google Video, Calendly, Adobe Illustrator.

Team

Product Managers: Ishita Mogra & Adriana barrios

Product Designers: Christia Spiratos, Adriana barrios, Emilija Perchinkova, Hanh Nguyen, Kathlina Doan, Isla Ruiz, Asmita Mohanta, Ray Huang, Nicolas PIgati, James Mazzuca

Project Summary

Consisting of a team of 12 individuals from across the globe, we worked together remotely for a little over 3 months in order to create a valuable solution that would simplify the users needs and frustrations. Starting from a Research plan, to Screener Surveys, followed by Interviews, we were then able to organize our notes into multiple categories. From Affinity Mapping, Empathy Mapping, to User Personas in order to understand our users the best way possible. After Synthesis and Ideation we were then able to follow through to our Problem Statements ( HMWs ) to User Stories, Sketches, Site Maps, and User Flows. After that we went forward to Lo-Fidelity Wireframes. Using the Brand Platform as well as focusing on the Mission/Vision RadicalX wanted us to achieve, we were able to execute Hi-Fidelity wireframes using their existing Style Guide. After Prototyping, and User Testing, we were able to execute our Solution for their new Career quiz.

The Solution

After a few weeks of research spanning from quantitative and qualitative, we were able to head into the correct approach to finalize a concept and idea that was needed to execute the problem correctly within our team. We decided it would be best to focus on the select internship programs that RadicalX was offering since the career quiz we were building was going to be intergraded into their platform via their website. Not only was the visual design important, but the user experience, and user interaction was the top priority that we as a team NEEDED to make sure we focused on in order to create the best product that as a team collective of user experience designers could create. After numerous meetings with the CEO of RadicalX and daily meetings with the team, we were able to pinpoint the correct way to execute our the new intergraded career quiz. Below you can see our design process as a team, and the solution we created.

The Challenge

Creating a career quiz seems like it would be an everyday walk in the park. Quite simple to say the least. Well, that’s what everyone thought, until we decided to start executing it. We needed to find a solution to an issue that we all have experienced. Breaking into the tech field is honestly one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done personally. And it seems, it’s the same mutual feelings that our team also felt. We needed to make sure that we truly and honestly really understood the users needs and frustrations in order to move forward with creating a solution that would benefit our users. In order to make sure we truly understood our future CareerQuiz users, we needed to focus on our users by conducting numerous interviews to understand the problem we wanted to fix and the solution we wanted to achieve. Collaborating with our team and tapping into eahothers knowledge on UX design we were able to create the RadicalX quiz.

Secondary Research

During our Secondary Research we found it difficult to find a career quiz that would direct us into the tech industry we wished to be in. Not only was it a major issue for us as designers to find a well designed quiz, many individuals had the same issues that we also had. And to us that was more important than our frustrations. We decided to focus not he following two issues:

1. Career quizzes are very similar, and seem to not be structured appropriately for individuals looking to be able to find what they’re good at, what they might be good at, and what skills the user already is strong or weak in.

2. Users seem to be confused on what path they might want to take within a tech career. Tons of quizzes, very little care or thought put into them in order to help the individual find what they truly want to do.

With the following two main issues we decided to move forward in our research. To better understand the users needs, wants and what could help them grow as a person into a new career, or become better in the career they are already in. It was crucial to follow the correct path for this career quiz, not only for our users or the RadicalX platform. But also for ourselves. Because we have all been in this same situation before. And no one wants to be that frustrated. Because honestly, its already hard enough to find out what you want to do with your life. And trust me, I know I was in the beginning of everything. Honestly if I knew about UX design earlier, I would most likely have a job by now. ;)

Research Plan and Screener Surveys

To get insights into what the individuals of the target market that we were looking to resolve these issues for needed and wanted, we set up a screener surveys to recruit the best people to interview. After collecting all of the interview data, we were was able to synthesize our findings into Affinity groups, Empathy Maps, and User Personas. The objective was to create a career quiz for the RadicalX platform. But it was also our goal to make that quiz the least painful and benificial we could.

Surveys

When creating our screener surveys we set out to find individuals like us looking to jump into a tech career, or grow more in the field they are currently in. Since the RadicalX platform is based on users gaining experience through internships, having the correct individuals to interview would be major key to the success of this project. We used Google to set up our screener surveys, and recruited people via friend group, email, social media and Slack.

Interviews

After we had enough users take our screener survey we were able to proceeded to create an interview script, and conducted 5 interviews with users who best met the demographic of what our team was looking to learn from these interviews. We made sure that all users felt as if there was zero wrong answers, because truly, there weren't. Since I had experience with user interviews I was able to help direct our team on how to conduct them accordingly. We asked each participant the same open ended questions that revolved around our career quiz. We conducted the interviews via in person & Zoom. We made sure to asked each participant if it was okay to record each session to look back at later for notes. This process allowed us to better understand what users needed, wanted and were looking for when taking a career quiz.

Synthesis and Ideation

After our user interviews we separated our notes into multiple categories from each individuals notes such as, their wants and needs, personality and interests. You can view them above. We then proceeded to go forward with Affinity mapping, Empathy maps, and then into user personas.

Affinity Mapping

During our interviews our team found a few similarities of the users. We decided to separate these similarities into categories to better understand our users needs and wants. We knew how important it was to make sure we executed this accordingly. Not just for us, but for everyone who has been in the same shoes as us before. We spent a lot of time with our note taking and user interviews in order to produce the best product we could for this assignment.

Key takeaways

During our user interviews and note taking we were able to discover the major issues that we would need to focus on in order to make the Career Quiz functionable and reliable for all users within our demographic. These key takeaways included but were not limited to:

1. Issues finding the correct career path.

2. Issues with finding an internship for new career path, or gaining more experience for an exsiting career.

3. Issues with finding what one persons strong suites might be within a tech career.

Empathy Mapping & User Personas

Luckily we didn’t have an issue with the number of interviewers, and had more than enough notes to move forward in the process of our design. We decided to categorize our notes into Empathy Maps, and User Personas. This way we could understand our users better, in order to focus on the main issues that we needed to solve. Working as a team made this easier than ever, as we were able to spend time via video group chat to work on what we all believed we should focus on.

Problem Statements: HMWs

After organizing our research into the above categories we needed to set aside the issues we were trying to solve. The best way for us to achieve this was to create a few HMWs in order to organize find the problems we needed to fix. We worked via Google Video Chat to discuss these issues. We used a star system to label the issues we thought were the most important.

Hypothesis, Value Propositions & Features

With our main issues organized into HMWs we could move forward and focus on a few hypothesis that the users might face, or have faced in order to create a better visual on our solution for the career quiz. We made sure to also focus on Value Propositions and the features we would be intergrading into the RadicalX career quiz.

Feature Prioritization

Ideation: Lo-Fi Wireframes

After we prioritized our notes into multiple categories we were able to move into our ideation stages. As a team of 12 we operated in smaller teams of about 4 depending on the assignment. This made it easier for us to focus on certain design aspects and research. For the design aspect I worked closely with Christia Spiratos, Adriana barrios, and our main Project Manager Ishita Mogra. Christia and I set out to design our first basic wireframes as well as began to prioritize the aspects that the RadicalX Career Quiz would include. Throughout the process we would meet 5 days a week with the team as well as the CEO of RadicalX in order to stay on top of our deadline. It was also crucial to our design process to understand what we were trying to achieve, as well as making sure our finalized project could be handed off to the Developers in the easiest fashion.

Quiz Questionnaire & User Flows

Within our prioritization it was important to focus on what really mattered: Creating a custom career quiz focused on the RadicalX internship program. Due to the large scope of the project we needed to make sure we had our priorities in line before we could move into the design process. After we prioritized, we set out to work on these for an entire 2 weeks, in order to separate our notes into the correct quiz questions. After we decided the correct path of questions the user would be asked we could then move forward with our User Flows.

Site Mapping

It was super important for us to completely understand the flow of the already established website for RadicalX as well as understanding the intergraded Career Quiz we were looking to introduce to its existing architecture. We decided to make multiple flows and combined the ones that were the best fitting for the quiz as well as the existing website. We wanted to make sure that the flow was easy to use, understand and worked flawlessly with the existing system.

Design

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Brand Platform

Company/Product Name: RadicalX | Career Quiz.

RadicalX is an online internship program that helps individuals develop and grow into selected tech fields by gaining hands-on experience working in a real, cross-disciplinary tech team.

Mission / Vision

RadicalX set out to focus on helping individuals achieve the experience necessary in some of the top growing tech fields. It is harder than ever to get into a certain tech career with little to no experience. With multiple people trying to switch their careers, RadicalX wanted to help them. They are driven by the shared mission to provide 1+ Billion students and early career professionals in the world the opportunity to develop their dream career in the innovation economy without barriers like location, prior experience, or socio-economic background being an obstacle.

Style Guide

Since the RadicalX platform was already existing it was important for us to follow the guidelines of their existing style guides. Using the correct fonts, sizing, and color formats would make it easy for us to keep the new Career Quiz flowing effortlessly into their platform. We also made sure to follow the same guidelines for our components.

High Fidelity Screens

After the design system was prioritized we were able to focus on our Hi-Fi designs. We worked as a team designing multiple pages, and designs. After about a week we then were able to prioritize and organize our designs. Since we were a group of 12, four of us set out to design the Career Quiz pages. Christia Spiratos, Adriana barrios, Emilija Perchinkova and myself focused on certain aspects such as look, feel, function and design. Throughout this process we would meet multiple times a week to discuss the best method and design we needed to focus on in order to get the best product we could as a team. After the first two weeks we were able to meet with the CEO and make sure we were on the correct task path, as well as the appropriate design approach that RadicalX wanted us to create. By week 3 w were proud with our designs and the flow that we believed would be best for our users to experience while taking the Career Quiz.

Prototyping

After we built our hi-fidelity screens we were able to go forward with our protoyping. Since this was such a large project we had multiple prototyping to create. From user sign up flows, landing pages, multiple quiz questions, and result pages. We wanted our prototype to feed as real as possible. This way, when we were ready to conduct our usability testing the users would feel as if it was already a real implication into the RadicalX website.

Testing

Usability Tests

After the prototyping was finished we were then able to follow through to conduct 5 moderated usability testing. We decided the rule of 5 for testing was the best method to follow. So it was important we conducted no more, and no less than 5 tests in order to have the best results before moving forward into synchronizing & redesign of the design. After we wrote our script we were able to reach out to friends, family and individuals who took our original screener test in order to conduct our research.

Objectives

The primary goal is to uncover usability problems in the three red routes of the prototype.

The secondary objective is to make sure users during usability testing understand the complete flow effortlessly.