Overview
I was asked to develop a tool to help young people find a career direction. User research showed that the existing 'Discover your skills and careers' assessment was far too long and yielded disappointing results and irrelevant job suggestions.
User Needs
"As a young person I need a way to begin my search for a career that suits my skills so that I can find a job that I find fulfilling."
Action
I ran a design workshop to ideate a new approach. My premise was that the quiz should be quick and fun. The more time the user put into the quiz, the better they expected the results to be. The shorter quiz managed expectations and meant users were more open to the results.
Another issue with the previous design was that suggested careers were often ‘just not right’ for the individual. My design allowed the user to edit their answers easily, and dismiss any suggestions they think are not right for them, thus improving user experience and likelihood of pursuing their research based on the suggestions.
Challenges
Our research showed that users felt too embarrassed to say that they were skilled in certain areas, (not wanting to brag, especially in the presence of a careers adviser), so I designed the slider component. Unfortunately, stakeholders felt that a new component would be too tricky to get past a GDS assessment. I agreed and we compromised on a standard 5 point scale. While this provided less precision it was still better than a yes/no which would have made it difficult for less confident users to answer authentically.
Result
The first iteration of this design offered a huge improvement on its predecessor, with 77% of users saying it would be useful and 76% saying they would use it again in future.
