Thesis Statement
Have you ever felt that you didn't really have control of choosing your own career path? That using career search engines generated careers that fit but weren't entirely you? Imagine a career app that gives you all the freedom you want when hunting for that perfect job.
This is the home page of the app where users will be greeted with two options. "Build Your Life" takes the user straight to the search page where the user can immediately search for a career. While the other option "Questions for your mind" takes the user to a page where they can find help in starting the search for a career.
When the user taps on the "Questions for your mind" button they will be greeted with this questions page. This is where the user will be able to get a deeper understanding of themselves and control the direction of where they want to go on their career path.
This is the search landing page for when the user searches the career they are interested in. They will be presented with the main career at the top and suggested related careers below it.
When the user taps on the the career of their choice this is the format for the career page. A description of the career, annual income based on states near the current user, and the mentor feature greets the user at first glance. Also if the user needs more information they can tap the "read more" option under the description.
Build Your Life has a mentor feature which takes the concept of shadowing in the work place environment on the go. The user will be greeted with a bio of the mentor, a video interview and link to the mentor's website if they have one.
Project Narrative
Research Stage
When starting this thesis it was a difficult process in developing the foundation of the app. Originally this app was directed towards high school graduates because of how hard it is too narrow down a career choice at that age. So in doing some research I attempted to contact some high schools about their approach to the matter of graduates picking a career choice. Unfortunately I didn't really have any luck in contacting them so I went to what I thought would be the next best thing, the Recruiter and Coordinator of Student Engagement for the College of Fine Arts at Western Michigan University Blake Kuzma.
After asking Blake questions about how she approached certain aspects of her job as recruiter I felt I had a solid grasp on how I should get started with the foundation of the app. I started with writing down words that could be associated with the process some people may have when job hunting on any media.
I mainly looked at other career apps for inspiration when designing Build Your Life. I noticed how stale and cold the apps felt and wanted my design to be more inviting and warm for the user experience. The two apps I mainly looked at were Indeed one of the most popular career apps in the market and another career app called PathSource. Mainly it was a good way to guage a professional career app and a more casual one to find the style I was looking for.
After finding some inspiration in other career apps I created the foundation for the app. Here is where I created the three key features for the app and how each page should interact with one another. Those features are a career comparison function where the user can minimize the time spent unable to decide between two jobs and maximize the time applying to that job or jobs of similar nature. Second is the questions for your mind feature, where the user can have a 1-on-1 interaction with themselves to figure out what it is they want to do.
The idea behind this feature is to promote self confidence in giving the user control of their own actions, that it is ok to choose a path for themselves. The third and final feature is the mobile shadowing or mentors function, this feature gives the user the ability to get inside knowledge of the career they have searched. Having a better understanding of the unknown is always a step in the right direction and when diving into a career you may be unsure of, this feature will help indecisive minds pick a route. These features helped me control my process and direction of information gathering since before this point I was struggling to organize the showcasing of the careers in the app.
As a test, I then created some personas to use this wireframe to generate possible situations they used the app. For example the two individuals would end up with different goals and skills they wanted to achieve when searching for their ideal job. Overall this was a quick process to identity some of the problems users may face when navigating through the app.
Moving on to sketching the identity, I had a very big uphill battle in creating something that was unique. In the beginning I didn't have that many sketches because I felt that they were too basic, that they fit right in with the typical career app imagery.
Being unsatisfied with my sketches I went back to look at my list of words and thought of ways where the identity could be a catchy phrase or motto. I wanted something that would invite people just by saying the phrase, with the mindset that as we take steps to creating our own individual identity in a way we are "building character" identifying what makes us unique to ourselves and everyone around us.
Conclusion
Build Your Life Your Way was what I had settled on for the handle of this app because of the concept of building your own identity. I personally feel it was successful in obtaining that inviting feeling most career apps lack, with good design execution and unique features that support the overall purpose of the app. If I were to continue to build this app one of the problems I would address would be how to expand on the related job aspect when searching for careers. The reason for this is because there can be an extensive list of jobs that could potentially relate to one another and could benefit the user in the long run.
As a designer this project helped me realize that there can always be a problem that you may not see while in the creative process, that in speaking to other people about the project there could be infinite combinations shining behind the raw concept, but with that the key is to not feel overwhelmed and take it one step at a time and analyze what is needed for the best execution.
Build Your Life
Prototype
Sources
Pascual, N. T. (n.d.). Factors Affecting High School Students Career preference: A Basis for Career Planning Program. Retrieved December 2019, from http://www.urs.edu.ph/wp- content/uploads/2016/06/2261-4881-1-PB.pdf (use google search engine)
Wang, X. (2013, October 1). Why Students Choose STEM Majors: Motivation, High School Learning, and Postsecondary Context of Support. Retrieved November 2019, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0002831213488622
Leamy, E. (n.d.). How to help your child choose the right career, without being overbearing. Retrieved December 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on- parenting/how-to-help-your-child-find-the-right-career-without-being- overbearing/2017/11/30/85fe4256-d3a8-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html
Willis, W. J. (1994). The age of multimedia and turbonews. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Visual sources
sources that provided inspiration not all were used in the project
Nurture Digital. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from 5. Nurturedigital.com
Cyclemon. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from Cyclemon.com
The Refugee Project. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from https://www.therefugeeproject.org/#/1981
Toggl - Free Time Tracking Software. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from https://toggl.com/
Draggable JS. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from https://shopify.github.io/draggable/
Uber Sign Language. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2019, from Ubersignlanguage.com
Will Bryant. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://willbryantstudio.com/
Annie Atkins. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://www.annieatkins.com
Gabby Lord. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://gabbylord.com/
Alexander Schul. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from http://alexanderschul.com
Carlo Ratti. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://carloratti.com
Tron Meyer. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from http://www.tronmeyer.com/
Scott Robertson. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from http://scottrobertsonworkshops.com
Michael DiTullo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from http://www.michaelditullo.com/
Spencer Nugent. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://www.sketch-a-day.com
Graphic Designer Salary State List. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Graphic-Designer-Salary-by-State
Environmental Design Salary by state. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Environmental-Designer-Salary
Product Designer Salary by State. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2020, from https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Product_Designer/Salary
