Career Bloom
Empowering and customizing your job search by minimizing unnecessary barriers of the job search and application process for the neurodiverse community.
Creative Jam + AdobeXD Challenge
Team | Flying Alpacas
Alissa Marr | UX Designer + Visual Design
Jennifer Shin | UX Designer + Project Manager
Jessi Willey | UX Designer + User Research
Deliverables & Contribution
Agile Method
Research
User Survey & Synthesis
Site Map & User Flow
Design Studio | Home Page
Lo-Fi Wireframing & Prototyping
Usability Testing
Mid-Fi Prototype
Timeline | 36 Hrs.
Our Challenge
Design a third-party mobile app to help underrepresented creatives access hiring opportunities, showcases, communities, and/or other resources that ultimately empower them and allow them to thrive.
Statistics and image from https://www.integrateadvisors.org/.
We found that there is a bigger issue with neurodiversity in our job market. We were shocked to see the statistics revolving around this issue. It was clear that better support, awareness, and advocacy is in order for today’s world.
Understanding neurodiversity
We started with understanding our user and researching and understanding more about neurodiversity and how technology and the stress of job searching and the application process impacts many people who identify as neurodiverse. Most importantly we learned that neurodiversity refers to the unique way in which a person’s brain process information and learns best.
We were humbled by the statistics and how many people in the US and worldwide identify as neurodiverse. Here are some examples of our favorite organizations and applications that inspired Career Bloom’s development.
Neurodiversity Hub is a wealth of information and resources. We highly recommend this site as a go to to understanding how you can build brave spaces as an employer, family member, and friend to support neurodiversity in your community and gain a better understanding of the challenges and solutions regarding neurodiversity.
The Idea of having access to virtual experience for the skill or task you would be performing takes the edge off of what to expect and is an excellent way earn badges or show employers you are prepared.
Life Sherpa was a beautiful app with wonderful resources. Unfortunately there wasn’t a way to register as a new member to try it out. We liked the concept and the access to resources
User Survey insights & synthesis on Miro revealed challenges in the job search & application process. Our team focused on addressing these issues.
Our site map and user flow was a collaborative effort and designed based the on task of building a profile to highlight skills and your preferred method to apply to jobs.
“Our process was quick. With a 36-hour design sprint, our persona was created and we were able to complete the UX design process and complete a mobile app prototype to submit. ”
– Jessi Willey
Design Studio
On day two of the project, we developed our home page based on collaborative input from our team. This process solidified our team and aligned us to our project with visual direction and insight as to how each of us creates and processes our ideas.
This was a highlight. to our design process and gave us a list of features to build into the app.
Jessi | Focus on encouraging tone
Jen | Focus on layout of profile
Alissa | Focus on access to resources
Usability Testing Insights
The lo-fi prototype embraced minimalism for the sake of the timeline which users actually liked.
Skills were not fully customizable and did not have clear selection states.
Our navigation was text heavy and users preferred to use icons.
We did not have a back button built for job browsing.
Calls to action were not clear and direct, causing confusion.
Design System
We chose an empowering color pallette, legible fonts, and created elements to build consistently through the final design.
Final Prototype & Submission
Minimal usage of colors. We kept a clean look while incorporating colors of empowerment and growth.
We built out the "Flex your skills" feature to allow for complete customization to the user profile with no limit to the skills one can add.
We also based navigation more on visual icons so that users can have a break from reading text prompts in an already word saturated task.
We added a back button to the majority of our main sections so users can easily go back to where they were.
We also clarified tasks and directional prompts through the site for users to do less thinking, focusing on productivity.
Future Thoughts
Visual interaction through resumes.
Building a resume for every job you apply to can be daunting and cause greater anxiety revolving around the application process per our user feedback.
I would break the job descriptions into hard skills and find a visual solution to pop out the word or phrases so the seeker knows what to intuitively put in their resumes quickly and without being overwhelmed.
Build in suggest skill building.
Job assessments from employers became the next challenge that our users felt was a defeating and inaccurately disqualifies them for roles. Building out the virtual assistant and linking to online educational learning from thought leaders would be an excellent way to build knowledge, skills, and connect with thought leaders.
Implement animation and gamification.
Given our quick turn-around, it would be great to incorporate animation to dazzle our users. AdobeXD has upped their game in this area and my only wish for this project was to add a few animations as confirmation and interaction for skill-building and reaching milestones in the application and submittal process. as encouragement and reassurance.