Info Challenge 2022:
iSchool Career ServiceNewletteer Redesign
Project Overview
My Role
UX Designer
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Created user-centered design to achieve the design goals.
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Created sketches, wireframes, and prototypes to visualize ideas.
UX Researcher
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Facilitated brainstorming sessions and ideation workshops.
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Planned for the research process.
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Conduct background/ competitor research, and user interviews to understand pain points and ideate.
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Conducted user testing to validate designs.
Tools we used
Figma
Timeline
02/27/2022-03/01/2022
Problem Statement
The current iSchool Careers Newsletter is very simple in its content and formatting, and the iShool Career Service is looking for opportunities to make the newsletter better in both areas.
Outcome
The team was able to create a high-fidelity prototype to propose the redesigned layout which provides tailored experiences for different user groups. (Click to view full design)
What is iSchool Career Service
iSchool Careers is a service point within the College of Information Studies that provides support for students and alumni from all of our degree programs (InfoSci, InfoDesign, HCIM, MIM, MLIS, and PhD).
What do they provide
Current services include drop-in hours for career consultations and a simple weekly newsletter that lists career-related events happening on campus as well as internship and job opportunities that match our students’ skills.
Design Process
01. Discover the problem
Provisioinal Persona
The team first created 4 provisional personas to depict our hypothesized user segments. The segmentation are sliced based on different goals. We used these provisional personas to brainstorm the interview process and recruit interviewees.
User Interview
​The team managed to recruit 5 interviewees within 2 days. Each interview took about 1 hour and questions about career goals, career status, and their feedback on the current newsletter were asked. All the feedback were documented and organized on Google Spreadsheet.
03. Design the Product
Product Structure
Based on the insights we collected previously, we first sketched out the content we want the newsletter to include using FigJam.
Moodboard
Considering the overall style of iSchool documents and the design direction, the team first assembled the moodboard to create the design identity.
Wireframe
Referring to the moodboard, the team then brainstormed the design into wireframes.
Prototype
On top of the wireframe, the team merged the visual design with it to produce a higher fidelity prototype.
02. Define the problem
Affinity Diagram
The team then interpreted the notes and moved them on to FigJam for sorting using affinity map. Through this, the team had a better view of what pain points users are having and what exactly they want from the newsletter.
Key findings
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The newsletter doesn't look legit
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The information listed in the newsletter is messy and hard to read
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The visual design is not appealing
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The job list doesn't show enough job requirement information
04. Getting Feedback
User Testing
With the prototype set, the team then immediately started conducting user testing sessions. A total of 4 users were recruited. All feedback was documented on Google Spreadsheet and then consolidated into an affinity diagram using Figjam.
Feedback Summary
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They like how the current design is listing out all the information in an efficiently readable way (+)
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The text link's positions are not consistent, which may lead to some confusion (-)
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Need to think about design for different duration scenarios (-)
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Would like to see info about the job's experience requirement and work type (-）
05. Design Iteration
Revise
According to the feedback collected, we made the following modification:​
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Clarified where to include text links to prevent confusion
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Provided template for different scenarios. (1-day event with 1 sign-up page, 2-day event with 2 sign-up pages, and 2-day event with 1 sign-up page)
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Implemented recruiting message structure （Added experience level requirement and job type）
Limitation
In this project, the team noticed that there are something that need careful examination in future development:
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Sample diversity
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Due to the time limitations, the participants recruited were mainly through personal connections. Thus, a lot of them are students from the HCIM program, which may lead to some potential biases.
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Reflection
In this project, we utilized the design thinking process to explore pain points from current users and create a targeted design for an improved and tailored user experience. Also, we were able to create an HTML template using a Figma plug-in for future development. During the process, we got a great chance to do some deep reflection on what kind of research we should conduct before doing design work and how should we design the research so that it's effective and efficient. At the same time, we also polished our skills in how to create useful and targeted solutions with minimum cost.​