KARA is a solo project conceptualized within the walls of Hack the Break 2023, a 24-hour hackathon competition where I compete amongst 50 teams across British Columbia, Canada. I had to create a solution surrounding this year's theme a.k.a. the "problem space". I participated as a solo hacker with a main concentration in UX/UI Design for this project.
The pandemic-induced economic downturn led to a decrease in available jobs mainly due to worldwide hiring and permanent layoffs, making it challenging for job seekers, particularly for those just starting out in their careers, to find opportunities in tech. Despite industry growth and innovation, the pandemic introduced new hurdles for job seekers.
How might we solve the challenge of job search difficulties and streamline the process for freshly laid-off job seekers and those starting in the tech industry this 2023?
"KARA", is an iOS application that offers job seekers valuable assistance in navigating the challenging job market, ultimately contributing to greater long-term job security. This application features two MVP solutions, as follows:
"KARA", is an iOS application that offers job seekers valuable assistance in navigating the challenging job market, ultimately contributing to greater long-term job security. This application features two MVP solutions, as follows: Job Security Dashboard, and Visible Prospects.
A feature that would create the user’s current job security based on factors such as company stability, industry trends, and economic indicators. Users could enter information about their job and company during the signup process and the application would provide a score indicating their level of job security.
A.K.A. the Visible Job Market, is a feature that would suggest job openings based on the user's skills, work history, and preferences. Users could enter their job preferences such as location and industry and the application would provide personalized job recommendations. The application could also use machine learning algorithms to improve the accuracy of job recommendations overtime.
To understand and substantiate the factors behind the current challenging job market and fluctuating workforce since the pandemic per the hackathon theme, I performed secondary research by gathering qualitative and quantitative evidence through reliable online articles.
I created a User Persona to lay out and define the challenged group of this problem scenario. To cover all the pulled research, I initially planned to pitch two slides of User Personas, but due to time constraints, I opted to focus on just one to prepare for my pitch deck. This decision is to enable me to allocate more time to tackle the upcoming larger stages of my design process effectively.
I decided to validate the problem space during the design process to identify the pain points the target audiences are tackling in this space. Creating a How Might We statement was the core part of this problem validation or DEFINE stage. This led me to create a viable MVP solution to create in this 24-hour hackathon.
Combining all information from the User Persona, I crafted a How Might We question to succinctly encapsulate the problem at hand. This question will guide me towards an effective product design solution.
How might we solve the challenge of job search difficulties and streamline the process for freshly laid-off job seekers and those starting in the tech industry this 2023?
"KARA", an application that offers job seekers valuable assistance in navigating the challenging job market, ultimately contributing to greater long-term job security.
Starting the UI design process, I built KARA's visual language by producing a logo and a style guide using Adobe Illustrator and Figma respectively.
I initiated the development of the hi-fi wireframes atop the lo-fi counterparts, for a swift finish of this hackathon. Comprising a total of 8 frames, KARA incorporates 4 onboarding screens, 2 Minimum Viable Product (MVP) screens featuring a search feature, and a dedicated profile screen.
To make them true to their function, I designed each of KARA's components with different variants to emphasize phases, interactions, and visual navigation. These dynamic components were then added to the prototype, replacing the static versions.
The presented prototype can be viewed at this link. To fully appreciate the depth of the work, I encourage viewing/testing the Figma prototype in fullscreen mode.
I worked with the design team at Atria Tech Coop, a non-profit organization in Vancouver, Canada, to create a 0-1 mobile web application (Atria Townhall) aligning with their mission to make it easy for cooperatives to contribute and work together on complex community problems.
Determine which homepage design works better for users (artistic vs standard) and identify if Townhall succeeds in helping users find opportunities for community involvement through A/B Testing and collaborative ideation/design workshops.
I met with the Atria Townhall team during their Design Phase to learn about the MVP, project timeline, and discuss possible roles and tasks. Thereafter, I was fully embedded into the team workflow to support them for the upcoming (A/B) Testing Phase and perform final refinements with the team before design handoff.
Working with a design partner, we collaborated on laying the groundwork for the Testing Phase, culminating in the development of a fully realized Testing Plan for A/B Testing.
After reviewing the two homepage prototype versions, we have established that our end goal for A/B Testing is to...
Determine which homepage design works better for users (artistic vs standard).
and for the winning design, to...
Identify if Townhall succeeds in helping users find opportunities for community involvement.
From the screener survey that my design partner and I structured, we managed to collect 174 insightful responses, providing us with a large pool of qualified respondents ready to select for participation in the Testing Phase.
Despite receiving a heavy number of email confirmations for their scheduled testing sessions, we were met with multiple "no-shows" from the first two batches of contacted participants. As a result, we had to drastically downsize our number requirements to keep our team on schedule.
I took charge of email communications as the participants’ first point of contact, streamlining the onboarding process.
With my design partner, we outlined our testing methodology as Moderated Remote A/B Testing with a Think Aloud Test Style. We also had to produce recorded materials from these testing sessions for later review and accommodate ourselves as our team is scattered in different time zones. Out of four sessions, I was engaged in two as a moderator and one as an observer.
Valuable user comments were collected and imported from our open-ended task questions during the Test Phase. In addition, we included our Observational Notes from our respective observed sessions—in my case, I worked on Participant P015 (Red Notes).
After grouping all similar user comments and labelling each group, we colour-coded and segregated the notes within each group whether they identified as negative (red), positive (green), or neutral (grey) comments. From there, we were able to determine top-priority comments and synthesize them into action items.
After our analysis, I participated in one more workshop. My involvement includes reviewing, determining group severity ratings, and developing follow-up recommendations for the compiled "Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics" Evaluations of both homepage prototypes. The inclusion of this workshop aimed to address our lack of A/B Test participants by engaging other knowledgeable designers who hadn't been extensively involved in the Atria Townhall design process.
Based on our overall findings, we learned that Prototype A (dynamic/artistic) offered a more fulfilling user experience with fewer negative user comments and design recommendations compared to Prototype B (static/standard). Following our analysis of the Heuristic Evaluations and Affinity Diagram workshops pre-refinement, our team concluded that Atria Townhall's...
Prototype A stands out as the most effective design for users to successfully find opportunities for community involvement.
Moving forward with Prototype Version A (Dynamic/Artistic) as the winning design, I was assigned with implementing eight changes across the following pages.
The checklist is built upon action items and design recommendations translated from the Affinity Diagram and Heuristic Evaluations workshops respectively.
My design workspace throughout Refine Phase. Dynamic components, process, organization, etc.
Thank you to Atria Tech Coop and to my amazing Atria Townhall team, Sarah, Neha, and June, with whom I have closely worked. I initially met Atria Tech Coop through a UX Design hackathon, and I loved the journey I had with them during and post-competition. Bringing me in as one of their designers, I am beyond grateful to have contributed to a project that helps scale the reach of various community involvements within Vancouver, Canada.
My first meeting with Atria Tech Coop:
