2020
Careership
Design Lead
UX, Product Strategy, Rapid Prototyping, Mentorship, Art direction
Our stakeholder was confident in Careership but knew the concept may be based on assumptions and hadn’t yet found product market fit with actual users. I suggested that we utilize the short time we had to document assumptions, conduct proto-research, and create prototypes that could be socialized and testing to gather valuable feedback.
I reshaped the approach to this project and redefined what output would be the most beneficial to shift our stakeholders ‘go-to-market’ mindset into a ‘explore and find out’ frame of mind during the early stages of Careership.
This project has allowed me to mentor and lead my team in research, discovery, and design exercises, resulting in the growth and success of junior designers who subsequently secured full-time roles. It also positioned me as a career growth subject matter expert within our agency, driving my motivation to support the development of career ladders, professional growth guides, and advocate for career frameworks in our design organization.
With a small team consisting of 3 junior designers, I took the lead in creating wireframes, personas, and style directions while serving as an Art Director to establish the product's visual identity. Additionally, I facilitated client design reviews and engaged in regular one-on-one meetings with the Founder to discuss product strategy, timelines, and desired outcomes.
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Design lead
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Apprentice designers
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Associate designer
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Senior product/visual designer
Without previous user or competitive research to base decisions on, I led my team through a few research practices that would help the team and our stakeholder wrap their head around who, what, why, and how our users would experience Careership.
My team completed a landscape audit to understand how other organizations constructed their ladders, organized their roles, and assessed skills and expectations.
I created two proto-personas to represent a Manager and a Direct report to allow the team to contextualize their decisions against theoretical empathetic traits of our users.
I led the team through a storymapping exercise to outline functionalities, define features to be prototyped, and capture additional features for future iterations of Careership.
In conjunction with the storymapping exercise, I also wanted to capture user stories to base features, functionalities, and prototypes on to provide backlogged ideas to Juan.
Every product is defined by key moments that occur within the user experience and by defining those key moments, I helped my team narrow in on what could help us craft the narrative our stakeholder would need when talking about Careership.
I utilized FigJam to create a space to capture assumptions and risks related to Careership that could be evaluated through testing to assess success or failure.
I broke out the sections to be wireframed and worked collaboratively the designers to define the feature flows and explore interaction patterns.
Initially, the project scope involved redesigning a few screens that had already built. However, through the effective use of story mapping, convergent and divergent workflows, I was able to expand the deliverables and successfully built three comprehensive prototypes for the core manager journey and four for the direct report experience.
As the initial chapter of the Careership story, I created onboarding prototypes for both manager and report to demonstrate the ease and simplicity that Careership could offer.
I created four fully fleshed out prototypes for the Direct Report to capture the essence of what it would feel like to use Careership to drive your career forward.
I created three prototypes to cover the primary areas, functionalities, and where a Manager would focus when using Careership
A landing page wasn't planned but, from previous experience working with startups I knew that a sign-up landing page would be important to gauging interest in the platform.
While our stakeholder had made initial progress in realizing his vision through quick front-end work, our team went above and beyond during this project. We took his existing work and elevated it to new heights, exceeding his expectations by delivering a polished and impressive prototype experience.
An improved career hub to see the career ladder that the report is current in and the roles associated the the advancement within that ladder.
Easily click into the skills, goals, and acheivements that are related to the users current role.
An improved self-evaluation pattern that provides focus and attention to completing the action.
Helping Managers easily onboard, get their initial ladder set up, and quickly understand how the platform works was an important part of the Careership experience.
I find great fulfillment in nurturing the growth of emerging designers and assisting them in establishing their presence in our industry.
This project served as an excellent platform for that purpose, as I dedicated substantial time to help my team build confidence in their abilities by providing opportunities to develop new skills. I encouraged them to take ownership of their work, which not only led to valuable moments of reflection during subsequent reviews but also contributed to their overall career advancement.
Following the conclusion of this project, both junior designers were assigned to enterprise-level clients, and one of them secured a full-time position at Funsize, while the other was hired by forhims.com for a full-time role.
This project provided a unique opportunity for me to lead a fast-paced startup engagement with the intent of delivering testable prototypes, and with the ability to mentor, lead, and shape the vision of a passionate startup founder.
Overall, I’m very happy with the output and outcome of this project and Juan let me know that due to the work, the VP of product signed on to become an advisor for Careership and help keep his momentum moving forward.