pathfinder
Redefining the discovery experience for students and career switchers to discover career stories
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeframe
2023-2024 (4 months)
Team
2 Designers
1 Product Manager
6 Engineers
TLDR
Having a community of professionals to add and share stories of their work experience helps students and career switchers learn about the professionals' experience so they can be prepared earlier in their career journey.
At PathFinder, I was a UX/UI Designer leading the end-to-end design direction of redesigning the Discover page. The goal is to improve the discovery experience and save time finding stories.
This results in 100% task completion rate, 80% satisfaction rate, and increased total clicks by over 250 on the Discover page.
100%
Task completion rate
80%
Satisfaction rate
250+
Increased of total clicks
problem
PathFinder has 50 total clicks on the Discover page and from a previous usability testing, students were confused and dissatisfied with the page
goals
What are the goals?
Drive engagement
Attract students and career switchers to continue using the site as an essential product.
Increase discovery
Help make the Discover page more noticeable for students and career switchers to find this page.
Improve the discovery experience
Improve the students and career switchers' experience using the discover page.
Solution
A redesigned Discover page to increase discovery and save time for students and career switchers to search for specific stories
research
Students and professionals did not want to click more to find a post and wanted to filter and search it quickly
Further validating the Discover page and understanding why there was less engagement led us to conduct 5 user interviews with students and professionals by navigating the website and asking them about their areer path experience. Here's what I learned:
Demanded filtering and searching quickly
Students and professionals wanted to filter and search when they landed on the Discover page.
Assumed that it's a job board page
Students and professionals assumed at the stories page is a job board by its layout.
Overwhelmed by the Discover page
When landed on the site, they were overwhelmed by the layout of the page.
Userflow: Student landing on the Discover and searching for a story of a Software Engineer at NVDIA
design decisions
Redesign the Discover page to drive engagement and improve the discovery experience
After discussing the research insights, we decided to redesign the Discover page to improve the discovery experience. The designer and I designed different versions of the Discover page for team feedback and after considering the product requirements and the technical constraints, I decided to use version 2 to create high-fidelity wireframes for usability testing to have the participants interact with it as if it were a launched product.
Design iterations
Evaluating Discover Page Effectiveness
The designer and I went through rounds of iterations from two usability tests via Zoom on high-fidelity prototypes and weekly team meetings to validate whether the design was easy to use, observe any confusion, and align with the team’s requirements before launching the product. Doing usability testings on high-fidelity prototypes will help to give consumers a feel of a launched product. Here's what I learned from usability testings:
Discover page: Students and professionals wouldn't use the Question and Industry filer and because they want to search some key words in the search bar
Story page: Students and professionals wouldn't read a block of text and wan't sure how far they have the scroll
DESIGN handoff
Scrutinize the design to foster smooth engineering collaboration
I facilitated the design handoff by documenting design specs, organized flows, and clear annotations on the Figma file, which made the process smooth and efficient for the engineers. When I worked closely with ith the front-end engineers, I ensured that they understood the details throughout the process.
final DESIGN
Where we landed: A redesigned Discover page to advance the discovery experience
Students and tech professionals can now explore the community through professionals’ stories and choose a story they are interested in learning about their career experience.
RESULTS
100% task completion rate
All the participants from usability testing completed all the tasks when experiencing the redesign Discover page.
80% satisfaction score
From usability testing, consumers were satisfied with the redesign Discover page resulted in high customer satisfaction score.
250+ increased in total clicks
After launching the Discover page redesign, there's an increase of 250+ total clicks, which there's more insteraction than before.
REFLECTION
Consider narrowing down the scope due to time constraints
As PathFinder is an early-stage startup, it's common for a startup to have a small scope and keep it agile. Although I wanted to design more features, I had to consider what to prioritize due to time constraints.
Balance between user feedback and techincal constraints
It is important to design for the consumers, but I learned that it is also important to put myself in the engineer's shoes to make the designs feasible.
Next project
Pathfinder
Creating PathFinder's first design system with a component library and a style guide, following WCAG 2.1 AA standards
Design System
Accessbility
