Project Context

Background
Growth is a powerful and intuitive career coaching app designed specifically for veterans. It helps veterans to learn about transitioning out of the military or looking to advance their civilian career. Growth’s primary target users include all the veterans who just got out of military would like to learn more about what they can do to achieve a successful career. Growth provides the resources and guidance to empowering veterans and helping them to reach theirs career goals.

It has been identified that a lack of knowledge about the civilian job market, and limited understanding about translating their military experience into relevant civilian skills are the crucial factors for veterans’ career failure.

Goal
Design an app that will packed with tools and resources to help veteran to identify their skills and strengths, explore career options, and build a personalized career plan that will help them succeed in the civilian workforce.

User Research

I conducted online and in-person interviews with a sample of military veterans across different branches and levels of experience. Most interview participants reported that transitioning from military to civilian careers is a significant challenge. The feedback received through research made it very clear that veterans would be successful in civilian career if they had access to personalized guidance and support from experienced career coaches who can help to navigate the transition process and identify career opportunities that match their skills and interests.

Building Empathy
I established a persona profile using the quantitative and qualitative information from the survey and interview responses.

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Sketches

I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas. My focuses were find the coach in an efficient way and easy scheduling process.

Starting the Design

Digital Wireframes
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the Food Saver app. These designs focused on delivering personalized guidance to users to help manage their career goals.

I conducted rounds of usability studies. Findings from the prototype testing helped me to guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The testing study revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining. Here are all the findings I got from usability studies:

1. Users had hard time with smaller “sign up” button

2. Users had difficulty knowing the upcoming events in account page

3. Users preferred to go back to account after scheduling

Final Design

Key Mockups
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes like providing a clear big button "Get Started" on home screen to create account and going further. Additional design changes included adding a section “Upcoming Events” on the account page, and providing a clearer indication of when is the next meeting with their coach. Here I am displaying some important mockups:

High-fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study

Reflection