How I conducted an end-to-end user research piece and created a comparison tool for users.
5 min read
CareersFinder (CF) is the latest product from MyCareersFuture designed to help users find potential career opportunities based on their current skills through a simple quiz. During my internship at GovTech Singapore, I embarked on a comprehensive user research project aimed at enhancing CareersFinder.
In the quiz, there is a question asking users whether they were looking for a career switch, a career advancement or if they were open to both options. We noticed that most users (60%) selected the third option, resulting in less accurate test results.
Role
UI/UX Designer
Timeline
8 weeks
Tasks
User Research
User Interviews
User Testing
Qualitative Analysis
Prototyping
Research Objective
The primary objective was to understand why a significant portion of CF users were undecided about their career choices and how CF could better serve this majority, or what we called the “broad middle”, and give them more accurate test results.
Challenges
During the interviewing process, I faced several challenges, including:
Finding the right participants
Ensuring a diverse and representative sample of interviewees was crucial. Participants needed to vary in age, industry and salary to capture a broad range of perspectives.Conducting Effective Interviews
Balancing the need to allow interviewees to open up while keeping the discussion focused was a delicate task. I had to ensure that interviewees had ample time to think about their answers without leading them or stacking questions. Techniques such as the Five whys helped a lot.Extracting Key Insights
Identifying relevant insights from diverse interviews required a keen eye for patterns and an ability to distil complex information into actionable findings.
User Interviews & Insights
I conducted in-depth interviews with five participants from various sectors.
Here are some of the questions and research findings below:
The key findings included:
Uncertainty and comfort zones
Participants were generally hesitant about a career switch as it was out of their comfort zone and could result in a change in work-life balance. They felt competent and secure in their current roles but were hesitant to stay due to limited career progression, leading them to consider a career switch.Preference balance
Most participants gave a 70:30 weightage to either a career switch or career advancement. They regarded themselves as uncertain as they deemed this to be an important life decision and wanted to make the right choice for their future.Concerns about starting over
Most participants were worried about the implications of starting from scratch in a new career. The fear of starting over adds to their uncertainty and reluctance to switch or explore new career options.
These insights revealed a common theme: users needed more clarity and support to confidently make career decisions.
After each interview, I conducted simple user testing sessions to obtain user feedback.
Some of the pain points included:
The match results weren’t relevant, and there were mixed opinions on the skills match score.
CF could provide more depth to facilitate the decision-making process as the current state felt too broad
The limited number of inputs one could select during the quiz. (e.g. job role and skills selection).
Action Items
With these insights and the assertion of my team, I concluded the interviews confident that I had unearthed the key drivers behind user indecision. The recorded interviews were transcribed and the findings were extracted and presented entirely on FigJam. The full FigJam board can be viewed here.
The suggestions from user testing sessions were then collated and I got the team to vote on which features they thought were the most important to work on.
Additionally, I created a user persona based on the five participants to help facilitate the design making decisions when it comes to developing new features for these users.
I decided to take up the task of creating a comparison tool feature mockup that is yet to be live. Mockups for both desktop and mobile were designed.
The first half of the comparison tool focused on comparing skills.
The comparison tool was split into two sections:
1. Skills Comparison: This section focused on comparing the skills required for different career options.
2. Job Information: This section focused on job information such as salary and government grants available.
You might be wondering, shouldn’t the job info be at the top since a jobseeker would deem that as more important? I decided to place the job information below the skills comparison as users were already comparing job salaries upon viewing the job matches at the top of the page. By highlighting the skills first, users will be able to reflect on their skills at an earlier stage and how they align with potential career opportunities.
Additionally, the yellow donut chart at the top serves as a point of focus when users first discover the comparison tool. Additional ideas such as having separate sections were considered; however, since this was still at the prototype stage. A minimum viable product should be achieved before any enhancements are made.
Check out the prototype below!
Results
As a result of this project, the team had a better idea of how to better serve the needs of CF users and they are currently figuring out how to provide more resources such as giving users access to career coaches to make themselves more employable. As well as adding new features to CF such as a comparison tool, and additional filters to help facilitate the decision-making process when selecting and pursuing an occupation of their preference.
Retrospective
Collaboration Is Key
Working closely with my team and stakeholders ensured that the project progressed holistically, integrating content strategy and technical feasibility from the start for the features that were suggested. One of my main concerns was the technical feasibility of the comparison tool as it is unlike any of the conventional comparison tools out there in the market. Other comparison tools work with static and fixed information and are presented nicely, whereas CF’s comparison tool has to be updated dynamically and ensure that the skills are sorted correctly.Resource Management
With a limited budget for incentives, I had to be strategic about who and how many participants to recruit. By targeting key demographics and making use of the interviews by adding user testing sessions, I maximized the diversity of insights. Additionally, coordinating interviews around participants schedules, sometimes outside regular working hours, ensured higher participation rates. Flexibility was key in accommodating participant's availability.Trusting My Instincts
Speeding up the screening and interviewing process by trusting my gut feelings about participant selection could have saved time. There was a lot of uncertainty at the beginning of the project and I needed more clarification on the interviewing process as it was something that I had not explored previously.
The initial phase involved a steep learning curve in terms of mastering interview techniques and refining the questionnaire. Reflecting on this, I realize the importance of preparation and continual learning.
Conclusion
This project provided valuable insights into the needs and behaviours of CF users. By addressing the uncertainties and hesitations faced by the “broad middle” group, I was able to design a comparison tool that better serves their needs. The ongoing efforts to implement these features and provide additional resources will further enhance the user experience and help users make more informed career decisions.
© Min Ern Koh 2024