2022
Reimagining student freelance work
Simplifying the matching of student talent with paid short-term projects by incorporating automation into the onboarding process, supporting sustainable company expansion.
Role
UX/UI Designer and UXR
Client
Upstream Skills
Year
2021
Project overview
Upstream Skills matches student talents to short-term paid company projects. It was founded by two women and currently, they are heavily involved in the student onboarding process from hiring to matching with project. However, as the business expands, they are looking to establish a new onboarding system that is more sustainable, so that they can speed up the overall onboarding process and also spend their time on things that are more directly related to the business. Please note that our team was assigned to focus on the students' side of the procedure. (See final prototype here)
The problem
Students: Time spent from onboarding to matching with the first project and between/during projects. When this delay happens, students often lose their momentum which prevents them from interacting with the platform.
New students: Lack of information hierarchy and features to encourage new users to take an action to sign up for the service
Business: Lack of efficiency in system managing the new students from onboarding to the completion of the project. Low engagement rate of the students between the projects
Our solution
• Simplify and reorganize information and present features to covert visitors into leads
• Redesign and automatize student talent onboarding process
• Create a platform and community for students to stay engaged before, during and between projects
Discover - research
Research objectives
18 survey responders, 12 interviews, 5 contextual inquiries
• Validate the assumptions
• Understand the current users
• Discover potential drop-off points from the website
Assumptions
Validating the assumptions
Understanding current users
Understanding current users
"I trust that Jodi and Leah value me."
"This service makes me believe my skills as a student are valuable and worthy."
"I want to feel prepared and know what I'm getting myself into."
Key takeaways
Design - key moments
Homepage - Will Upstream Skills have what I need?
On the Homepage, our goal was to
1. minimize the time spent in identifying the service Upstream Skills provided.
2. to encourage visitors to take an action by placing call-to-action buttons sporadically, whether that's leading them to learn more about the service and the company or ideally to sign up for the service.
Online Onboarding Walkthrough - What should I expect to happen next?
On UPSKL's current site, it didn't have the sing up option. The only way to enroll for the service was by meeting with the co-founders via Zoom. So our team decided to provide the users with the sign-up option and to browse within the student dashboard.
1. This gives the users the opportunity to decide on their own whether to commit to this service. We created modal pop-up walkthrough screens that clearly and concisely show what the next steps are. Then again, we made these steps and tips available on their dashboard homepage - see ④ - constantly reminding the users to schedule a kickoff meeting.
2. This is also a weight off Jodi and Leah's shoulders as they were concerned about meeting each student every time one signs up would not be sustainable.
Student Dashboard - How do I navigate through the platform?
The Student Dashboard is where students will spend most of their time organizing, communicating and socializing. So we designed the dashboard homepage in a way that users can easily digest the information and learn how to navigate. There were minor change in choice of vocabulary and change in location of the information during iteration.
New Project Match and Project Brief - What are the hiring manager's expectations?
The current system used a Microsoft Word template form for the hiring managers to fill out so it can be presented to the student via email. This caused time waste between the student and the hiring manager because they were communicating through Jodi and Leah. So our team designed a way for students and hiring managers to communicate directly within the platform - project brief, accepting/declining projects, comment section for questions regarding projects, along with important deadlines visible at all time so students can stay alert.
Outcomes
After user testing 11 times for the greyscale, and 6 times for the Hi-Fi Prototype, this is what we came up with see below for demonstration or please see final prototype and design system.
Deliverables
• Designed and prototype website and dashboard screens
• Presented to stakeholders and successfully delivered handoffs
Future roadmap
Student engagements
• may offer students to collect badges or recognition to encourage students to work on more projects and stay within the services
• create a system to implement meaningful badges
Hiring manager experience
• create a seamless and simple experience for hiring managers
• develop a system of low risk, low commitment while keeping engagement at a healthy level with students
Money system
• outline clear expectations for how money will be transferred
What I learned
I was extremely lucky to have great teammates! We all worked together so hard, supported each other and stayed up many nights during the sprint but always knew how to have fun and power through even when we felt jaded. Having a fun, loving and supportive team really was the best thing that happened during this project.
Another thing I will remember is that it is so easy to get distracted from different ideas and to forget the objective of the project. It took a while for me to make it into a habit but I will always remember to go back to the business objective and check in to see if our team and I are on track.
Lastly, never to overlook your gut feelings. If you ever feel like there's anything that you're uncertain or suspicious about, always go back and check with the rest of the team members. At the time when I brought back my team mates to look into our persona, we were already a little behind our schedule. Everyone was busy working on the next steps, but I figured that it was a necessary thing to do - in order to make our solutions work and before it was too late to fix. After all of us spending a good amount of time on persona, we finally created Clay and we were able move on to the next phases smoothly. It was when our teammates gave me a recognition of how crucial decision that was for our team, I was excited and felt a great appreciation towards my teammate for giving a thoughtful attention.
