Discover West Virgina Jobs
Discover West Virgina Jobs
Enabling life-changing career opportunities for an entire state.
Enabling life-changing career opportunities for an entire state.
Overview
Although Jobcase is based in Massachusetts, we have strong partnerships with nonprofits and governmental institutions across the United States. One of these partners is with Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation, an organization who works with businesses and state leadership to meet the needs of employers and workers in the state.
After seeing our success partnering with the city of Los Angeles, the DRWV Foundation approached Jobcase to design and build a portal to help workers in West Virginia discover jobs. The primary ask was a website with different tools to aid in the job search for those looking to up-skill or those who might be unfamiliar with the options that would be a good match for them despite having the right skills.
Overview
Although Jobcase is based in Massachusetts, we have strong partnerships with nonprofits and governmental institutions across the United States. One of these partners is with Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation, an organization who works with businesses and state leadership to meet the needs of employers and workers in the state.
After seeing our success partnering with the city of Los Angeles, the DRWV Foundation approached Jobcase to design and build a portal to help workers in West Virginia discover jobs. The primary ask was a website with different tools to aid in the job search for those looking to up-skill or those who might be unfamiliar with the options that would be a good match for them despite having the right skills.
Overview
A web-based career discovery tool for residents of West Virginia facing changes to local industry.
Requirements
Launch a tool in one month that can serve the complex needs of jobseekers but has a friendly, accessible interface.
Role
I served as the principal designer and user researcher for this project, seeing it through from wireframes to launch.
Duration
The bulk of the work of project was carried out from July 2019 to August 2019, approximately four weeks of work.
Final Project
The interactions below outline the core functionality and use cases for the Discover West Virginia jobs experience.
Final Project
The interactions below outline the core functionality and use cases for the Discover West Virginia jobs experience.
Portal
Serves as the central navigation to access the features of the experience and bolster trust with logos, quotes, and explanative copy
Browse careers
A solution for users who are uncertain of which roles to search for but aren’t ready to commit to the career path quiz to find titles and listings for their interests
Search
A custom implementation of the Jobcase job search capabilities that only serves jobs in the state of West Virginia
Career path quiz
A 30 question quiz based on the O*NET Interest Profiler that allows users to quickly indicate interests in different tasks to build a profile to match them with jobs
Design process
Understanding the problem
Based on discussions with internal stakeholders and the requirements outlined by our partner, we planned to build out three user journeys, with the career discovery portal being a major feature. We felt this was the best way to address the needs of a wide segment of the user base who may find a job search with no guidance daunting.
Because many of the users would be using this to search for new career paths it made more sense to directly address the needs of those with uncertainty about their future career prospects who were interested in future work opportunities based on their skills and interests. We also determined that a key functionality would be to deliver relevant job listings post-discovery, aggregated from Jobcase and other partners.
Conducting research
To ensure accuracy of the results, I conducted a literature review of papers published by the U.S. Department of Labor around the different variants of the O*NET Interest Profiler. A longer, 60 question version of the quiz is provided but the 30 question version has a degree of accuracy high enough for us to feel like the trade-off on reducing the time until a user was able to see their results was appropriate. The O*NET uses the questions to score respondents on traits of Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional with questions about common tasks.The categories are based on research conducted in the 1950s by psychologist John L. Holland and have been used by the U.S. Department of Labor since the 1990s.
The O*NET service also provides the framework I used for the industries grid on the job browse page. This experience allows for users to explore careers in different industries as an alternative to the interest profiler and gave us a little more flexibility as far as design went because it didn’t rely on an API.
Developing the solutions
The main feature of the experience is a career discovery quiz that lets users quickly answer 30 questions and receive career recommendations based upon their answers. With this restriction in mind, I designed 3 options for the quiz with the goal of meeting the requirements of an user experience that is fast, fun to use, and accurate. The accuracy scores are based on the usage of a 1 to 5 scale versus a boolean scale. After a review with stakeholders, we opted to move forward with the third option of quickly tapping through screens with a series of tiles, which struck the right balance between accuracy and speed.
Design process
Understanding the problem
Based on discussions with internal stakeholders and the requirements outlined by our partner, we planned to build out three user journeys, with the career discovery portal being a major feature. We felt this was the best way to address the needs of a wide segment of the user base who may find a job search with no guidance daunting.
Because many of the users would be using this to search for new career paths it made more sense to directly address the needs of those with uncertainty about their future career prospects who were interested in future work opportunities based on their skills and interests. We also determined that a key functionality would be to deliver relevant job listings post-discovery, aggregated from Jobcase and other partners.
Conducting research
To ensure accuracy of the results, I conducted a literature review of papers published by the U.S. Department of Labor around the different variants of the O*NET Interest Profiler. A longer, 60 question version of the quiz is provided but the 30 question version has a degree of accuracy high enough for us to feel like the trade-off on reducing the time until a user was able to see their results was appropriate. The O*NET uses the questions to score respondents on traits of Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional with questions about common tasks.The categories are based on research conducted in the 1950s by psychologist John L. Holland and have been used by the U.S. Department of Labor since the 1990s.
The O*NET service also provides the framework I used for the industries grid on the job browse page. This experience allows for users to explore careers in different industries as an alternative to the interest profiler and gave us a little more flexibility as far as design went because it didn’t rely on an API.
Developing the solutions
The main feature of the experience is a career discovery quiz that lets users quickly answer 30 questions and receive career recommendations based upon their answers. With this restriction in mind, I designed 3 options for the quiz with the goal of meeting the requirements of an user experience that is fast, fun to use, and accurate. The accuracy scores are based on the usage of a 1 to 5 scale versus a boolean scale. After a review with stakeholders, we opted to move forward with the third option of quickly tapping through screens with a series of tiles, which struck the right balance between accuracy and speed.
The logic of the career quiz is based upon the O*NET Interest Profiler so we were restricted by the limitations of their API, which delivers text, takes input, and returns results based on the information provided. Because of this, we had to move away from a visually rich interface and went with solid tiles for the experience.
Prototyping and validation
Using an InVision prototype and UserTesting.com I tested the job discovery with 5 different users in asynchronous testing environments (not moderated.) The insights helped steer the direction of the design and was valuable in correcting some assumptions we had made about communicating the purpose and context of the questions. For example, I originally thought that sorting the questions into pages by the traits outlined above made logical sense but this was more confusing than clarifying to our participants.
Additionally, it was clear the visual feedback of changing the color of the selected row from dark to light wasn’t a sufficient indication that it was selected so that was changed to be more responsive.
Executing on solution
After dispositioning the feedback from the prototype users and our key stakeholders, I worked to arrive at a final design and coordinated with a content strategist to refine the language and instructions. With a hard deadline due to prearranged press commitments I worked closely with the engineering team responsible for building the experience to provide feedback and guidance on the design execution.
Challenges
Time constraints
We had about 4 weeks from the time this project was brought to our attention until when it was set to be delivered. Jobcase leadership had arranged for a press conference and media appearances to promote the product at the end of August. With myself as the only designer on the project and a number of parties at Jobcase with a vested stake in the success of the project, there was significant pressure to deliver something polished and fully functional in a short amount of time.
Usage beyond launch
Another goal of the project was to eventually roll the interest profiler into a queryless job discovery tool on the Jobcase website. Although we were building the project for citizens of West Virginia, it was important that it could be used with a broader audience down the line. This is one of the reasons we were confident in testing our initial prototypes with a broader public instead of seeking out users from the area we were targeting.
Technical limitations
Because of resourcing and time constraints, much of the backend was based on existing work done for a partner in the years prior. This necessitated working within the general framework of the first portal which was a successful strategy for speeding up the time to launch but meant there were limitations on how far we could push the concepts that were being tested.
Outcomes
The Discover West Virginia Jobs initiative saw a successful launch with Senator Joe Manchin and our CEO Fred Goff appearing together on a live streamed launch on August 28, 2019. This was paired with a press release from Jobcase which was subsequently picked up by several local media outlets in West Virginia. Thousands of visitors completed the self-assessment in the first week and the initiative boosted Jobcase visibility within the state and has been used as an effective tool to promote partnerships with other organizations since launch.
The logic of the career quiz is based upon the O*NET Interest Profiler so we were restricted by the limitations of their API, which delivers text, takes input, and returns results based on the information provided. Because of this, we had to move away from a visually rich interface and went with solid tiles for the experience.
Prototyping and validation
Using an InVision prototype and UserTesting.com I tested the job discovery with 5 different users in asynchronous testing environments (not moderated.) The insights helped steer the direction of the design and was valuable in correcting some assumptions we had made about communicating the purpose and context of the questions. For example, I originally thought that sorting the questions into pages by the traits outlined above made logical sense but this was more confusing than clarifying to our participants.
Additionally, it was clear the visual feedback of changing the color of the selected row from dark to light wasn’t a sufficient indication that it was selected so that was changed to be more responsive.
Executing on solution
After dispositioning the feedback from the prototype users and our key stakeholders, I worked to arrive at a final design and coordinated with a content strategist to refine the language and instructions. With a hard deadline due to prearranged press commitments I worked closely with the engineering team responsible for building the experience to provide feedback and guidance on the design execution.
Challenges
Time constraints
We had about 4 weeks from the time this project was brought to our attention until when it was set to be delivered. Jobcase leadership had arranged for a press conference and media appearances to promote the product at the end of August. With myself as the only designer on the project and a number of parties at Jobcase with a vested stake in the success of the project, there was significant pressure to deliver something polished and fully functional in a short amount of time.
Usage beyond launch
Another goal of the project was to eventually roll the interest profiler into a queryless job discovery tool on the Jobcase website. Although we were building the project for citizens of West Virginia, it was important that it could be used with a broader audience down the line. This is one of the reasons we were confident in testing our initial prototypes with a broader public instead of seeking out users from the area we were targeting.
Technical limitations
Because of resourcing and time constraints, much of the backend was based on existing work done for a partner in the years prior. This necessitated working within the general framework of the first portal which was a successful strategy for speeding up the time to launch but meant there were limitations on how far we could push the concepts that were being tested.
Outcomes
The Discover West Virginia Jobs initiative saw a successful launch with Senator Joe Manchin and our CEO Fred Goff appearing together on a live streamed launch on August 28, 2019. This was paired with a press release from Jobcase which was subsequently picked up by several local media outlets in West Virginia. Thousands of visitors completed the self-assessment in the first week and the initiative boosted Jobcase visibility within the state and has been used as an effective tool to promote partnerships with other organizations since launch.
