ExploreCareers
Role
Lead UX Researcher
Academic Writer
UI Designer
Team Size
12 Members
Tools
Figma
Annota
Google Forms
Writing Skills
I led a team of researchers and designers in identifying the disconnect between students and career identification, which led to the creation of a potential platform that provides in-depth exposure to a variety of careers through various online informational tools.
Overview
Creating a Digital Tool to Help Students Gain Career Knowledge and Form Their Own Career Identity
Summary
"ExploreCareers" serves not only as a tool that provides students with a wealth of online career information, but also helps guide them in academic planning for their chosen careers. Students often struggle to obtain career information through traditional academic channels, making it daunting to know where to begin their research for a career path. "ExploreCareers" also hopes to fill the gap in career education left by the current academic plan. Exposing students to a multitude of careers is essential for helping them find a job that suits their needs and ultimately prepares them to suit their needs for their college academic path.
Figure 3.1: ExploreCareers Landing Page
Students Lack a Consistent Outlet to Absorb Career Information
Problem Statement
The primary challenge students face when entering college is that most lack the necessary career knowledge to make informed decisions about their future career paths. Without proper career education, a student may struggle, leading them to switch between majors and become confused about what they want to pursue. Students should learn about various jobs in high school, but the current education system does not yet adequately support students' exposure to multiple fields.
Figure 3.2: Career Identity Confirmation Page
Providing Students with a Centralized Place for Up-to-Date Career Knowledge Through Various Outlets
Goal
We aim to create a platform that streamlines career information research and ensures each student has a personalized page tailored to their current career interests and related paths. Our platform will employ three different sources for career information including updated career database statistics, short form media through TikTok videos, and an AI Careers chatbot. Furthermore, we hope that our research will continue to advance the discussion on incorporating career development into the high school education curriculum.
Figure 3.3: Personalized Home Page
Research
Utilizing Qualitative Analysis to Identify Personalized Solutions for Students
Our Approach
Through gathering permission from various high school students, we conducted sets of two interviews. The first set was for the "ExploreCareers" platform, and the second set was for a Career Chatbot we had been testing that would pair with our current platform. Both sets' first interviews were structured like walkthroughs to familiarize the students with the tools, and were followed up with a second interview a week later, after each student had had time to explore each platform. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, and uploaded to our in-house analysis program, Annota. Using Annota, we identified and categorized students' notes and comments about our platform, enabling us to expand our dataset and enhance our website.
Identifying Different Factors Influencing Career Development
Figure 3.4: Student Quotes from Interviews
Examples
Through our user testing, we determined that students found having all different types of information outlets to be extremely helping in solidifying their current career path or eye-opening for discovering alternative routes. We used this data to expand the discussion around increasing career education and also to improve our current platform.
Design
Figure 3.5: Career Anxiety Page
Introducing Students to Resources that Can Help Deal with Career Decision Anxiety
Improving Design
One thing we noticed in our interviews is that students struggling to make career decisions go even beyond just a lack of information. Lots of adolescents struggled with some levels of career anxiety that hinders their ability to make level-headed decisions. Since the goal of our platform is to create a centralized resource for students, we created a page dedicated to helping students learn how to deal with their anxious thoughts. We added links to articles to read, podcasts to listen to, and a section that invites students to share their thoughts and suggestions on coping with anxiety.
Writing
Helping Students Make Informed Career Decisions as Discussed in Our Research Paper
Furthering Research
This study aimed to identify ways to better support students in their career identification process, enabling them to make more informed career decisions with greater ease and frequency. Moreover, we also wanted to test the effectiveness of the current array of online tools in helping students come to better, more confident conclusions about their own career journey. We applied what we learned and began writing our academic research paper, which we hope will be published in August. I was personally tasked with writing the Related Works section and sifting through other scholarly articles to further back our research.
Figure 3.6: Occupation Pages
Categorizing Data From Our Interviews and Understanding Our Results
Starting Analysis
After conducting our interviews, we took the uploaded data and prepared it for use in our research paper, specifically in the methods, results, and conclusion sections. Each quote that supported our initial hypothesis was tagged with a given a code to identify what the quote was about and in what context it could be used. Our in-house platform, "Annota," made it easy to stay organized during the analysis process by tracking all our coded quotes and moving them to an easily accessible file.
Tasked with Writing the Related Works Section and Outlining My Drafts
Writing My Section
My role in the research paper was to complete the "Related Works" Section. The first thing I did was compile all the articles we analyzed for the basis of our study. Next, I began writing my outline, titling each section and providing bullet points to ensure I could address every focal point. I also included links to all the relevant articles for each section so that I could reference and quote them later. I began writing, and after six different drafts, I was able to finalize a version that I felt was ready for publication.
Moving Our Paper to Overleaf and Cleaning Up the Small Errors
Link to Published Paper Coming Soon!
Cleaning Up
The last step in finalizing our paper was to move it to Overleaf and ensure everything was formatted correctly. I was tasked with creating the bibliography. I quickly learned how to code in Overleaf and then converted all of our citations into Bibtex citations that could be connected directly to each quote.
Conclusion
Figure 3.7: Career Comparison Page
Showcasing Various Tools that Can Help Students Assume their Career Identity
Results
Our interviews revealed that most students felt more motivated and comfortable when conducting career research after using "ExploreCareers". They found that our platform helped provide multiple types of information and perspectives on a wide range of careers. The statistics provided by ONet gave quick, easy-to-read information, the TikTok videos showed students insider perspectives from industry professionals, and the chatbot helped fill the gap of a career counselor that not all students have access to. The career anxiety page was successful in assisting students to identify ways to deal with career anxiety and in making the identification process less daunting. The career comparison page was a great tool to help students lay out all the pros and cons of their projected career paths to make sure they knew what they wanted to pursue.
Develop the Tool Further to Accommodate Even More Career Exploration
What to Do Differently Next Time
I think the "ExploreCareers" study ended on a great note and would not trade this experience for the world. I think that if I were to continue working on this tool, I would add a search engine to facilitate searching for more related careers via keywords or suggested fields. This gives students the option to explore more than just what they initially were open to. As far as overall design of the UI goes, I think that for the most part it's cohesive, but I think cleaning it up a little could go a long way. For example, the TikTok section feels somewhat out of place, with the videos being thrown in without much consideration.