Tools
Keynote
Notion
Adobe Illustrator
Interactive Prototype
Zoom
Figjam
Figma
Google Docs
Slack
Users
Users are pre-interns who are accessing the site remotely from all over the country.
They are college students at various stages of their educational and professional career.
The demographic for users is incredibly broad, though they must be currently enrolled in a qualifying education program.
Roles
Ux-Researcher - Conducted a cognitive walkthrough of key user tasks on the website in it’s current state.
During the contextual inquiry, I acted as the tech lead, time keeper, and observer.
Ux-Designer - Using Figma, I designed an interactive prototype that addressed 3 key user flows.
Methods
Cognitive Walkthrough
Contextual Inquiry
Interactive Prototyping
Annotated Prototype
Primary User Research Protocol
Collaboration
Deliverables
Cognitive Walkthrough
Primary User Research Protocol
Interactive Prototype
Annotated Walkthrough.
Client
I was hired by Internships on Demand to evaluate the current student portal and how current pre-interns use the site and identify where if any friction occurred during key tasks.
Improving the secondary navigation was a key client goal.
Internship on Demand
Internship on Demand (IOD) ensures the right candidate finds the right career, company, and role through our multi-sided platform.
IOD exists to recreate the early talent experience for college students and employers.
Our primary product is an online platform that facilitates “pre-internships”.
The platform is a turnkey solution for employers to share their company culture, career readiness skills, and source incoming talent.
It’s not broken but we need to fix it.
We divided up key user tasks to complete a cognitive walkthrough of the current state of the website.
We found that the site was like a cast when you break a bone, functional but not desirable.
But we couldn’t take our own word for it so we…
Like spying but with permission.
As a team, we conducted a contextual inquiry to engage with a pre-intern as they used the website in the way they normally did, in the environment they most commonly used it in.
We were able to generate a large amount of data from user comments during the inquiry.
We wanted to know how they felt about using the site overall and if there were any places they thought were confusing or could be improved.
This was a highly valuable experience to help us address the client goals.
Our takeaways were…
Overall, a straight forward site.
2 of 2 users had overall positive things to say about the website in its current state.
They thought it had a natural flow and layout.
Learn content vs. Learn the site.
2 of 2 pre-interns said they needed to take some time to learn how the site worked before being able to start learning the content.
2 of 2 pre-interns used browser bookmarks to bypass navigating the site.
Simplify the Experience.
Both participants stated that assignments being marked as complete automatically would be beneficial.
Clickable links would be preferred over the current copy/paste format.
2 of 2 interviewed claimed that conflicting availability and time zones complicated the group scheduling process.
Turning Buttons into Buddies
Current secondary navigation pictured on the left, suggested design on the right.
I made the buttons easier to identify and click.
Current user flow to view course and suggested user flow.
The fastest route is a straight line.
Bringing the flow from six steps to one.
Adding a group scheduling page that sorts pre-interns into groups based on availability was a welcome suggestion from pre-interns.
Current state of button in main navigation on the left and a suggestion on the right.
I wanted to simplify the process for students so I relabeled and redirected one of the buttons on the main navigation.
Prototype Planning
Wireframe drawing of uploading an assignment.
Wireframe sketch of group calendar states.
Wireframe sketch of proposed assignment pages in different states.
Wireframe sketch of various states of the secondary navigation.
Interactive Prototype
Final thoughts
After conducting research and interviews, I prototyped my suggested changes and created an interactive prototype.
The biggest takeaway was that pre-interns already had a pretty good overall opinion of the way the site was laid out and functioned.
In my prototype, I addressed the changes they would like to see that would improve their daily experience as they work towards bettering their professional career.
In the future, with more time and resources, I would mock up the responsive nature of the site and how it looked on both mobile devices as well as tablets.
I want to thank Keegan and Ryan from Internships on demand, as well as my team and participants.