Case Study : Helping students to make their own Career Decisions
UX Research & Design Case Study | Career decision making| E-Learning Application
Overview
This project was done by me only for learning purpose and showcasing myself and is not made, owned, or affiliated directly to any application.
Role and Constraints
Timeline: 14 March 2021–20 April 2021 (5 weeks)
Role: UX Researcher, Problem Solver, UX Designer
Scope: UX Design
Softwares used: Figma, Miro, Microsoft Whiteboard
Glossary
- The Problem Statement
- Design Process
- Research
- Analysis
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Testing
- Refined Prototype
- Retrospective
The Problem Statement
Business Problem Statement — 10th & 12th-grade students are usually unclear about their career path as there are so many new fields of profession every day. An e-learning app wants to help its students understand the direction map of what they are good at and what they are studying to existing career options.
Research Problem Statement — An e-learning app found 10th and 12th grade students are unclear about their career path as they do not know about the different fields or professions that they can explore. As a UX Designer, you want to understand the behavior of students with respect to their decisions related to career and the factors that influence their decisions. Plan a research to identify the factors for the business.
The e-learning platform is looking forward to extending its business in the career guidance and counselling.
Research problem statement guides us to empathize with 10 and 12 students and find out how and when do they make their career decisions and also to find out what factors influence them most when they take their career related decisions.
5 Ws — WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE & WHY to understand the Problem Statement
It is important to understand the problem statement because without digging deep in it I would have a very broad perspective towards looking at user problems. To narrow down the problem statement, it is necessary to dig deeper and understand the user to its core.
Problem statement just tells you the area where the research is needed but after digging it deeper I could understand which part I could work upon to solve user problems.
WHO
Who needs this application? Students who are unclear about their career path
Who are its primary users? Students who are about to finish their school life in 2–3 years
Who is most unclear about their career path? Student who has less knowledge in which career he would be good at
Who all are already working towards this scenario? Currently students could find career options related information on websites. Also can take counselling sessions for career direction.
Who will be affected by this change? Students would be able to make right decisions and parents would also have greater trust if it is said/approved by the third person.
WHAT
What can be the different career options? Today besides being a doctor and engineer, there are many different options for students to carry on.
What could be done for students to be clear about their career? A platform where students could get all the career options in addition with a counsellor who guides them what would be best for them.
What initiatives have already been taken? There are existing counselling sites and some review sites where career options could be selected from.
What all factors influence their decisions towards choosing their career? Parents, Resources, Awareness, Interests
What kind of behavior of parents plays a role in a student’s career options? Parents who are ready to consider new career options for their children helps the child in making the choice he is interested in.
What tells students in which career they could be good at? A proper counselling session.
WHEN
When students get ready to choose their career path? There is no age bias here but yes by 12th class he should have an idea where he wants to go next.
When students find most difficulty in their decisions? When they are less clear in which career they would be good at.
WHERE
Where do students find all the career options? There is no particular site where all career options come but students could search according to a particular field.
Where do students get the career path according to their choices? Students get a career path according to their choice when they know about the particular field they are interested in.
Where students find the most issues? In finding the right career choice for them.
Where students let others take decisions on their behalf? When they trust that person would suggest them right.
Where students could choose a path and know about its pros and cons? Reading in detail about the career path along with its reviews would help students.
WHY
Why is helping students in making the right decision for a career important? So that they don’t end up wasting their time on doing nothing. Also, making the right career decision in their initial phase of education would be helpful.
Why is proper awareness of each profession important? To choose the best option suitable for them, students should have knowledge of each career path available for them.
Why is understanding the factors which influence the students’ decision important? Understanding those factors would help further in making the right career decision for the student.
Why is an E-learning app important for the students? An application would be more important where all the career knowledge as well as counselling sessions is at one place.
I need to research further to know about the mindset of users when they chose their career and their current career choosing pathways. I also want to know what role parents play in the choice of their child’s career. I want to dig deep in understanding what all could be done in order to help students make the right career choice.
We can’t understand the mindset of users unless we think of ourselves as users. YOU ≠ USER
Design Process
I used DOUBLE DIAMOND Process to solve this problem area.
Firstly It is important to UNDERSTAND the context in which users are facing these problems. It is beneficial to understand the core of the user problem and also to not get diverted from our path in solving the problem.
DEFINING the data would help in reframing the problem statement and choosing the user group and problem for which we are going to provide a solution for.
IDEATING different solutions on the basis of the re-briefed problem statement helped to come up with unique as well as user focused ideas.
PROTOTYPING helped in depicting my ideas to the users and hear their views about it.
TESTING with real users helped in making the application more user friendly.
STAGE 1 — UNDERSTAND
Desk Research
Desk research was conducted for my problem statement so that I could understand behavior of students and also collect statistics from already existing research. The desk research helped in planning the next step for the primary research.
Parents’ influence towards students’ career decisions
In Indian middle class families, survival is above all else that drove career decisions. Students follow their parents’ footsteps and seek the same career as family status is very important for them. Indian parents set a very high bar of expectations for their children. They prefer that their child has a government job as the private sector doesn’t have a pension system. They entangle him with so many boundations that he faces career indecisiveness and is not able to make any choice.
- 35 % of students prefer their parents’ advice when making career related decisions and 33 % rely on the internet.
- 23 % parents want their child to be in engineering, 22 % in business management, 16 % in CS and IT and 14 % in medicine.
- 51 % Indian parents want a successful career for their child while 49 % want happiness in their child’s life.
- 33 % wanted a healthy lifestyle for their child, 22 % wanted good income from him and 17 % wanted their child to put his full potential.
- 91 % Indian parents want their child to have an undergraduate degree and 88 % want him to have a masters degree too.
Parents play a major role in the career decision making of their child. They should let their child make his own career decision in order for him to establish his identity. They should let him explore according to his own dreams.
Nowadays, Parents and children are broadening their viewpoint and looking for newer paths but still it is a slow change and would take time.
Lack of Awareness in students about career choices
The students have nearly 250 career options to choose from. Industry is changing at a very fast pace but school curriculum cannot keep up with it. There are a lot of creative fields which are emerging now and are in demand.
- 93% of Indian students in the age group 14 to 21 only have knowledge of seven common career options.
- 44 % of students still prefer safer subjects like Science, Tech, Engineering and Maths, 22 % opting careers in art while 18% in business and 17 % in medical.
- 98 % are still making random career decisions and are not very sure about it.
- 52 % of the youth have now started preferring new age career paths over conventional career paths among the 18–21 year age group.
- A NASSCOM study reveals that by 2022, 9 % of the workforce will be in jobs that don’t even exist now.
Choosing from 250 options could be very tough for the students. They need proper guidance before landing up in any career or they would end up selecting among conventional options.
An adaptive way to provide e-learning to students and do their career counselling would help students to learn at their own pace and less stress. The students could be tested based on their own potential.
Job Security influence towards students’ career decisions
Indian students choose their career by looking just at the company name. They face a major mismatch between their skills and their career choice as they lack guidance. This results in unemployment and conversely new emerging sectors not getting requisite talent.
- Unemployment is higher among youth in India (13.5 percent) than those over 30 years of age (1.5 percent).
- Among 470 million people working, only 10 % have some kind of training and skill set.
- It is noted that 60 % of Indian graduates have a severe skill mismatch from their industry.
- India needs nearly 8.1 million jobs every year to help in the rise of the employment rate.
If they choose a career according to their strengths, they would land up in a career which they are actually good at and love.
Lack of Guidance among students for their career decisions
Students are clueless about their strengths and confused about their career goals. They need guidance at the right age so that they could identify which profession they would be good at. Students very much need the career counsellors to guide them now. Career planning has become a need now.
The fault lies in the education guidance where the attention is given more to passing marks but not the soft skills. Help from schools in choosing their career could be a great help.
- 98 % of universities feel that more career counselling sessions should be given to students at school level.
- 90 % of Indian schools don’t have any career counselors.
- 38% of the students have started taking up counselling sessions using some technology.
- 86 % of students are cautious of choosing the right career path and 92% hardly get any career guidance.
- India requires 1.5 million counselors for its 350 million student population.
Students should start getting career guidance by the age of 14–15 so that they can decide in which stream they want to pursue.
Guidance to parents so that they could put their concerns aside and help their child make his career decision according to his own interests would also be really helpful.
Gender Biasness on the career choices
Women in their family are always treated as the soft side. Her career choices also get hindered by these preconceived notions that she won’t be able to handle careers with intense work.
- 58.5 % women choose their career in the education field, 41.9 % in art and only 11.06 % in fields like engineering and technology.
Women should take up the career which they like and not which they think that the society would approve of. There shouldn’t be any gender biasness when career counselors are guiding the female students for their career choices.
Define the Target Audience
A Target audience was set before the primary research to give a certain direction to the research and narrow down the data got from the secondary research.
Primary Research
Primary Research would be necessary to fill the gaps in secondary research. It would help in finding more problems through personally interviewing users. It would help in empathizing with the users.
The users were recruited through a screener form. [Link of Form]
I took 5 students interviews, 4 parent interviews and 3 teacher interviews.
User Interviews are important to understand user problems personally and also help in rectifying our assumptions gained from secondary research. I used an Interview guide for interviewing my users as well as user stakeholders to have answers in relation to specific topics.
🔹🔷 INSIGHTS FROM STUDENT INTERVIEWS 🔷🔹
Behavior and Interactions of students when taking career decisions
With Parents — Students find talking to their parents about their career goals easier than talking to their teachers. Students who lack knowledge or are confused themselves are easily pushed by their parents and teachers in any career field. But the ones who had already made the firm decision convinces their parents easily.
“Parents are asking me to focus on my studies and decide for my career after class 10 pre boards.” -Bipasha (Class 10)
With School — Students generally keep many choices in their mind till class 10. They do this when they don’t get much guidance in the right direction. They often don’t get subject choices related to their career choices in their school either due to marks or lack of subjects. Gender biasness from teachers also misleads the student.
“Teachers are saying if you don’t like physics and chemistry don't go into the biology field.” -Manya (Class 10)
With Counsellors — Students get a better idea when they talk to career counsellors and give aptitude tests to make a career related decision. Students gain more trust when the counsellors provide them with detailed information. Shy ones find it difficult to talk to counsellors.
“There are counsellors in our school too. But I decided my career with the help of external counsellors.” -Tanmay (Class 12)
Students would understand better if they explore more in the activities related to their career choice or talk to someone in the same field.
They would gain more confidence when they would find the career path based on their interests and personality.
Decision Making of students regarding career depends on
Family — Students having family interference in their decisions aren’t able to take a career of their own choice. Younger kids in the family are often influenced by their elder sibling’s career decisions. Family pressure over subject choice influences a child’s mindset and hence he isn’t able to make proper decisions. Students’ family background also impacts a lot on their career choice.
“My elder sister is doing CA. So I might take her help and also do CA.” -Manya (Class 10)
Lack of Knowledge — Students having less awareness and knowledge aren’t able to make career decisions on their own. Exposure in the same career field might help the student in making a firm career decision.
“I want to be a doctor because I am good at giving advice and could prescribe medicines.” -Ambika (Class 12)
Guidance — Students become indecisive due to wrong guidance. If they get counsellor support at the right time, they might take right career decisions. Students trust talking to experts more about career related confusions. By class 12, students become more sure about their careers.
Students are less inclined towards Engineering and Medical (conventional) careers nowadays.
Students wants the career which gives them freedom to express themselves.
An all-rounder student finds it difficult to choose among his all interests.
Ideal Experience which students want for their career planning
Awareness — Students need more knowledge about every career related to every field. Parents need more awareness and guidance to support their child’s dreams. Students find it easy to choose a career path when they have people in the same field to talk to.
Interest Related Careers — Students need to identify their interests at the right age to make their career decision. They want career choices based on their personality traits for them to enjoy it. They should get a chance to explore before choosing a career path to gain more clarity in their choices.
Proper Guidance — Students should get the right guidance from both parents and teachers to not get misled and to gain confidence.
Lesser options to choose from, less the student would be confused.
🔹🔷 INSIGHTS FROM PARENT INTERVIEWS 🔷🔹
Strict Parents— Due to strictness of parents, students usually are afraid of keeping their interests in front of them. Parents who keep on judging their child’s strengths and interests by his subject marks often misled the child and he end up taking wrong decisions.
“If it is better for her then surely we would give permission to her to go for it.” -Advika’s Parents (Class 9)
Unaware Parents — Parents’ behavior of delaying career decisions till class 10 and also keeping extra career options in their mind for their child makes the child more indecisive. They should increase their knowledge for their child in order to solve his confusions related to his career. The parents who are not taking any initiative regarding career decisions of their child also sometimes increases child’s confusions.
“I think career counselling is done after class 10. Right now everyone pays more attention to studies.” -Aanya’s Mother (Class 9)
Supportive Parents — Parents who give knowledge from their background helps the child to have a clearer understanding. Those Parents who let their child think first for his career options and then come to discuss with them help him in making his own decisions and also increases his confidence.
“She took help from the internet as well as discussed it with me.” -Manyaatta’s Mother (Class 10)
If school isn’t able to provide career related knowledge to the child, his parents should do something from their end to give him that knowledge.
Parents taking out time and giving education and knowledge which is right for their child’s career would help the child in his career path.
🔹🔷 INSIGHTS FROM TEACHER INTERVIEWS 🔷🔹
Teachers giving proper guidance — These teachers are helping in full swing to solve the students’ confusions but still she can’t help every child in the class. They are giving equal weightage to each career related to different subjects which would help the students to choose the career of their own interest. Teacher giving constant guidance to a confused student would help him in understanding where his interest lies.
“I take help from youtube and the internet too to look for all career options and guide my students.” -Geeta ( Class 8–10 English teacher)
Teachers convincing parents — Teachers’ convincing parents would help their child a lot in putting his interests in front of his parents as parents listen more to the teachers. Parents who are getting knowledge and awareness about different careers from teachers could guide their children at home too.
“We conduct career counselling workshops at our schools for parents too.” -Asma (Class 10–12 Commerce teacher)
“Parents forget the fact that if you are good at anything, money can be earned easily in it.”
Teachers giving wrong guidance —Some teachers tell students only about the career options which could be suitable for him according to his marks or personality. This might result in child getting more confused and indecisive for his career choices. Discrimination among students of Science and Commerce background should be avoided by teachers and both should be given equal respect.
“If a student doesn’t know anything then we ask him to do B.Com then he will get any college in ABC category.” -Jaya (Class 11 & 12 Economics teacher)
Taking expert help too from career counsellors would help students clear those doubts which his teacher isn’t able to solve.
Weightage given less to subjects and more to the child’s interests would probably be more helpful to the child.
STAGE 2 — DEFINE
User Groups
User groups were divided on the basis of research data
1.A Clueless Student - He doesn’t get much guidance from his parents and teachers. He feels less confident in his decisions. He is entirely dependent on his parents’ for his career decisions. He has a shy nature so hasn’t take guidance from his teachers.
2.A Confused Student :- He is an all-rounder and has a lot of skills. He wants to do everything and that is why don’t know what he is best at. He has taken advice from both parents and teachers but still hasn’t taken a final decision. He has kept a lot of career choices in mind.
Empathy Maps
An empathy map would help in articulating what the user says and thinks regarding his career choices. It would also at the same time help in analyzing what the user does for making the right choice and what he feels while doing it. It would help in shortlisting the user expectations and goals for his career path.
Persona
Creating a persona would help in setting the representation of my target audience. It would help in understanding the needs of the user when it comes to career choices and why it is important for him to choose the right career.
I chose the Clueless Student group to go forward as solving for the extreme user group would simultaneously help in solving the problems of other user groups too. Major problems of a confused student would also be solved.
POV Statement
POV Statement was framed before jumping from persona to How Might We Questions to note down user needs and user insights and be clear about the user goals and challenges.
HOW MIGHT WE Questions
‘How might we’ method would help in making the problem statement more focused on the problem which according to our user needs to be solved. It would help in narrowing down what exactly the user wants and to help him in problem solving.
How might we make the user realise which career path he would be good at?
How might we help the user in understanding his own skills?
How might we provide guidance to the user in making a career decision by himself?
How might we create awareness in a user’s mind so that he can identify where his interest lies.
How might we create a way by which users could find their interest area by themselves.
STAGE 3 — IDEATE
IDEA 1 (Personalized Profile) — E-learning apps already have/know the student’s class, his stream, the subjects in which he faces major confusions, Academic tests scores, etc. Also they know what he likes more - text based knowledge or video based knowledge.
IDEA 2 (Self-Decision Making) — The application would ask them to select what they feel their interests are. If they don’t choose interests, then different options come on the main page which would help them realise their interests at the very top. If they choose their interests personalized activities related to their interests for making them realise their potential
IDEA 3 (Better Experience) — The application would include knowledge of careers and activities to indulge them in career decision making. They shouldn’t get the feeling that they are giving a test step by step. They should unknowingly follow the pathway of choosing the career. They might be given certain courses or chapters according to their selected careers and get feedback upon it.
Career decision making should be a different experience for them and should be fun and engaging.
LOW FIDELITY PAPER WIREFRAMES
I started with low fidelity wireframes before moving to high fidelity digital wireframes to come with detailed ideas and to decide the user flow.
HIGH FIDELITY DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
Wireframing was done to identify usability issues early on in my design process.
If we don’t have a strong skeleton to start, then all the stuff we put on top of it, like the functionalities or style, really don’t stand a chance.
Wireframe Iteration 1 — Idea was to ask the student his interests first where he would be given some options from which he has to select. Then he would get recommendations related to it along with other fields which he could explore.
Wireframe Iteration 2 — There would be two screens where in one user can explore and read about different career options and in the other he could take expert advice using text and video counselling.
Wireframe Iteration 3 — The main page of the career guidance page would have all the fields where students can explore different career fields. Some suggestions would be there for them based on their subjects. The videos by experts would guide them in selecting a career option. If they are still confused, then they could contact a counsellor for help.
When selecting a career field a pop up screen would come which would give a brief intro of the career field. If a student wants to proceed he could select the arrow button or cross it. All the career professions related to that field would be given on the next screen which he could like and then make a choice at the end among all his likes.
Wireframe Iteration 4 — The student would get subject related career options on the screen and if he wanted to explore more he could select from above. He would also get a chance to know what his interests are by playing some online games or workshops.
Wireframe Iteration 5 — The student could get the chance to add his interest from among some given options. On the basis of his interests, he would be given the choices to explore. He could also do some activities from test yourself to know his interests or career options if he doesn’t have any idea.
At the end of Ideate stage, I took suggestions and inputs from my peers and decided to change some of my ideas.
I am thinking of changing the terminology so that it is more understandable by the target audience. I am also planning to keep less choices on one page for user to get less confused.
STAGE 4 — PROTOTYPE
BJYU’s was taken as the base E-learning application for the Prototyping stage. I have made the user interface similar to it. (This is only done for project).
SCREEN 1
A Career Planning Option was added along with other subjects so that students could start planning for their career while studying and it could help the E-learning application also to increase its business in the career planning.
A Career Advice Counselling Trial is also added on the Home page to seek students’ attention towards it.
Problem being solved
Students don’t need to go somewhere else to plan their career. In the home screen itself, they could plan for their career in their free time. The option would also grab the attention of those who haven’t thought of choosing the career till now.
SCREEN 2
The first time user would get a page of Career Interests where he could choose according to own choices. This would help students who haven’t taken any decision till now to make a choice according to their interests or personality.
The second choice would be kept optional. The student could also go further only with one choice.
Problem being solved
Students do have some instinct regarding where they want to go but have never given much thought about it. This career interest choice would help them understand their interest area and later give them careers according to their choice.
SCREEN 3
This is the Main Page which would come after making the career interests choice. The students would get the career options which they like according to their stream and career interests. They could change it anytime they want and make it more personalized.
They would also be given a list of New Age Careers which they can explore if they don’t like the recommendations.
If any student isn’t sure about his career interests or doesn’t know his interests, He could go to Skill Analysis and can give career related tests or attend online/offline workshops in order to know his interests/personality/traits.
In the end, if he still gets confused and needs a Counsellor he could contact the Counsellor either by text, Video Call or book an appointment for an Offline session.
Problem being solved
Students would get all the time to explore their interests on this page which would help them further in which career choice they want to go for.
SCREEN 4
The Page where the student would get information about the particular career option. A video is also added for the student who understands better by watching a video. Information regarding what skills are required would help the student in understanding whether he would be good at this career or not.
The student could also save the career option to read it later or share it with his friends.
If a student wants to explore more on the career option, he could read more about it in the articles/books or read blogs. He could also connect with experts or join groups with the people in the same career.
Problem being solved
Students could take all the time understanding about any particular career from this page. This would help them know if they are suitable for this career path or not. Talking to the people in the same career path would give them more clarity.
SCREEN 5
The Career Library could be accessed from the main page. Here the careers are divided into different categories so that the student could explore the purpose of the career.
Problem being solved
Students who want to explore further and don’t know where to start could take help from the career library. They could explore as much as they want from here and get an idea of their interest areas well enough.
Here is the link for interacting with the Full Prototype.
STAGE 5 — TEST
User testing was conducted to evaluate the application with real users and to create human-centric products. Through this process, one can really explore and analyze target audience’s behavior when interacting with the application. Here are the user tasks and questions which were asked.
USER 1
I could search for different career options which I didn’t know before very easily using this application.
Awareness section for students worked really well according to the user. Students would be freely able to explore their career choices.
- The Career Interests page needs more description.
- Instructions would be added for the first time user in order to understand all options.
USER 2
The application is very easy to use but the font size could be larger for the career information.
According to the user, this application would work really well for the people having no knowledge about their career options.
- Font size could be increased
- A message that the career option is saved should be popped up after pressing the save for later option.
USER 3
The application is very organised. The Career Library was very specific and easy to understand.
According to the user, the Career Library page would work really well for exploring different career options.
- Add more career related information in order to help students understand any particular career option in a better manner.
USER 4
It’s a very useful app for the students who are passing 10th class and have to plan for their career.
According to the user, this application would work really well in understanding about different career options.
- Instructions should be added for the first time user in order to understand that they could use a career library.
REFINED PROTOTYPE
Refinement 1
During testing, students were having problems with the Career Interests page as they were unsure if the interest they clicked is actually selected or not. The interest choices box below wasn’t coming in their immediate gaze after clicking on the interests.
So this page was refined so that students can confirm that their choice has been selected. Also, I added some more details under each interest to make them more understandable to the users.
Refinement 2
When clicking on the save option to save career option for reading it later, the colour of the save icon was changing. But students weren’t able to identify whether it got saved or not.
So in the Refined Prototype, I added a text stating that this career has been saved which would disappear after 5 seconds.
Retrospective
Challenges
The biggest challenge I faced while working on this project was not able to see my target audience's expressions and behavior while testing the prototype. Online testing during these pandemic times is challenging.
Also, students were little shy and less expressive on video calls. So it was hard to test the prototype with this age group.
What can be improved ?
The first improvement which the application needs is a more personalized experience for the student so that it could help him in gaining confidence on his career choices while he explores. It could be advanced enough to judge by the student’s last explored choices and then suggest what other careers he would also like.
Thanks for your kind attention !
If you have any feedback, suggestion or just want to share or ask something, drop a mail to me :
shubhangi.ag2309@gmail.com