DOPS: a platform that will help you learn a profession or talk about your
The Context
Many people, even as independent adults, do not know what they would like to do, what type of job is their “Dream job”, does it make sense at all to talk about young people in their 20s or teenagers that even younger? Sometimes they lack a little push or mentor“ to move mountains”.
Many are afraid to leave their comfort zone and try something new, while others are afraid to start because they are unsure of their strengths and capabilities.
Understanding the Problem
Problem. Lack of helpful information, general closeness and laziness of people in making attempts to change their lives.
Relevance. In the modern world, people are accustomed to communicating on the Internet, leading a social life remotely, especially during a pandemic, now no one wants to go to the other end of the city for 60 minutes of conversation with another person. If a person wants to learn something new about some profession, he will have to get information bit by bit through third hands, it is very difficult to contact specialists who will tell how and why or not to do their business.
Polls show that a huge number of people would like to change their profession. For example, SuperJob.ru (Russia) conducted a survey among more than 3000 respondents and 62% of them answered that they would like to change their profession. In UK half of workers (50%) expect they’ll make a career change within the next two years due to COVID-19, equating to nearly 16.6 million workers switching industry in that time. In addition, Totaljobs data shows that 43% hope to make a career move as soon as possible, while 23% plan to do so within the next year.
Proposal
Here comes an online platform to help people choose a direction in life: parents who want to help a child decide his professional direction, teenagers who want to choose what to do, all those who would like to change their profession.
The platform will be a social project, people will not have to pay to learn something new, just register and sign up for viewing / communicating with a teacher.
In addition, the platform allows specialists to tell about themselves. Another important part is the opportunity to participate in the partnership program for all interested companies. Despite the fact that there is no payment for specialists, there is another way to get the most valuable resource for companies — people. The partnership will allow companies to allocate several hours a week to strong specialists and get many motivated and purposeful people who want to change their lives for internships and training, as well as this approach will allow companies to develop people from childhood, which in the future will increase the education and success of the population.
Audience. The target audience is people of 12–40 years old interested in personal growth or people who would like to change their profession or learn about another path in life. Not necessarily for learning, but simply for self-development.
Research
Competitor Analysis
It was necessary to analyze the market and what such services and portals currently offer. For myself, I have identified 3 different projects that somehow solve the problem. The main condition was the availability of information about different professions, the opportunity to receive help in acquiring new skills for changing the profession.
Disadvantages of the platforms:
- Let’s start with the fact that all interactive sites are paid, and one of the options under consideration is just a collection (albeit large) of various information and videos. As I described earlier, people need to be encouraged to learn something new, the price gets in the way. Later in the sections of the research, I will provide evidence for the last statement.
- Objectively, in the modern world, information is absorbed from beautiful services that are created in order to attract attention, none of the competitors can boast of this (even if they are not terrible).
- The biggest problem is that all these services divide people into separate groups, which reduces their social usefulness and makes them available only for certain groups of people.
Scenario
Who’s it for?
- Parents who want to help a child decide his professional direction
- Teenagers who want to choose what to do
- All those who would like to change their profession.
User Interviews
During the research, I decided to conduct several interviews in order to understand the problem and how to solve it. The interview involved 5 people, I recorded everything on video / audio for further analysis. I divided them into 3 conditional categories from the Scenario point.
Interviews on russian you can watch or listen here:
Teenager (video):
Young adult (video):
Parent with kid (audio):
Key Learnings
Based on the results of the study, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- All respondents are interested in the topic of the project.
- All respondents are concerned about the interface and usability.
- It does not matter for adults whether they have to pay or not, but the benefits will be given to the platform that has some benefits above other ones (like usability).
- The service would be interesting for all age groups.
- The respondents would like to see not only an online service but offline too.
- Mobile part of platform is very important, 3/5 of users prefer mobile devices (tablets or phones).
A brief summary showing that the project is interesting, video and audio interviews can help further in the development and improvement of the project.
Sketches and Lo-Fi
After researching various platforms (not only those that were used for competitive comparison), I already had a basic idea of how the product should look and how it should entice, so I immediately started sketches and lo-fi prototypes.
Despite the fact that most users prefer mobile devices, they noted that it is still more convenient to do it from computers, therefore the web platform was chosen as a priority. I created basic screens of login, the home page, profile page, landing, etc. for more clarity and transfer it in basic user flows in Figma.
User flow
Starting with basic parts helps to understand the future view of the product.
After creating several screens, I found various issues with flow logic and movement. Modified it a bit and started the Hi-Fi prototyping process.
High Fidelity Wireframes
In this part, I tried to focus on the user experience, not the appearance, trying to take into account the various aspects that I learned during interviews and research. At this stage, I closed the main screens and transitions that are needed for the mvp and moved on to developing the visual part of the product.
🎨 Visual Research
Mood and Inspiration boards
I used Pinterest to create the boards. The main selection parameters were:
- Lightweight, airy interface
- Feelings of joy and involvement
Color Palette
The color palette was supposed to become a connecting link between the air interface and the user. It became bright and contrasting. The colors are used to emphasize the psychological state of people, so purple expresses impulsiveness and emotions, and the mint color, on the contrary calm down purple color.
Branding
The platform logo also consists of the same colors. Together with the name, it reflects the essence of the platform. Possible combinations for different scenarios were thought out in advance.
DOPS = Development of professional skills.
Typography
I chose “Rubik” as the typeface, a popular free font that looks great on a variety of devices and works well with almost any other font.
User Tests
On the basis of Hi-Fi wireframes, I created first prototype that allows me to provide user tests.
- Remark: before the start they knew about topic of the project.
Layout Grid
A standard layout grid helps me to provide a consistent design with an arranged style.
Design System
Design system is based on atomic approach where I build components from other components and atoms becomes molecules. I provided different states for buttons and other controls (active, deactivated, disabled). Also I added assets to reuse them across all screens in design and created few icons.
🏡 Main design
Splash screen
The loading screen should be simple and beautiful if the page takes a long time to load
Landing page
This page aims to catch the attention of anyone who just throws one look on the platform.
Courses page
The page with the newest courses to enroll in, search and everything else is not available until login or registration.
Login and registration pages
Worked through error and confirmation screens for a smoother experience
Other screens
During the development, several changes were made to the project structure due to the tests performed and new information. I added some gamification (achievements) on the profile page to increase engagement. Also improved the navigation and the courses page.
Many different screens have been worked out, some of them (profile, login, registration, courses page, etc., I will show here):
Promo materials
I decided to follow a simple path — Instagram. A series of posts dedicated to different professions and facts about them, the final posts are devoted to the project and how it will help to improve you as person.Instagram is now the most powerful advertising platform.
I added two more options:
- With people (conservative style), if you post them on Instagram and set up targeting, you can achieve good results and conversions.
- Modern style with different tools.
Both options lend themselves to branding, in the case of the image of people it is swap them between themselves, and in the case of circles — a change of hands with equipment. The second option contains the following idea: since the portal is dedicated to changing professions and simply exploring new ways in life, we show different professions and eventually combine them into one circle.
Email targeting
Email newsletter is an important part of product life so I developed an email style.
One more thing
You can test a little prototype here: but it could be broken if I will change something :D
Conclusion
What have we got?
The structure of the project has been worked out, an interactive prototype has been created, development can start right now. I studied the direction and users, only after doing all the research I realized what to do with the project.
What’s next?
Next, it is necessary to finalize the structure and flow of the teachers, create a mobile version and work out integrations and partner programs with various companies.
Final thoughts
There is still a lot of work ahead, but I am glad of the experience that I’ve got. and at the same time would like to thank Vadim Grin for his help in developing this product.
Thanks for reading
Gladly will answer any question in comments, or via social media:
Or if you are looking for help with your project, contact me via: vladhulin.work@gmail.com
PS: Brief story you can find on Behance.
