UPSKLS
Helping grow the UPSKLS user base through student referrals
Phase 1 - Overview
UPSKLS matches students with paid projects
UPSKLS is a small startup that matches students with short-term (5-20 total hours) paid project work. Students are able to earn extra money while adding on marketable job experience and build resume-worthy skills. On the other end, the individuals or companies hiring the students are able to save precious hiring/ interviewing time and be able to positively impact a student's life.
Team:
4 UX designers
Client:
UPSKLS
My Role:
Interviews, research analysis, visual design
Timeline:
3 weeks (June - July 2021)
Kickoff meeting: UPSKLS wants to boost their user base
• Our goal is to boost the UPSKLS user base through student referrals.
• Target users are students, specifically undergrads.
• Can we create opportunities to further emphasize student accomplishments?
The challenge
The majority of students who use UPSKLS don't feel that the projects they are matched with are significant accomplishments. As a result, UPSKLS struggles to gain traction due to a lack of student referrals. Students need to share and refer UPSKLS to their peers in order for UPSKLS to grow their user base.
The solution
Automated emails sent to UPSKLS students during their journey in completing projects. These emails will utilize gamification to target specific pain points in the students' journey, increase overall user experience, and highlight the students' most important accomplishments (resume-worthy skills and extra cash). In turn, students will be more likely to share and refer UPSKLS to their peers - allowing UPSKLS to expand their user base.
Phase 2 - Discover
Finding pain points in the students' current experience
We conducted 9 interviews with past and present UPSKLS students.
Interview goal: To find pain points within the UPSKLS students' experience.
Is this even worth my time and effort??
-Student 1 (mid project)
That was frustrating and I'm glad it's over with!
-Student 2 (post project)
Key takeaways:
• Students were happiest right after their initial interview.
• Majority of students were frustrated/ disappointed at some point mid-project.
• Although students felt accomplished post-project, they didn't feel completion was a significant achievement.
• Gaining experience and making money are the students' main motivations.
How might we improve user experience so students are more likely to refer UPSKLS to their peers?
Phase 3 - Define
Creating opportunities to improve student experience
Journey map goal: to create opportunities based off pain points found in our UPSKLS student interviews.
Mapping out the student's experience helped us ideate solutions for each phase of the student's journey.
Key opportunities targeted
Opportunities are based off the pain points discovered in UPSKLS student interviews.
We will focus on these opportunities when ideating solutions.
Right after the initial interview
User experience is highest during this phase because the process has been easy so far.
Opportunity: Users are happiest and most likely to share about UPSKLS at this point.
During the project
Majority of users became frustrated mid-project. Making users feel supported improves overall user experience.
Opportunity: By supporting users, they are more likely to share about UPSKLS post-project.
After project completion
One project itself isn’t a significant achievement. Focusing on overall experience gained may give users a bigger sense of accomplishment.
Opportunity: By emphasizing on overall gained experience, users will feel more accomplished post-project.
Various solutions based off opportunities
Based off the opportunities from each phase on our journey map, we ideated various conceptual solutions to present to the UPSKLS. These solutions are designed to either increase the students' overall user experience or utilize the part of the students' journey when they are happiest.
Sharing portfolio projects
Resume recommendations
Overall progress gamification
Potential projects in email notifications
Interview Feedback
Single project gamification
UPSKLS picked two gamification based solutions
We met with UPSKLS to discuss which solution they liked best/ thought was most feasible. UPSKLS decided they wanted to see hi-fidelity mockups for our two gamification based solutions: Single project gamification and overall progress gamification.
The solution would be an image within an automated email (due to technical constraints).
UPSKLS wanted a solution what was easily and quickly implementable.
Solution 1: Gamification for a single project
Solution 2: Gamification for the student's overall progress
Phase 3 - Design
How do other companies utilize gamification?
Before we started designing, we wanted to do more visual analysis on other applications that incorporate gamification.
Popular features we found and liked: progress wheels, progress bars, badges, and progress overviews.
Progress Wheel
Motivates the user and makes tracking progress fun.
Linear Progress Bar
Shows progress at every step to increase user motivation.
Badges
Rewards users for their achievements.
Progress Overview
Showing the user their previous accomplishments and progress.
The UPSKLS style guide
UPSKLS already had colors and fonts they were using for all their material. The client specifically wanted us to use UPSKLS colors along with the Montserrat font family as we move forward into ideation.
Colors
Font Families
Font Family:
Styles:
Montserrat
Light
Medium
Semibold
Bold
Aa
Montserrat
Font Family:
Styles:
Open Sans
Light
Regular
Semibold
Bold
Aa
Open Sans
Logos
Ideation process
Ideation for the two solutions UPSKLS picked:
Solution 1: Gamification for a single project - gamifying the student's one current project.
Solution 2: Gamification for overall progress - gamifying the long term progress of multiple projects.
These will be images within an automated email from UPSKLS to the user during the user's progress.
Initial Sketches
Solution 1: Single Project Gamification
Solution 2: Overall Progress Gamification
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Solution 1: Single Project Gamification
Solution 2: Overall Progress Gamification
Hi-Fi Wireframes
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Solution 1: Single Project Gamification
Solution 2: Overall Progress Gamification
How it works: images within automated emails
1. ✉️ An email is sent to the student at each project milestone
2. 🎯 Each email will target specific pain points in the student's journey
3. 🌟 With these emails, we aim to increase the student's overall experience
Phase 5 - Deliverables
Solution 1: Single project gamification
We split the student's journey of completing an UPSKLS project up with 6 milestones. To best communicate our solution with the client while staying on schedule, we focused on the three most important milestones (each with a different opportunity to target):
1. 1st check in
2. Finishing the project
3. Updating the resume
1. First check in
✉️ Scenario: The automated email is sent to the student after the student's first check-in with UPSKLS.
🎯 The Opportunity Targeted: Student's are most vulnerable during this phase of their journey. Find ways to support and encourage the students to improve the chances they share UPSKLS with others post-project.
Progress wheel so the student can celebrate the small victories
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Allowing the student to see the bigger picture of gathering work experience
Reminding the student of the end goals
2. Finishing the project
✉️ Scenario: The automated email is sent to the student immediately after they complete the project.
🎯 The Opportunity Targeted: Student's felt a sense of relief and accomplishment immediately post-project. Get the student excited they just finished!
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Celebrating the accomplishment with the student! 🎉
Progress wheel moves a little further - motivating the student
Laying out the
resume-worthy skills the student attained
3. Updating the resume
✉️ Scenario: The automated email is sent to the student during the limbo period between project completion and getting paid.
🎯 The Opportunity Targeted: Student's don't think finishing an UPSKLS micro-project is a significant achievement. Emphasize the "bigger picture" of gaining experience rather than just on the project itself.
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Laying out the student's accomplishments in an easy to apply resume style layout
Shows the student how close they are to getting paid!
Solution 2: Overall process gamification
✉️ Scenario: The automated email will be sent to the student right after the completion of each project.
🎯 The Opportunity Targeted: Our research shows students didn't think one project was significant. By emphasizing the "bigger picture" of accumulating experience, UPSKLS will give student will feel greater sense of accomplishment.
Line of encouragement
Progress bar to encourage/ motivate users to participate in more projects
Option to share project via a link with friends
The student's main motivations.
Seeing the total earned adds significance.
Giving students skills they can add to their resumes
Phase 6 - Takeaways
Trust the process.
Outcomes:
• By increasing the students' user experience, they are more likely to share and refer UPSKLS to their peers.
• UPSKLS applied our findings to their website, ensuring students are reminded of their main motivations: attaining resume worthy skills and earning extra cash.
Next Steps Forward:
• UPSKLS will take our solutions to their developer and implement the images within their email templates and student dashboard.
What I Learned:
• Talk it out! At just about every phase of our research, the team played "devil's advocate" with each other's ideas. This led to more creative ideas as well as a stronger, research-backed solution.
• Trust the process. To be completely transparent - I was very confused as to what to present as a final deliverable upon receiving the initial prompt from the client. It was easy to want to jump the gun and start imagining potential visual solutions. We trusted the design process (and each other) and ended up with a final, implementable solution I'm very proud of.