The Timeline One designer - Two Weeks

The Challenge Create a design for ‘social good.’ Design an app to help people start a new career.

The Why The journey of career change can be very overwhelming. Users feel stuck, unsupported, and unsure of next steps.

The How I conducted interviews, built personas, and performed competitive audits to understand real needs and gaps.

The Solution An app to help build new career paths through guided skill-building, mentorship, and personalized process tracking, all in one supportive and accessible space.

1. Empathize with users

The Users

  • Target audience: Adults 25-55 changing careers or reentering the workforce

  • Common traits: Motivated but overwhelmed, needing structure and support

  • Interviewed Darnell (54) and created an empathy map. He emphasized the need for clarity, encouragement, and achievable steps

  • Persona, “Mateo” created which helped identify need to prioritize simple onboarding, clear skill milestones, access to mentorship, and motivational feedback during the journey

Competitive Audit

  • Analyzed four career-focused platforms

  • Found gaps in personalization, mentorship access, and motivation

  • Used insights to design a more intuitive, community-driven experience

  • This inspired focus on clear progress tracking and a welcoming, goal-oriented home

Career Changers need a clear and supportive way to learn new skills because it can feel overwhelming, impersonal, or hard to navigate. This way, their transition becomes more motivating and achievable.

2. Define problem to be solved for user

Designs to help users:

  • Home dashboard for progress updates and recommended next steps

  • Mentorship feature to connect users with mentors for guidance

  • Progress Tracker showing completed lessons and milestones

  • Motivational prompts to support consistent learning

  • Clean, mobile-first layout with simple naviagtion and modern design

  • Accessible UI using readable typography, thoughtful color contrast, and clear icons

3. Ideate solution

4. Prototype concepts

5. Usability testing & Iterating based on feedback

✅ What Worked Well

  • Homepage felt welcoming and encouraging, Design was clean and easy to read, Users found task to sign up for mentor intuitive and fast to complete, celebratory icon on conformation page created positive emotional moment

❌ What Didn’t Work

  • Mentorship button hard to find due to weak visual hierarchy, Concern there was no chance to review responses before confirming

🔧 Recommended Changes

  • “Connect with Mentor” button visibility improvement, Add review screen before submission so edits can be made, Continue to use positive reinforcements to encourage engagement and motivation

Insights

Interact with the Prototype

Final Takeaways

Working on Skillspring showed me how valuable real user input is in shaping a meaningful project. I especially enjoyed conducting user interviews. It felt rewarding to hear stories and understand their goals firsthand. The usability testing sessions were also insightful. Feedback like the need for an additional review page helped me make targeted changes. Overall, the process deepened my appreciation for human-centered design and how small tweaks can make a big impact on the user experience.