SJSU Career Center Website Redesign

Creativity loves constraints

The Challenge

Improve user experience and usability of site.

  • Limited functionality and design constraints due to University template and content management system:
    • Space limited to 660px width.
    • Menu and sidebars contrained to design template.
  • Content design consideration for many user groups.
  • Collaboration with internal stakeholders with different views, priorities, and requests.

Discovering the Problem

I interviewed users and stakeholders to understand their needs, goals, and challenges.

Business Goals

Understand Career Centers deliverables, metrics, and requirements.

  • Prepare students for job search process.
  • Drive employers to Career Center services.
  • Enable faculty and staff to find resources.

Students

  • Primary Goal: Get a part-time, internship, or full-time job.
  • Needs change based on level.
  • Job search process and choosing a major causes anxiety.

Employers

  • Primary Goal: Find the right candidates.
  • New to recruiting at SJSU - learn about events, jobs postings, and majors.
  • Need to quickly register for events.

Discovering the Problem

I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the site to identify usability issues.

Primary Usability Issues

  • Clean functional design: lacks visual prioritization.
  • Familiar metaphors and language common to the users: copy lacks consistency, unfamiliar words and phrases, and advance reading level.
  • Recognition and recall: difficult to discover and find content.
  • Accessibility: Images with text failed requirements.

Home page lacked visual hierarchy and failed accessibility standards.

Original Homepage

Career fair panel lacked signifiers.

Original Homepage

Defining the Problem: Personas

Focused on two primary user groups: Students and Employers.

Persona A

Student Persona A

Sabrina

Finance Major, Junior

Background and Context

Sabrina is a Finance Major who is academically and career motivated. She will be the first person in her family to graduate from a 4-year University and wants to make her family proud. She has a GPA of 3.65 and remains active in student life. She is a member of Delta Sigma Pi and the Latino Business Student Association. She considering running for a leadership roles in those organizations. Also, she works part-time at the Spartan Bookstore.

She has attended a panel event to learn about careers for Business majors. Also, she recently spoke to her career counselor at the Success Center to get resume advice.

Attitude and Motivation

Sabrina takes initiative and self motivated to learn. She has a positive attitude and gets along with her peers and has a good relationship with faculty members.

Needs, Challenges, and Goals

Sabrina wants to get an internship next summer and eventually land a full-time job after graduation. She wants to attend the Business Career Fair and meet employers. However, she’s a little nervous about interviews.

Persona B

Student Persona B

Will

Sociology Major, Senior

Background and Context

Will is about to graduate but isn’t sure what he wants to do. He majored in Sociology because it didn't keep his interest. He managed to bring up his GPA to 2.8 after a few bumps. He’s now on track to finish in his 5th year at SJSU.

He’s been working part-time as a server at Gordon Biersch.

He hasn’t visited the career center but he checked out a career fair a couple of years ago.

Attitude and Motivation

Will is friendly and approachable. He’s works hard but needs direction.

Needs, Challenges, and Goals

Will wants to get a good job after graduating but he’s not sure what he wants to do. He needs to figure out what jobs are available and how to apply.

Develop: Sketches and Wireframes
Sketch
Sketch

Develop Paper Prototypes

Conducted user tests on initial homepage design

  • Design A: Career interest panel that displays list of content when user hovers over panel
  • Design B: Career interest icons that take users directly to the page when clicked

Insight

Design A had too many options to choose from - need to allow users to explore and discover.

Actions

Simplify user flow. Continue iterating Design B.

Paper Prototype

Develop and Test Prototype

Conducted usability testing and received feedback.

Key Insights

  • Menu items, "Launch" and "Develop", didn't resonate with users as intended.
  • Home page and career interest area pages received positive feedback.

Actions

  • Made choice to design navigation by audience: Students, Employers, etc.
  • Change menu labels from "Develop" to "Build skills/experience" and "Launch" to "Find a job/internship"
  • Keep grid layout of homepage
Prototype

Deliver: Redesign V1

Launched

  • New page designs using HTML and CSS.
  • New navigation menu.
  • Fresh assets including icons and images.
  • Increased readability of content by using less words and in the users' language.

Impact

  • Increased employer registration to career fair.
  • Received positive feedback from students on finding resources on the site.

Home Page

Final High Fidelity Prototype

Career Fair Panel

Final High Fidelity Prototype