EZ Mock
An ultimate career-readiness platform promoting self-advocacy, connectedness and experiential learning through mock interviews with access to informal and formal feedback.
Overview
Background
As a part of my Master's course "Fundamentals of UX Design", I worked in collaboration with the Innovation Hub in a team of 6 members. The motive was to understand the needs of University of Toronto students and propose a design solution that answers the question - "What matters to UofT students" in the best possible way! I had a fun-filled learning experience where I honed my skills with design principles and tools. There were several iterations involved in each sprint with valuable feedback from the professor, which opened up new arenas and enhanced my design thinking abilities at the same time. Working in a large team uncovered my hidden capabilities of leadership and team management skills.
Timeframe
4 weeks
Role
Lead Prototyping
Usability Testing Lead
Team
Harpriya (that's me)
Aryasatya Wikara
Chao-Chi Ting
Shucen Lu
Rui Hu
Xiaojing Liu
The Problem Statement
What matters to UofT students today?
Understanding the challenges faced by students who...
1. do not feel prepared enough to enter the professional world
2. do not feel a connection & a sense of belonging
3. believe they are not given access to all the available resources, places & events
4. do not feel included & respected enough
5. feel overburdened with schoolwork & mentally stressed
Tools
MIRO
FigJam
Balsamiq
Figma
Deliverables
User Research & Analysis
User Flows
Low Fidelity Prototype
Mid Fidelity Prototype
Usability Testing Results
Target Audience
University students
Client
In collaboration with University of Toronto's Innovation Hub
Narrowing down the problem
We decided to focus towards aiding the process of Job Preparation so that students can become future-ready. Within this area, we dive deeper into the interview stage where students struggle the most. Numerous challenges hold back students from feeling confident and job-ready, such as:
- Lack of proper feedback
- Unclear goals
- Failed interview attempts
- Inability to tackle stress
- Inability to express thoughts
- Time constraints
- Lack of industry knowledge
- Networking abilities
Our Philosophy
"We embrace failures with an optimistic approach and give students a chance to assess & learn from their past experiences so that they are able to figure out what went wrong and where to improve for the future."
How did we plan to advance towards design?
The design process
We followed the Double Diamond structure to understand the target users and went by the divergent and convergent thinking mechanisms. The Diverge phase allowed us to think broadly while keeping an open mind, and consider anything and everything. The Converge phase brought back the focus towards the key problems and solutions.
How do UofT students prepare for jobs currently?
Research and Uncovered Insights
It is extremely crucial to deeply understand what problems the target users are facing. In order to get a deeper background context, it is beneficial to look at the existing solutions they have and if these solutions are able to fulfil their needs. In order to get an outline of the problem space and users' daily habits, I conducted a survey with 42 participants and held 12 interviews. The decision of particularly choosing these two research methods was influenced by the idea of capturing both behavioural & attitudinal aspects of the users.
Here are some of the findings.
Research Methods
Questionnaires/
Surveys
User Interviews
42 Surveys + 12 interviews
Which platforms are popular among students?
LinkedIn Learning & YouTube are some of the favourites among students today!
How helpful are the University Career Sources?
Student Ratings for UofT Career Resources:
MEDIOCRE RATING!
What are the problems with the current system?
- Difficult to navigate and find relevant stuff
- Information Overload
- Time-consuming
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How confident do UofT students feel with the currently available sources?
More than 40% of university students feel underqualified when applying for jobs!
22/42 participants went blank or spent too much time thinking of responses to questions that required critical thinking.
34/42 participants found behavioural/situational questions to be the hardest part of the interview.
A glimpse from our brainstorming sessions
Affinity Diagramming
Final Affinity Diagram:
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A reflection of our targeted user group
Meet Amy, the struggling student...
What exactly does Amy struggle with today?
- Constantly failing after technical interview
- Goes blank when answering behavioral/situational question
- Doesn't have much sources to rely on for feedback
- Finds interview questions tough & challenging
- Not able to recall past examples at that very moment
How does Amy's job preparation look like at present?
Amy's journey
Understanding Amy's Needs
What do students like Amy need?
Putting on our Thinking Caps
What ideas sprouted in our minds?
During our ideation journey, we diverged and came up with a bunch of ideas. After a rigorous brainstorming session, we decided to work on ideas that were both feasible and impactful using the Dot Voting procedure.
How do we foresee our ideas in helping students like Amy?
Through our ideas, we want students like Amy to...
Taking the first step towards Design
Mapping out the solution loosely...
In order to actualize the vision, a framework for the solution was created to meet the needs of the users. The overall experience and flow were designed keeping in mind the combination of interactive elements as well as static interview components. The aim is to provide users with the best of both worlds.
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As a user of this system, I need to:
- onboard myself
- set up my profile, industry preferences, current and dream job & individual areas of struggle
- practice individually or with a friend
- practice for random questions or based on specific categories
- check detailed assessment report after every mock session
- connect with experts for live feedback sessions
- track my daily progress
- schedule live mock interviews
- get popular tips and tricks to nail interviews
- take Psychometric tests
Our Offerings
What does the proposed solution offer?
To help students work especially on their weaknesses, and nail their next interview, EZ Mock aims to provides them with:
Wireframing
Bringing the vision to reality through Design
I created wireframes to better depict my understanding of the entire user flow. I began with creating low and mid fidelity prototypes, demonstrating our vision for the app through design.
Putting it on paper
Roughly...
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Making the designs better after first iteration of User Testing
One fidelity Up after Usability testing...
Once I was ready with my low-fidelity prototype, I conducted aLean Evaluation on the screens with 12 participants. Basically, the following methods were utilized to complete this;
- 5-Second Test - Think aloud Protocol - Follow-up Interview
So, how did our users feel after their first attempt?
1. Information Overload
2. Overwhelming
/Confusing Content
3. Redundant Elements
4. Loosely Coupled Flow
Moving to mid-fidelity designs
Expressing flows through mid-fi Storyboarding
Did we make Amy's life any easier?
Through EZ Mock, we want Amy to take it easy and...
Usability Testing Feedback Inferences
So, what's next for EZ Mock?
After conducting 5-Second Tests and Think Aloud Observations with 16 participants for the Mid-Fi screens, there were some useful insights gained which informed the potential updates for the High fidelity version. Various User Metrics such as elements recalled, user satisfaction and time taken to complete a task were captured.
More to be delivered:
- Incorporate tutorials to guide users.
- Provide trending question recommendations while practising.
- Illuminate experts' benefits & interest towards using the app.
- Optimize the interface for user-friendly experience.
- Introduce note-making before recording answers.
What did I learn throughout the process?
Reflecting on the project outcomes
"If you want to go fast, go alone.If you want to go far, go together."
This African proverb literally summarizes every UX Story. UX is all about people whether it is the research phase, or ideation and brainstorming or usability testing. What people feel and experience matters the most in the field of UX Design.
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Say Hi to the team
Meet the team members
