Pipeline AZ
Service design | UX research & strategic thinking | UI design | Partnership for economic innovation
Pipeline AZ is a career development and exploration tool designed for the Arizona community to create more pathways to in-demand careers founded by PEI. To help PEI design services for work-based learning experiences of secondary and college students in Phoenix, AZ, our team created a new section called “Life Project” under Career Exploration on the Pipeline AZ website. This platform will help startups collaborate with universities through some life/capstone projects.
Timeline:
8 weeks
Role:
UX research, UX design, visual design, ideation, prototype
Team:
Qijia You
Leanna Wu
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, camera
OVERVIEW
Challenges.
• Design service for work-based learning experiences of secondary and college students in Phoenix, AZ.
• Part of the challenge is to get employers on board to offer these experiences. This design problem is associated with
PEI’s Pipeline initiative and platform support job matching and human resource training.
Design process.
UNDERSTAND
Mind map.
Target users.
Target audience:
• startup companies (less than 50 employees);
• post-secondary students.
Goals.
• How startups benefit from WBLE;
• Besides technical skills, how startup employers screen out the
best candidates with qualified soft skills;
• How to motivate employers to create WBLE for the post
secondary student;
• How to help post-secondary students find appropriate
opportunities to enhance soft and practical skills.
RESEARCH
Interviews.
Employers.
• Coco: startup founder (Industry: design, self-branding);
• Yujian: startup founder & CEO (Industry: life science/biotech);
• Mandy: HR of a large company with 10k+ employees (Industry: medical).
Students
• Kelly Blake: Design student, sophomore
• Jing Yao: Computer science student, junior
Interview insights.
• Startups don’t have enough budget and time to train new employees;
• Startups have overloaded works/projects that need to be done, and they yearn for new
blood and ideas at their earlier stages;
• Startups have less competitiveness in attracting potential candidates in career fairs;
• Students yearn for WBEs to apply what they learned from school to real-industry cases;
• Students with fewer experiences feel it’s hard to find an internship at large companies.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Why do startups fail?
Startups' challenges.
Structure of Pipeline AZ.
Competitors analysis.
Research takeaway.
IDEATE
Brainstorming.
We started by collaging different images to create abstract storyboards. These storyboards showed our clients the basic ideas and startup employers' experiences during the whole process.
Selected idea 01.
Selected idea 02.
Feedback from clients.
After presenting our selected ideas to clients, we gained some valuable feedback. Clients thought idea 02 of letting startups cooperate with college programs and providing life projects was attractive, and it would be reasonable for Pipeline AZ to provide a platform to connect these two parties.
Otherwise, we were encouraged to research more about how this concept will benefit startups and attract them to use Pipeline AZ, and also how to emphasize Pipeline AZ's role in this concept.
DESIGN PLAN
Design idea.
Add a new section of "Life Project" under the menu of Career Exploration on the Pipeline AZ website. This platform will help startups collaborate with colleges for some life projects.
Extra research.
Final concept.
DESIGN
Persona.
Customer journey map.
Blue print.
Updated workflow.
Final design.
Workflow for employers.
Workflow for educators.
REFLECT
Takeaway.
This project gave me unique and valuable experience in leading a strategy design. By conducting research, I learned that a problem could involve many stakeholders, and it is my responsibility to listen and design for their needs. The ideation phase allowed me to brainstorm as many concepts as possible. Through analysis and discussion with clients, I evaluated my concepts and iterated them to satisfy users' needs. Also, I really enjoy creating stop-motion animation to demonstrate our ideas, and I was glad it gained positive feedback.
