BigFuture.org Careers section
- Role: Lead UX Designer
- Company: The College Board
- Sector: Education, Non-profit
Challenge
College Board programs reach more than 7 million students a year. BigFuture is a College Board program that helps students plan for college, pay for college, and explore careers. Through surveys and moderated testing, we came to know that many of the students had no idea what they wanted to do after high school. These students needed to start exploring directions that engaged their real interests: but first we needed to help them identify those interests.
Solution
We partnered with the O*NET Career Exploration Tools to offer a 60 question quiz. The quiz offered a quantification system that avoided grades or classes, thereby evaluating interest areas in a way that felt approachable and supportive.
I led the effort to make the quiz easy to use on both mobile and desktop (a critical challenge given its length). I designed the content before and after the quiz to appropriately set expectations. I documented and refined the error states, ensuring the experience met accessibility and usability needs.
It was especially important that the results page would encourage quiz takers to act on the results. Together with our UI designer, I created a display unlike anything we had on the site. We used the D3 data visualization JavaScript library to translate the quiz output into a colorful, understandable system of career indicators, which we then followed with personalized recommendations based on those results.
To appeal to a diverse range of information seekers and to clearly present as much information as possible, I designed a pattern that functioned like a mini site for each career. Each career profile has an overview page as well as other tabs that lead to more specific information. We partnered with information providers to include brief descriptions, specific income and education ranges, and more for over 450 careers.
I also led the UX effort to determine the design pattern for different career card types. On BigFuture.org, search results use a standard card pattern, while mini-cards support lateral navigation in sections like "Similar Careers." I determined the content strategy for the hierarchy of the different card types, and worked closely with our UI designer to evaluate the most useful design for the flow of knowledge.
Result
Over about 8 months after launch, the quiz received 2 million student visitors and an impressive 91.3% completion rate: evidence of a great user experience designed with user empathy. Most completers engaged further by visiting recommended careers or adding careers to their Saved Lists directly from the results page.
Launching the career profiles increased BigFuture's focus on the career space. Over about 8 months after launch, there were 7.4 million views to the career profiles. The section also directly drove our K-12 partner contract renewals. Overall the Careers section had 11.3 million user sessions by feature, and 6.75 million user sessions across all features.
Career quiz: bigfuture.collegeboard.org/career-search/career-quiz
Example of Career Profile: bigfuture.collegeboard.org/careers/art-director
Cards on Career Search: bigfuture.collegeboard.org/career-search