Driving Career Success for Tech Students with aspiring

What is aspiring?

aspiring assists tech students in launching their careers by providing them with real-world projects to engage in. We also offer constructive feedback on their portfolios to enhance their competitive advantage in internship selection processes.

🚀 aspiring Goals

Immersed in a project that brims with ambition, my team of seven and I embarked on a mission to create an aspiring platform to catalyze tech students' careers.

The goals we set for this project included:

• Developing a user-friendly platform: Tech students could use this to engage in real-world projects, giving them valuable experience and a competitive edge (without feeling FOMO) when applying for internships.
• Facilitating valuable feedback: We aimed to provide users with constructive feedback on their portfolios, further enhancing their professional development.
• Garnering professional recognition: We aimed to have our UI design recognized for its quality and effectiveness, as evidenced by our score of 3/4 from a university lecturer.
• Establishing industry connections: We aspired to approach and collect portfolios from ex-interns at top tech companies, bolstering the value we could offer to our users.

As the primary UI/UX designer, I was at the forefront of these efforts, ensuring that our product design resonated with the user needs we identified through design thinking.

Despite the various roles I played in this project, my focus remained on creating a compelling and user-friendly UI/UX design that effectively addressed the needs of our users. As we continue to improve and grow, we maintain our hope for aspiring to become a successful start-up.

✨ Design Process

#1: Empathize

The first step was to understand our users. We conducted an online survey using Google Forms to collect data on tech students' challenges when building their portfolios and seeking internships. This helped us establish a clear understanding of the problem at hand.

We are targeting 1st — 3rd-year university students from tech fields to answer this survey.

Important Interest Summary
Based on the data collected from our UX research, we can summarize the main areas of interest as follows:

1. Users are eager for feedback and guidance
   Many respondents reported seeking feedback from mentors, friends, and family when facing challenges in their internship application process. This shows a strong desire for guidance and insight from more experienced individuals.
2. Learning from others
   Users have a keen interest in looking to community spaces, mentorship programs, and even social media for advice and information. They appreciate real-world examples and case studies, such as those found on Github and Cofolios, as references for their own portfolio building.
3. Engaging with challenges and competitions
   Many users expressed a positive attitude towards participating in challenges and competitions. They see it as a valuable opportunity to learn, gain experience, and even win rewards. This approach also aligns with their desire for concrete, hands-on projects to include in their portfolios.

Important Pain Points Summary
Our research also helped us identify the following key pain points:

1. Uncertainty over portfolio quality and relevancy
   Users often reported feeling unsure if their CVs and portfolios meet recruiters’ expectations. This uncertainty extends to various aspects, including portfolio content, structure, and the relevance of their projects.
2. Difficulty in portfolio creation
   Respondents mentioned several challenges in creating their portfolios, including a lack of commitment, time constraints, absence of motivation, and a struggle to identify suitable projects to showcase.
3. Lack of clear feedback and guidance
   One recurring theme was the difficulty in obtaining clear, detailed feedback on their applications. Users also mentioned not knowing why they were rejected from internships, indicating a lack of constructive feedback to help them improve.
4. Limited availability and accessibility of mentorship programs
   Although users expressed interest in mentorship programs, they also noted issues such as limited slots and potentially high costs as barriers to participation.

Addressing these interests and pain points will be vital in refining and optimizing our aspiring platform to better meet the needs of tech students in their career-launching journeys.

#2: Define

After gathering insights, we formed our user persona, capturing the students' needs, frustrations, and motivations. With this, we defined the goals of our project.

• User Persona

• Story Board for aspiring

In our UI/UX design process, we incorporated storyboarding as a crucial step. This was important because it allowed us to Prompt Creativity and Innovation. The method of storyboarding encouraged us to think creatively about our users' experiences and how we could innovate to enhance their journey. It was a springboard for idea generation and innovative solutions.

#3: Ideate

Once we clearly understood our user needs, we brainstormed solutions. Using tools like the Business Model Canvas and feature mapping, we generated multiple ideas for features that could meet these needs.

• Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas was used as an initial strategic tool to understand and clearly define the critical business elements of aspiring. This method helped us to outline our value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances.

• Feature Mapping

We used feature mapping to translate our user needs and goals into practical features for the aspiring platform. This step was essential as it allowed us to prioritize the most critical functionalities, ensuring that our platform effectively supports the users in achieving their objectives.

• Priority Mapping using Product Backlog Item (PBI)

After we defined mapping our feature, we created PBI. This helps us make informed decisions when designing our project. By assigning weights to different parts, we can better understand which aspects of the product are most important to the user and prioritize them accordingly.

• User Flow

Then, we create a user flow to help us understand how users interact with our content (simplilearn.com). I will show you 2 (weekly challenge and sample portfolio) out of 10+ features so that you can understand the main feature's flow.

weekly challenge user flow

sample portfolio user flow

#4: Prototype

The next step involved bringing our ideas to life. We created wireframes and utilized a design system to ensure a cohesive and intuitive user interface. Each feature was carefully designed with our user's needs and project goals in mind.

• Low Fidelity

In our design process, crafting a low-fidelity prototype was a vital stage. This approach had significant advantages, such as The sketch-like nature of low-fidelity prototypes making it clear that the design is still being determined, encouraging stakeholders and team members to provide feedback without hesitation.

• Design System

We adapted the design system from Untitled UI, then customized and created our own based on our branding. From that, we use over 50+ style guides and 30+ components for our aspiring design. You can see more aspiring style guides in this article.

I will show you a glimpse at our design system ✨

This is our primary color.

This is our primary and destructive primary button.

High Fidelity

That’s our main feature from now on. You can explore more in aspiring.it!

#5: Testing

The final phase involved usability testing. We observed users interacting with our platform and collected their feedback using Maze.

We discovered an unexpected hurdle in user comprehension of our features, specifically in the “posting answers” area of the weekly challenge. Despite the novelty of our platform, users were struggling to understand how to use this feature effectively.

This was a critical issue, as our aim was to cultivate an active community of learners and creators. In response to this, we knew we had to take action to mitigate the problem.

We decided to enhance our copywriting, focusing on making instructions more clear, concise, and engaging. The language used was simplified, and we incorporated step-by-step guidelines to ensure users would find it easier to navigate through the posting process.

This whole experience taught us the importance of continuous testing, evaluation, and refinement in delivering a user-friendly platform that meets our users’ needs and expectations. It highlighted that even seemingly minor aspects, like the clarity of our copywriting, can significantly impact the overall user experience.

💫 Our Pivoting Journey

Our journey with aspiring was a dynamic one, packed with valuable insights and strategic pivots. The first sprint saw us emphasizing the feeds feature, a platform for users to post their portfolios and receive feedback. We envisioned it as a space for learning and engagement.

Feeds prototype in Figma

However, we soon realized a hurdle. 😢

As an early-stage startup, we didn’t have a large user base to initiate and sustain the necessary interactions. A platform thrives on user engagement, and we were yet to establish that community.

This brought us to our first significant pivot.

We shifted our focus towards the weekly challenge feature. The market seemed ripe for this change, and it allowed us to delve deeper into the user engagement aspect. More than just presenting a platform, we were now offering tangible opportunities for users to participate and grow.

This decision was also backed by our initial UX research. Users emphasized that projects are an essential part of their portfolios, and they were looking for more opportunities to create such valuable content. Our weekly challenge feature addressed this need directly. By providing real-world projects for users to tackle, we were able to give them the hands-on experience they desired for their portfolios.

📈 Our Success Metrics (So Far)

The efforts put into the development and launch of aspiring are reflected in our promising success metrics. We’ve seen substantial engagement and positive feedback that reassures us of our direction and impact.

1. Academic Acknowledgment: The UI design of aspiring received a remarkable 3 out of 4 score from our university lecturer, affirming the usability and appeal of our design.
2. Quality Portfolio Collection: We successfully approached and collected 5+ portfolios from ex-interns at top tech companies. This not only expands our resource database but also solidifies our credibility in the tech student community.
3. Strong Social Media Engagement: Within three days of our social media campaigns, we had reels garnering over 3000+ views, signaling high interest and engagement from our target audience. You can follow aspiring’s social media through Instagram and TikTok

These achievements highlight our project’s momentum and its potential to facilitate a successful career launch for tech students. We’re excited about what’s next for aspiring as we continue to develop and refine our platform.

And that’s a wrap, Thank you! 💖

I will appreciate your feedback 💬 & clap 👏.

If you want to collaborate, don’t hesitate to contact me at deyunarusmiland@gmail.com or through Linkedin ☕