ykb coACHING
A desktop experience that enables and empowers individuals to reach their career goals.
Role: UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Collaboration with CEO + developer + graphic designer
OVERVIEW
YKB Coaching is a pre-seed startup dedicated to empowering individuals—particularly career switchers—to achieve their professional goals through a variety of tools and resources. Our mission is to create a platform that serves as a guiding force, helping individuals navigate and succeed in their unique career journeys.
Goal: Create a public facing desktop site application for YKB. CEO’s website goals include: Home Page, Services, Resources, Success Stories and About Us.
RESEARCH
To kick off the start of this project, the CEO and I had a sync to discuss his business goals and what he wants to achieve within his startup. Additionally we discussed the scope of the project as well as timelines and deliverables.
Business Objectives
To nurture, empower, and enable clients to achieve the most out of their career.
To build a modern web application that increases brand awareness.
To build a production ready product to enable learning, development, and professional experience for users.
Competitive Analysis
Wonsulting and The Muse were the 2 closest competitors based on the product we are trying to build. These 2 companies have strong and compelling digital experiences that help guide users to learn more about their services and how they can help. However, they do fall short on mentor to mentee relationships and some unconvincing information.
Learn what resources/support career switchers are looking for to aid in their career transition
Identify what struggles career switchers face in their transition
Research Objectives
Findings: Resource/Support
Findings: Struggles
“Act it out, don’t figure it out. When I started to act rather than analyze, things started to change.”
Core Insights
A common thread I noticed was the value of connecting with other people such as mentors, networking, accountability, support system
Identifying action steps and then doing them is a pivotal step towards creating a career change
Internal blockers such as mindset and confidence can also get in the way of career transition
Define
So, who are we solving for?
Jason - “The Overwhelmed Teacher”
Our user persona, Jason, is feeling overwhelmed with his career transition from a teacher to a software engineer. He is looking to find some guidance and direction to take towards achieving a successful career switch.
And, what does our persona need?
How might we support overwhelmed job switchers feel supported with their career transition?
Ideate
Guided by our user persona, research, and YKB’s business objectives, I identified key services that would offer the most value to career switchers. I focused on understanding the unique challenges and needs that these individuals deal with, and explored how we can design solutions that not only provide practical guidance but also offer ongoing support throughout their career transition journey.
User Flow: What will our persona accomplish?
This user flow shows the actions a user would encounter and take to purchase a service starting on the home page.
Design
Low Fidelity Wireframes
I always start my design process with the Crazy 8’s exercise, which involves delving into my mind and fostering divergent thinking within a limited time constraint! I sketched out screens for Home Page, Services, About, Success Stories, and Blogs.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Home Screen
This screen provides a clear overview of our mission and goals as a company. It also offers detailed steps on what users can expect when they decide to use our services.
Our Services
The inclusion of key metrics and the impact we've made highlights how our services can support career needs all while making the services offered as visible as possible.
Success Stories
One of our key goals was to showcase the program's effectiveness through real client feedback from our services. To enhance the experience, I added a filtering system so users can easily choose which service testimonials to read.
About Us
As a customer-facing company, it's essential for users to connect with us, which is why we've included insights into who we are and introduced the people behind the company.
Team sync
We had one of our many virtual team syncs after I completed my mid fidelity wireframes to ensure that I was able to address user pain points and achieve business goals within my designs. I led the design discussion and was able to gather feedback from the CEO and developer’s point of view. One of the biggest things I kept in mind while moving forward with high fidelity mockups was to keep an open communication with our developer to ensure that the design solutions I create are things he can build out effectively and within our proposed timeline. The meeting fostered a lot of clarity as we identified opportunities for improvement.
Final Product
Home
Services
Success Stories
About Us
Usability Testing will begin in 2025.
Key Takeaways
As the sole UX/UI Designer in a small team, I encountered new challenges that pushed me to grow. I quickly learned that clear and consistent communication is essential. By advocating for my design work while remaining open and compassionate toward other ideas and solutions, I fostered more thoughtful conversations and contributions. I truly valued this experience, and being part of a company in its early stages was incredibly rewarding!
So, what’s next for YKB Coaching?
Building out the Checkout experience and Mentor matching quiz
On the business side of things, discussion surrounding what payment methods to integrate on the site is high on the priority list! Once discussion is finalized, I will start to design for the checkout experience.
One of the biggest opportunities for improvement that we saw was the unification and rapport building of a strong mentor and mentee relationship. To enhance the success rate of mentor-mentee matches, we plan to implement a system that pairs individuals based on relatability, preferred support styles, and availability. This matching process will be guided by a brief quiz, ensuring that both mentors and mentees are aligned for a more effective and supportive relationship.