Navigating Success: A Fresh New Look for 10,000 Degrees’ Career Success Program

I partnered with a local nonprofit to revamp one of their websites. Using data-driven insights and direct user feedback, my work focused on improving user experience, increasing engagement, and showcasing program impact to stakeholders.

Client
10,000 Degrees

Target Users
College Students, 10,000 Degrees Alumni

Teams
Career Success (Main), College Success, Marketing & Communications

My Role
Design Lead

Duration
6 months

Project Background

10,000 Degrees® is a nationally recognized leader in supporting students from low-income backgrounds to and through college. In 2022, as part of their five-year strategic plan, 10,000 Degrees started revamping their Career Success Program to provide additional support and resources for their college students and alumni.

I partnered with their Career Success team and led the redesign of the Internship website to align it with their strategic goals. By incorporating student feedback and data-driven insights, my work focused on improving student and alumni support, increasing engagement, and showcasing program impact to key stakeholders.

Researching & Planning

Learning about our users' pain points, motivations, and desired outcomes

10,000 Degrees initiated a revamp of their Career Success program by conducting comprehensive user research. To gather insights, a targeted survey focusing on career goals and needs was distributed to all college students and alumni. The survey also solicited feedback on the existing Internship website to identify areas for improvement and understand user preferences.

Additionally, I conducted in-depth interviews with College Success staff who work directly with the target demographics, gaining valuable insights into their challenges and expectations. This combined approach provided a comprehensive understanding of our target audience and their pain points, ensuring the revamp would effectively address their needs.

Getting to know our users

I created two user personas to understand the diverse needs and motivations of 10,000 Degrees' college students and alumni.

The feedback from 500 survey respondents and College Success teams provided us with the following insights

Research Insight #1

Students and alumni liked the step-by-step guide on the landing page, but…

They wanted the overall navigation to be more streamlined, user-friendly, and interactive. Some users also reported mobile-friendliness issues.

Research Insight #2

Email and social media were the go-to communication and resource-sharing tools between staff and students because they were simpler to use than the website.

Research Insight #3

Students and alumni found the career resources helpful, but…

They wanted the content to be more engaging and visually appealing, with examples and in various formats.

Research Insight #4

Students and alumni are interested in participating in events and workshops to help them develop their professional networks and prepare for job searches.

Research Insight #5

Students and alumni struggled to reach support.

Users struggled to reach the right support person due to outdated contact information and a poorly designed Fellows Contact page.

College students were unsure which Fellows to contact, and alumni didn't know they could contact them.

Defining the problem

What do college students & alumni want?

From our research, we learned that college students and alumni want relevant and engaging Career Success content and resources so they can stay informed and motivated about their career goals.

HOW MIGHT WE…

…redesign the Career Success website to meet better the needs of 10,000 Degrees college students and alumni as they navigate their career journey?

A quick and simple outline of Career Success information structure

Once we had identified the most important content to focus on, I created a sitemap to help 10,000 Degrees brainstorm and visualize how the website's information would be organized.

The sitemap was used throughout the project to communicate the redesign's vision and progress to different teams and stakeholders.

Prioritizing & Roadmapping

Our research led us to prioritize the Career Resources and Events & Workshops pages.

The Career Resources page allows students and alumni to find and explore the content they need to support their career journey.

The Events & Workshops page lists upcoming career-related events and workshops that students and alumni can attend to learn new skills, network with professionals, and advance their careers.

Designing Career Resources

Transforming Career Success website into a Resource Library

Based on feedback from college students and alumni who wanted to find more information relevant to their goals and needs, we decided to transform the Career Success website into a Resource Library. This will allow users to find the information they need using the Search & Filter feature.

1. Finding Desired Contents & Resources

Users asked for specific resources tailored to their goals and motivations based on the Interest Survey.

To address this need, I explored the idea of using a search and filter system where resources would be tagged with keywords.

Since we didn't have a developer at the time, I consulted with a friend who is a developer to confirm that this was feasible.

2. Categorizing Resources

Since the Career Success team already had content created or planned for the quarter, I created categories based on the layout of the Step-by-Step Guide on the previous Career Success website, which was a feature that users favored. This will also help the Career Success team streamline their ongoing maintenance.

1. Tagging Contents

Since users can search for content and resources by tag, I added tags to the content so that the users could interact with them, providing another way to find the desired resources.

I also used the tagging system for Events & Workshops to help students and alumni find what they're looking for.

2. Organizing Resources

10,000 Degrees had a variety of content in both text and video formats, so I organized it into separate categories.

3. Category for external articles

I also added a third category for the external articles 10,000 Degrees wanted to include.

Designing Events & Workshops

Brainstorming and testing design ideas to make the Event Calendar more user-friendly and accessible.

Based on user feedback, I learned that the Career Success website did not have an event calendar. Users had to use the Event Calendar on the main website, which they found difficult to use and poorly organized.

To address the problems users were having with the Event Calendar, I brainstormed a few different design ideas and presented them to the College Success and Career Success teams for their input.

Version #1

Displaying upcoming events by month

To make it easier for students and alumni to see all upcoming events by month, I explored the idea of featuring the calendar prominently on the website, with the upcoming events displayed on the side.

Version #2

Displaying all upcoming events

I explored the idea of featuring upcoming events more prominently on the website.

Both College Success and Career Success teams preferred Version #2, although they also liked having a calendar on the page. However, the Career Success team mentioned that there might be months when they wouldn't have any events.

Unexpected Challenges

10,000 Degrees’ Dilemma

Career Success team was hesitant to include Events & Workshops on the Career Success website because they wanted to reserve most of them for students and alumni. However, they were concerned that not including Events & Workshops would make it seem like they weren't doing enough, since the majority of their work would be hosting these events.

To address these concerns, I suggested indicating which events are reserved for students and alumni and prompt users to use the Student Portal for sign-up details.

This would allow 10,000 Degrees to still show their work, encourage students and alumni to use the Student Portal, and make it easy for users to access the events they are interested in.

I also pointed out that it might be easier for users to access the events from the website than to use the Student Portal, especially in the beginning when 10,000 Degrees launched the website.

Overall, I believe that this solution addresses the concerns of both 10,000 Degrees and their users.

Putting it together

After considering feedback from both the Career Success and College Success teams, I redesigned Events & Workshops based their preferences and concerns.

Combining the Designs

After considering feedback from both the Career Success and College Success teams, I combined their design preferences, which included featuring upcoming events prominently and having a calendar on the page.

1. Indicate if the Event is reserved for Students and Alumni

To solve 10,000 Degrees’ dilemma, I added a line of text to indicate if an event is reserved for students & alumni and prompt them to log in to register.

2. Prompt users to log into their account

I added a login button at the bottom in case users missed the message at the top.

3. Recommend Upcoming Events

I added related events at the bottom to inform users of other upcoming events.

Final designs

Reflections

Stakeholders are not designers

Due to language and knowledge barriers between me and my stakeholders, visuals were essential for bridging the communication gap.

For example, the Career Success Director's sharing of examples helped me better understand their vision.

In return, I provided the sitemap and wireframes to help 10,000 Degrees visualize information structures and design explorations. This enabled us to make informed decisions and progress to the next steps.

Be prepared for anything

Given the limited resources available, I worked with great ambiguity and uncertainty.

As the project progressed, I had to change directions a few times to accommodate the logistical challenges that arose from the involvement of multiple stakeholders.

To accommodate this, I ensured that my designs were flexible enough to be easily modified without requiring significant additional work.

Collaborating with domain specialists

Due to the lack of direct access to 10,000 Degrees' target audience, I could not gather their insights or validate my assumptions.

To address this limitation, I sought out alternative methods for gathering insights. This led me to collaborate with the College Success teams, who work directly with our target audience.

Navigating constraints & uncertainties

Shortly after the project began, we learned that the Marketing team was also redesigning the main website. They wanted to integrate Career Success into the main website rather than maintaining them as two separate websites.

This meant we didn't have a dedicated developer or know which platform would be used until the project was underway, which limited my ability to research and assess the feasibility of certain functionalities.

To overcome this challenge, I consulted with developers in my network to assess the feasibility of specific features.

What's Next

Testing my designs with students and alumni

While I was involved in the development process as a consultant, I was not involved in the usability test—I would have loved to be included to verify my hypotheses and see if and how I could improve my designs.

What People Say

“Wow, we could not have put together our vision for the new career success site without you. You were so generous to spend time walking us through the process, sharing design ideas, and creating a beautiful website prototype!

Thanks for keeping the students front and center during the process and being so intentional about including their ideas and feedback into the process. Also thank you for for being an all around amazing colleague and collaborator!

I am truly in awe of your design skills and am so appreciative of you taking on this project and going above and beyond!”

Ann S.
Director of Career Success

“You are a rockstar for being willing to work on this collective vision. I know how much intentional time you spent in making it a student-friendly website. I know that it was a great way for all of us to share ideas and you were able to reel us into this beautiful end result.”

Karla S.
Director of 4-Year & Alumni Success

“Thank you for taking on this website project and doing such an amazing job with it. We are so appreciative of your work!”

Megan T.
Director of Corporate Engagement

“Thank you so much for your hard work on the new career website. I appreciate you and what you've done for the career team!”

Saga S.
Career Success Manager

“Thank you so much for your fantastic design of the new career website. You put so much thought into each page.”

Citlalli C.
Career Success Coordinator

“Thank you for all your support with the Career Success website! Your work elevates us to such a professional level, and everything looks so beautiful. We appreciate you and are incredibly lucky to have you on our team!”

Tania R.
Director of Community College Success

“The career website is looking amazing and a huge part of it is because of your creativity and design skills! You have made the redesign process such a fun and inclusive process, so much intention has gone into getting it going. Your leadership shone through from start to finish, so proud of you and the project!”

Maria H.
Director of Curriculum & Engagement