Background

A vast majority of students - 88.9%,  face challenges in navigating multiple internship platforms, leading to inefficiencies and frustration in the application process. There is a significant need for a centralized internship tracker that aggregates opportunities from various sources, providing transparency on available positions and streamlining the application process. Students desire features such as automated alerts for new openings, clear updates on application status, and a user-friendly interface to improve their internship search experience.

Market Research

Leading my research campaign was a complex competitive analysis of LinkedIn, Tealhq, Indeed, and the now closed Chegg internships. It was important to my design process to understand competitors solutions and assess their strengths and weaknesses so that I could identify gaps and opportunities that BobaTalks might address. I also quickly found that there was no dedicated resource for students searching for internships leaving a massive opportunity in the market.

Student Surveys

My second research strategy was to create a 10-question survey to gather a high-volume of user data. Across the nation, I was able to record 38 student responses with the following insights:

• 88.9% of students use multiple platforms to search for internships because each platform contains different internships creating a challenging and over-stimulating process
• 47.2% of students struggle with understanding when an internship is active/open
• When looking for an internship, students value skill development, mentorship, and compensation the most
• 50% of students do not track internship application progress, while the other 50% use google sheets or notion

User Interviews

Following my in-depth analysis of job application platforms and survey, I interviewed four college students (2 male and 2 female identifying) currently seeking internship opportunities. I wanted to dive deeper and build connections with my stakeholders, while gathering insights into needs and opportunities more effectively.

User Persona

In order to synthesize the overwhelming amount of data collected about my users during the research phase, I use a user persona to represent key audience segments. This step allows me to define the scope and focus of my solution, addressing the specific needs of my most important user groups.

Narrowing Down The Solution

My first step in ideating is an ideation method called “MoSCoW” to organize a list of solution ideas from most to least essential based on key research insights. This helps me translate user needs to essential design products.

Wireframe

Following the rigorous research phase and narrowing down the solution, I began wireframing lo-fi prototypes to translate my insights and solutions into tangible features, laying the foundation for user interaction.

Mid-fidelity Wireframes

Once the creative direction was set, I incorporated additional features as well as polished existing ones turning my wireframes into mid-fidelity wireframes. My biggest priority was creating a testable prototype that had visual consistency and allowed for the best user-experience. I utilized competitors design patterns as well as user feedback to directly address the users needs, goals, and frustrations while also using the US Web Design Standards to improve accessibility and avoid creative hi-fidelity design decisions.

Feedback

As the time and resources I had was limited, I decided to limit user-testing to my key stakeholders and project manager. They provided additional insights, features, and recommendations based on the mid-fidelity prototype that was implemented into the final hi-fi prototype.