Initial Concepts
I consider myself to be a copy-based designer meaning I often get my concepts and ideas from simple words (real and invented ones). So for this project, I made a list of words related to jobs, employment, design, hiring and starting out.
The app names I coined were:
D-Raft/D.Raft - this is supposed to read as Design Raft. The concept revolves around the idea of have a symbolic raft that will help new designers stay afloat.
Hirespring - a play on the word wire spring which is somewhat self-explanatory. I just liked the sound of it.
StartBoard - I think a lot of designers can relate to the word 'artboard' especially if they use Adobe programs. The word is basically a combination of the word Start and Artboard.
My Final Concept
After discussing the ideas with some classmates, the one that had the most 'oomph' was D.Raft as it generated the image of a shiny, life-saving raft in the middle of the ocean.
Now that I had a name for my app, I had to establish it's features and design its interfaces.
The App Features
To inform my app's features, I took what I had learned from my Experience Design course with Professor Ming Cheung. In the course, she introduced to us some fundamental experience design concepts as well as her "Soulmate Theory". The "Soulmate Theory" (Cheung, 2019) states that “causal relations play an important role in innovative experience design because they can afford the business a way to represent how it envisions and operates, and because they allow its imagination free reign in considering how the users of their product, service and system could or would react if changes were made to its design”. For this Design Exploration project, I chose to focus on three XD elements mentioned in her Soulmate Theory namely: Personalisation, Information, and Engagement.
According to Prof. Cheung's lectures:
Personalisation"refers to the style and features of media content that match a user's personal preferences...Good personalisation is built on the stimuli being customisable, compatible, efficient, effective, and relevant."
Information "refers to the amount and quality of information available to users as they experience a product, service, or system. Good information is built on stimuli being accurate, comprehensible, visualisable, trustworthy, and meaningful.
Engagement "refers to user's involvement and interaction with the stimuli appearing on the digital interface or physical environment. Good engagement is built on stimuli being accessible, usable, credible, learnable, and desirable.
Also taking cues from all research and interviews, the key features of the app would focus on:
Personalisation (Main Menu and Profile feature)
Task Organisation (Task List feature)
Self-marketing and Online Exposure (Resume and Folio Assistant, SOS Feature)
Specialised job aggregator (Job Search feature)
Networking and socialisation (In-App Networking and messaging feature)
Main Menu & Task List
The main interface contains all the app functions as well as a progress bar indicating how much of your D.Raft Profile has been completed. The profile will be viewable by other users and by recruiters subscribed to the app. The Task List gives a recommend list of to do’s but is still personalisable.
The Resume Assistant gives a list of standard questions to generate a resume. The resume will be stored in the app and be used for job applications in-app.
The Folio Assistant helps design your online portfolio. It integrates other platforms such as Behance and Pinterest and has a tiled feed similar to that of Instagram.
Job Search & Networking
D.Raft’s algorithm will funnel in jobs specifically for entry level designers and track internships and training positions. The Networking feature will integrate groups from existing social media platforms and allow users to search, create and curate new ones in the app. Native messaging will also be available here.
The next phase was to work on the interface inventory and pattern library.
Interface Inventory
I sourced a majority of vector assets from Freepik.
Pattern Library
References:
Cheung, M. (2019). 7522QCA Experience Design, Week 01, Page 49 [PDF lecture]. Retrieved from https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76475_1&content_id=_4734399_1
Cheung, M. (2019). 7522QCA Experience Design, Week 05, Page 9 [PDF lecture]. Retrieved from https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76475_1&content_id=_4734399_1
Cheung, M. (2019). 7522QCA Experience Design, Week 07, Page 10 [PDF lecture]. Retrieved from https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76475_1&content_id=_4734399_1
Cheung, M. (2019). 7522QCA Experience Design, Week 09, Page 5 [PDF lecture]. Retrieved from https://bblearn.griffith.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_76475_1&content_id=_4734399_1
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