SkillUp - A Career ecosystem
2025
Individual Project
8 Weeks
Research
UI Design
Usability Testing
Product Design
Overview
A platform built from my personal life and my friends lived experience as international students, to help freelancers, immigrants, and job seekers find work, community, and support in a world not designed for us.
My Role
End-to-end Design
As an international student, I meet most people I encounter on a day-to-day basis, including fellow international students, job seekers, and individuals living with visa restrictions. Our main challenge these days is finding a job and establishing a sense of community belonging. The problem is not just getting a job, but living with a fear of not knowing when we'll be laid off.
The Problem
Understanding Users
To better understand the pain point from users, I conducted 6 in-depth user interviews followed by a questionnaire. The responses from my users shaped my product better. Few of the insights from interviews are:
Competitor Analysis
To analyze the features and design trade-offs, I researched competitors and came up with the following data
To learn about the existing products in this related field, I researched about the features and trade-offs in the competitors and mapped down where they lack and what copuld be improved in the SkillUp
Research - Deep Dive into the Problem
Before finalizing the product direction, I explored whether SkillUP should be designed as a mobile app or a web application.
To make an informed decision, I compared both options and validated my assumptions through user interviews and finalized to go ahead with WebApp based on user insights
User Journey map
For understanding the need for users to use SkillUp and their thought, emotions at each phase, I created a user journey map
User Flows
The user stories, pain points and goals are defined based on these 2 arch types
Lean UX Canvas
To understand the business value of the product and to prevent myself from building features that nobody needs, I did the Lean UX Canvas to validate ideas early and saving time and resources.
Initial Wireframes
Here are a few initial sketches I brainstormed to design the features for the web app
Defining the Flow
Design System
I created and followed the Design System to ensure consistency among all the designs.
Final Designs
Designing the Product
SEQ Score
All tasks scored between 5.8 and 6.6, showing that users consistently found the prototype easy to use.
Users were confused at browsing and posting in the community and based on the think-aloud protocol, I understood that users were biased and were confused as they've been using other platforms and found SKillUp to be different.
Testing the Product
I learned that we should not expect the user to adjust to our product but rather build the features in such a way that users will feel the easiest to use our application.
Finding the right features that truly solved user pain points was challenging, but this project pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me grow as a designer, learning to balance research insights, feasibility, and usability.
Key Learnings