BigFuture.org: Career profiles
- Role: Lead UX Designer
- Company: The College Board
Challenge
When the Career section was added to the BigFuture website, the team conducted significant user research into what students expected to see. This research influence the general information hierarchy, as well as a user experience that works for different types of seekers; for example, not only the student browsing for ideas but also the student seeking deep information about one selected career.
Solution
To appeal to many types of information seekers and to neatly present as much information as possible, I designed a pattern that functioned like a mini site for each career. Each career profile has an overview page as well as other tabs that lead to more specific information. We partnered with information providers to include brief descriptions, specific income and education ranges, and more for over 450 careers.
I also led the UX effort to determine the design pattern for different career card types. On BigFuture.org, search results are displayed using a card pattern. The site also uses mini-cards for lateral navigation, such as in the "Similar Careers" section of each career profile. I determined the content strategy for the hierarchy of the different card types, and worked closely with our UI designer to evaluate the most useful design.
Result
Launching the career profiles increased BigFuture's focus on the career space. Over about 8 months after launch, there were 7.4 million views to the career profiles. The section also directly drove our K-12 partner contract renewals. Overall the Careers section had 11.3 million user sessions by feature, and 6.75 million user sessions across all features.
Profile: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/careers/art-director
Cards on Career Search: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/career-search