How Cozy transformed San Diego Workforce Partnership into a delightful career search manual
The problem
San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP), a public-private nonprofit, offers the My Next Move (MNM) initiative to aid job seekers. Despite rich content, users struggled to find resources due to disjointed and isolated pages. SDWP sought our help to integrate the Japanese philosophy of ikigai and create dedicated landing pages for specific demographics.
Industry
- Non-profit
Cozy services
- UX/UI design
- Content strategy
- Web development
Before Cozy
SDWP's site posed a daunting navigation challenge for job seekers, with isolated and disconnected resources. The homepage was barren, and the main navigation didn't support the user journey or compellingly narrate the organization's story.as
But first: research
If we’re not basing our work on what we know the users really want, it’s not design. This stuff looks boring but is the foundation for all to come.
We started with an audit of SDWP’s existing brand and content, developing consensus around our three audience types: job seekers, career changers, and career counselors. We also conducted a thorough competitive analysis and quantitative usability benchmarking on the current site.
We then conducted generative, qualitative research and found user population clusters around vets, justice-involved individuals, new Americans, teachers, teens and young adults. Interviews with subject-matter experts rounded out our understanding of these populations.
Design process
With an understanding of the content, the audience, and their goals, we set about putting structure to updated pages.
Content design
We developed comprehensive content outlines tailored to the unique needs of each demographic, guided by the ikigai, RIASEC, and MNM frameworks. These outlines informed our wireframing process, ensuring each page's visual layout was as targeted and effective as possible.
Wireframes
Before focusing on color and beauty, we first established the visual structure of each page based on our research and demographic identification. We created and tested schematic black-and-white wireframes to ensure clear, user-friendly layouts that facilitated easy access to career path information.
UI kit
In our UI design phase, we focused on enhancing the effectiveness of our wireframes. We crafted a design that supported the information hierarchy, guided users intuitively, and effectively conveyed content.
As we transitioned from UX, we incorporated SDWP's brand palette into the UI design, aiding user recognition of key site-wide concepts like ikigai and the RIASEC.
Real-world results
We transformed the site into a modern, user-friendly platform that managed to integrate the ikigai, RIASEC, and MNM frameworks with cues that guide visitors through their career search. Consistent UI elements like a 1-5 “map” and a “Toolbox” guided job seekers with relevant content at every step of their journey.
The biggest impact isn’t just on our organization, but for the community, which is the goal of this site.— Sarah Burns, SDWP Director of Learning
The special populations’ pages were curated with resources structured around each user group’s pain points, while also again integrating the ikigai, RIASEC, and MNM frameworks.
MNM...is enabling us to have the tools to make a big splash.. The new site will make life easier for our educators and customers — especially those with barriers — who need to connect to the services they want.— Sarah Burns, SDWP Director of Learning