Apprenticeship.Miami

Initial Interview

To launch the sprint, we began by interviewing the stakeholder and their in-house designers. We wanted to get a more in-depth understanding of the brief and what was the goal of creating this application.

“We want to create a process where the user is telling us about their company but are still being informed about apprenticeships,” said Carlos. The main takeaways from the interview were that ALOT of companies have the wrong idea about these apprenticeship programs. Educating during the process would help them understand the benefits and be more inclined to begin their own.

Articles

We were not experts on apprenticeship programs. If we wanted to educate the users, we also had to find what would be insightful facts that could help change the negative perception of apprenticeships. Even though we still did not know how the application would look or work, we knew that asking the right questions was the biggest part of the entire sprint.

Some key findings from our article research:

• $20,000 salary difference between an entry-level tech position and an apprenticeship in tech

• For every $1 invested in apprenticeships $1.48 is returned.

• Employees are more likely to stay at a company longer when the company they work for invests in their development.

Survey

Now that we knew more about apprenticeship programs and how they could benefit companies. It was important to understand where these companies are having issues with these programs. We created an open-ended survey where the hiring managers would tell us about their experiences with apprenticeships.

When asked why they want to hire an apprentice, they told us it was because of the low-cost salaries, they get to help someone start their career, and they would not require training if the person were to become full-time.

Their expectations for apprentices were both positive and negative. Some said they expected them to ask a lot of questions to get to know how to do tasks, learn from their mistakes, and become independent at the end of the program. But others expect apprentices to initially detract value from the company since they would need extra attention to have them go down the right path.

Last but not least we learned where have they experienced issues in the past with apprentices. The hiring managers specified that many of the problems come from leaving them on their own, apprentices tend to make assumptions that lead to doing tasks incorrectly. The other biggest point was since they are 1this entry-level position, they can become complacent. Becoming lazy and lacking passion that can lead to a sense of entitlement to receiving a full-time offer.

Competitive Analysis

It is always good to see what works and what doesn’t for your competitors. A competitive analysis was huge for this sprint, we wanted to know what these companies were doing right and wrong.

The 2 companies we analyzed were Handshake and Multiverse.io, specializing in helping both parties, employer and employee.

Problem Statement

After reviewing the research results we created our problem statement:

When looking to hire, I want to be more informed about the value of apprentices so that I can make the best decision for my company from a business and talent growth perspective.

How Might We

The How Might We statement put together before creating our User Persona was:

How might we design an app that educates employers about the value of apprentices, as well as gathers information about the company and its goals?

User Persona

From the research insights and the constructed statements, we were able to come up with our primary user, Sebastian Fernandez. Sebastian is the hiring manager for Origin PC in Miami, Florida. Some of his goals and needs are to learn about the value proposition of investing in apprentices and to find ideal candidates who are eager to learn and succeed in their field.

Some of his pain points are that he isn’t aware of the benefits that come from investing in apprentices early on and that in the beginning, apprentices need to learn their responsibilities which lowers overall productivity until they are independent.

User Journey

For our user journey, Sebastian goes through his typical process of searching for candidates to hire.

Our main focus here is the frustration stage, which is:

Based on Sebastian’s past experiences, he is conflicted because his instinct is that his company would lose value by hiring an apprentice even though it’s the other way around over time.

User Flow

After exploring the reasons why Sebastian would want to use the Apprenticeship.Miami application we came up with the User Story:

As a hiring manager, I want to learn about the value of apprentices and how they can benefit my company so that I can set up a program to guide/mentor them and eventually hire them for a full-time position.

With the User Story formulated, we explored the main user flow that help facilitate the needs of Sebastian and would be the framework for our MVP.

With most of the ideation complete, we decided to separately put together a low-fidelity version. Once we were both completed, we presented what we had envisioned and took the best features from both to create the final iteration of the low-fi.

Features Added:

• Option to sign in as both employer and apprentice

• Onboarding survey

• User profile

• Booking System

• Webinar (mentioned by stakeholder)

The onboarding process consisted of questions that would fill up their user profile. From the user profile the Apprenticeship.Miami experts can further understand the user to help them get their apprenticeship program going.

For this MVP, we demonstrate the employer’s side of the application. The questions asked were specific to the kind of company the user works for while also educating them about apprenticeships. From our research, we were able to use the facts and key learning and turn them into insightful questions. The user is told about apprenticeships and then asked about their view on the question.

Once the rough design of the application was mocked up, we went ahead in creating the component that would be used. During the Low-fi, we did not know what exactly the navigation bar would include. We decided to add both the option to book a meeting and or send a direct message to an expert (The direct messaging feature is not part of the MVP, but could be further expanded if given the option). This phase was focused on the interactions that would be present throughout the entire experience. Once they were completed, it was time to test what we had come up with so far.

Our style guide provides all the assets needed to work on the Apprenticeship.Miami app. The colors decided were similar to that of the mood board, while the typography stayed the same as the company’s website.

• Strong research on the user, the company, and the topic was essential to creating our MVP.

• Conveying our thought process and reasoning for decision-making was important to stay on the same page with the stakeholder and other designers.

• Staying consistent and productive while waiting for feedback helped us stay on pace.

• Implement a direct messaging system that allows users to contact staff or support.

• Create a questionnaire portion for apprentices.

• Expand the Learn More section by making the article cards interactable so users can read the full article.

• Continue to iterate and conduct more usability tests.