MOBILE APP
Career Robo
A mobile-first app that helps students explore careers through real, unfiltered experiences instead of guesswork. It combines a TikTok-style feed of honest “day-in-the-life” content, quick interactive simulations to try real tasks, and low-pressure chats with professionals.
Technology & Tools
Midjournery
Figma
Google Labs
Google Forms
Kling 3.0
The Approach
Jakob Nielsen’s UX principle of Matching the System to the Real World.
Real World
GenZ familiar with :
Short-form video discovery
Gamified micro-learning and quizzes
Casual DMs & Matcha
THE SYSTEM
Career Robo Features:
"Real-Day" Career Feed
Gamified bite-sized career simulations
Matcha chat with professionals
What I did
Market Research
User Flow
User Survey
Competitive Analysis
High-fidelity UI
Wireframes
Accessibility evaluation
Prototype
RESEARCH
Existing Research
The Problem
A "discovery deficit" roots itself in a lack of early direction, creating a costly domino effect:
Unprepared Starts: 75% of high school graduates feel entirely unready to make career choices.
Academic Pivot: 50% to 75% of college students switch their majors at least once.
Long-Term Regret: 50% of the total workforce (and 70% of Millennials) wish they had chosen a different career path.
The Direction
The direction is to shift career decisions from guesswork to guided discovery. By giving students early access to personalized career exploration through real-world insights, skill assessments, and clear roadmaps. As a result, they can make informed choices before committing years and money.
RESEARCH
Competitive Analysis
I analysed 3 most popular platforms in the field - looking both at the user experience and negative app store comments to find patterns
Problems from the comments
I feel like I'm working in a void because there is no personalized feedback to tell me if my approach was actually correct
HANA
Forage User
The platform feels like a repetitive school chore that I just click through to finish rather than a tool for real discovery.
ROB
Xello User
I enjoyed the initial tests, but the high price of actual guidance makes finding a career path expensive and I don't know if it works so I skipped.
ANDY
Mindler User
RESEARCH & DEFINE
User Survey
The initial goal was to find out how a career exploration app could best help students. To uncover their true pain points, interviews were conducted with 40 high school and early university students asking what they wished they knew before choosing their path.
What is the biggest thing you wish you knew about your current career path (or major) before you actually started it?
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
40 People
80
%
Career Assessment Accuracy
Generic quizzes, little real clarity
Generic career quizzes always fail to reveal your true strengths and offer very little real clarity.
75
%
Personalized Pathways
One-time results that never adapt
Existing career platforms offer rigid, one-time results that do not adapt as a student grows.
60
%
Real-World Industry Insight
Little exposure to actual daily tasks
Students rarely see actual day-to-day job responsibilities, leaving them with only a title.
34
%
Mentor/Counselor Support
Mostly left to figure it out alone
Few students have meaningful access to mentors or counselors, leaving the majority to struggle alone.
Notable Comments
“The workload and stress are way higher than I expected, it doesn’t feel like what I saw online.”
SOFIA
Project Manager
"I feel like I'm working in a void because there is no personalized feedback to tell me if my approach was actually correct."
LAURA
Forage User
“I wish someone showed me real examples before I chose this, not just the fun parts.”
Daniel
Design Student
Initial research shows
Traditional career tools feel boring, abstract, and disconnected from real work so students disengage.
Features to include in our app to address current user painpoints and outperform competitors:
5-Minute Job Trial: Quick quizzes and a course video letting students try real job tasks firsthand.
Matcha Chat: Quick, low-pressure guidance from industry professionals.
Tiktok-style Feed: Watch reels to understand the career daily life.
Career Snapshot: Green Flags, Red Flags, salary range, required major, and real insights from professionals
Career Discovery: A discovery tool that lets students explore careers by choosing the archetype that feels most like them.
RESEARCH & DEFINE
User Persona
Drawing from our survey insights, I created user personas to guide Career Robo's design. Focused primarily on 'The Explorer,' these profiles ensured our features and user flow met real-world needs.
Kristin Watson
THE EXPOLORER
AGE
17
EDUCATION
Grade 11
STATUS
Single
OCCUPATION
Financial Analyst
LOCATION
Toronto
TECH LITERATE
High
"I have no idea what I want to do after graduation and everyone keeps asking me."
Personality
Curious
Indecisive
Creative
Bio
Maya is in her second-to-last year of high school and feeling the pressure to pick a direction. She spends most of her time on TikTok and YouTube and learns better through watching than reading. She has no work experience and finds traditional career websites overwhelming.
Core Needs
•
Explore careers in a way that feels relevant to her life
•
Understand what a job actually feels like day-to-day
•
Find a path without committing to anything yet
Frustration
•
Career advice feels corporate and made for adults
•
No way to try a career before choosing a major
•
Parents and teachers push their own opinions, not hers
Payment Plan
Free Tier
Purchase Credits
Platform
Website
Mobile App
PRIMARY PERSONA
Sarah Liu
THE SWITCHER
AGE
31
EDUCATION
Business
OCCUPATION
Financial Analyst
TECH LITERATE
Medium
"I've spent 7 years in a career I don't love. I need to find something before it's too late."
Payment/ Earning
Free Tier
Purchase Credits
James Okafor
THE MENTOR
AGE
34
EDUCATION
Computer Science
OCCUPATION
Software Engineer
TECH LITERATE
High
"I built my career the hard way. I want to help the next generation skip the mistakes."
Payment/ Earning
Earn Comission
Purchase Credits
Dr. Michael Torres
THE INSTITUTION
AGE
52
EDUCATION
PhD in Education
OCCUPATION
Director at Harvard
TECH LITERATE
High
"We have world-class programs but we can't reach them early enough."
Payment/ Earning
Pay commision
Purchase Credits
SECONDARY PERSONA
IDEATE
User Flow & WireFrames
To out line all the necessary functionality I created a user flow of the main tasks users can do. One of the flows is shown below.
Main Client Flow
IDEATE
Enhance User Engagement with a Mascot
A friendly chibi robot mascot guides students through the app and make career exploration feel approachable, not intimidating. It reduces friction during onboarding, celebrates milestones like completed test stimulations and earn credits, and gives the app a personality students actually want to interact with.
Character Sheet
ideate
Design System
With the flow mapped out and the story clear in my head, it was time to bring it to life visually. I opened Figma and started where every good design starts — the foundations. Before touching a single screen, I locked in the typography and color palette that would set the tone for everything that followed.
Color palette
Accent, primary, secondary, background
Font
Heading: Sora
AaBbCcDdFfGgHh
Body: Open Sans
AaBbCcDdFfGgHh
Styles
Color
Color scheme
Compound
Primary · Violet
3B2FA0
5245C7
6A5AE0
A99EF2
F1EFFD
Blue
1B2F8F
2E4FD8
4C6FFF
8FD0FF
EAF3FF
Magenta · tags & tints
6D0A64
A00E95
D14DB8
F0A8DE
FBEAF6
Background · Mascot · Illustration · Overlay
F6FBFE
8FD0FF
FFC93C
A6BFE2
FFF @ 15%
Neutral
Light
C5C6CC
D4D6DD
E8E9F1
F8F9FE
FFFFFF
Dark
1F2024
2F3036
494A50
71727A
8F9098
Support
Success
298267
3AC0A0
E7F4E8
Warning
E86339
FFB37C
FFF4E4
Error
ED3241
FF616D
FFE2E5
Styles
Text
Aa
Sora, Open Sans
Heading
H1
Bold / 61
H2
Bold / 48
H3
Bold / 39
H4
Bold / 31
H5
Bold / 25
H6
Bold / 20
Subheading
Bold / 20
Body
XL
Regular / 18
L
Regular / 16
M
Regular / 14
S
Regular / 12
XS
Semi Bold / 10
Action
L
Bold / 18
M
Bold / 16
S
bold / 14
Caption
M
Semi Bold / 10
PROTOYPE
High-fidelity UI & Prototype
With the flow mapped out and the story clear in my head, it was time to bring it to life visually. I opened Figma and started where every good design starts — the foundations. Before touching a single screen, I locked in the typography and color palette that would set the tone for everything that followed.
Try it your self
02
/see more
