TakeCharge!
The idea behind TakeCharge! was to create an app where engineering students in high school could discover all types of engineering. It would allow them to get hands-on experience in different fields and assist them in narrowing down their perfect career choice.
Project Length
10 Weeks
Role
Team Lead
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Team Size
5 Members
Empowering the Next generation Of Engineers
The mission of TakeCharge! is to provide high schoolers with opportunities beyond the classroom where they can obtain real-world experience in their prospective engineering career fields.
How it Works!
Explore different types of engineering, find mentors, or learn about your chosen field!
Select a mentor and start chatting about workplace opportunities!
Start getting real-world, hands-on experience right now!
The Design Process
Career decision-making is an integral part of an adolescent’s growth, and while most children know what field they would like to study, it can be challenging to choose a career they should focus on narrowing down. Furthermore, engineering consists of a vast multitude of subtypes of careers, and this only further increases the difficulty of finding the perfect career path.
With that in mind, how can we help create opportunities for growing students to learn more about various career fields so they are able to settle on a specific area of study?
Problem Space
Key Questions
What types of support do children need during career development?
What is the current process for nurturing students at this age so they can find their ideal career path?
How can we assist the education system in increasing the frequency or consistency of real career learning experiences?
Interviewing Through Needfinding
We interviewed 9 different individuals to understand how we can better support aspiring students wanting to find their place within the workforce.
Our Findings
“That's a huge void a gap right now, of educators, substitute teachers, CTE teachers, per technical education, special education teachers, general ed teachers, see in this pandemic,..."(YFIOB Representative).
We need more available staff within the current education system to create a sustainable and affordable model within the school.
“Like, if you want to get to this level, you’re going to have to learn how to talk to people, you’re going to learn how to control people control rooms, control home environments, because in my role, that’s sort of what I have to do, I have to control, you have to be able to control your setting” (YFIOB Volunteer).
It’s not enough to know about an area of expertise, children need other skills that are transferable in different fields and can prepare them for parts of a job that they are not aware of without hands-on experience.
I think it would be really interesting to have some sort of consortium or adoption, either of a school or a couple of schools, where what happens is that maybe you do it over the course of a year. So, you expose kids to, let’s say, a series of careers, and they do a kind of what-if workshop. (YFIOB Volunteer)
In an ideal world, an annual workshop that can provide students with the ability to get a feel for different careers would be greatly beneficial to test students’ affinity or desire for certain futures.
Research
Brainstorming and Ideation
Our Design Goals
Provide students with the ability to research and learn about different career options
Help students find more hands-on opportunities to help them and receive more hands-on experiences
Create an app that can better assist the current education system in helping students discover different career paths
Original Brainstorm Ideas
User Test Study
We conducted a usability test with YFIOB (Your Future is Our Business) Staff members and had them interact with 3 of our prototype ideas. These ideas included “ThatExists?,” “TakeCharge!,” and “Badger.” Of all our prototypes, “TakeCharge!” was deemed the most successful and beneficial app. While the idea of “TakeCharge!” was still risky based on how hard it could be to implement alongside a school system, we continued to innovate and evolve.
Other Study Notes
We found that one question we had to keep asking ourselves was, Would we, as high school students, consistently use an app like “TakeCharge!”? We needed to evolve our idea into a more engaging experience for students.
Prototyping and Wireframes
This was a basic wireframe and barebones system of how TakeCharge! would work. We created more than just wireframe and you can check all of them out!
Key Screens
Reflection and what I would improve
As my first real test of my User Research and Design skills, I learned I can never get attached to one concept or idea. The process is about constant revision and drafting. Even though this project has been finished, I can still point out many things I would improve. I would shift the app's focus from high school students to college students due to the dangers of online interaction. Secondly, I would change the premise of the app from a direct messaging app to one that emphasizes the idea of an online, anonymous Q&A forum. Another change I would make to accommodate more hands-on experiences would be to shift the engineering focus to a different technical skill, such as graphic design or software programming. With these skills that can be worked on remotely, users could post tasks that needed to be completed, and completing a task for a user would earn them points on a point system. While the changes I have mentioned are more of a complete overhaul of the app, this project has too many variables and risks continuing as is.
Contact Me.
brentchoudesign@gmail.com