Interview Central

project overview

My Role: We had four people on our team and divided work based on skill, time, and interest in specific tasks. I did significant portions of the wireframes and prototypes, unified the design in Figma by creating components, improved the information architecture, and both interviewed and took notes during research sessions.

Project Objectives: Identify a design opportunity related to accessibility. Complete generative research, analyze findings, ideate, design a solution, justify design choices, prototype, complete user testing of prototype, refine, and present your final solution.

Motivation: Nearly one in five people has dyslexia. Individuals with dyslexia can struggle with reading and writing but also possess highly sought-after workplace skills like creativity, problem-solving, and communication. Most people with dyslexia believe the recruitment process puts them at a disadvantage.
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Goal: We aimed to understand the frustrations experienced by candidates with dyslexia and develop a tool that helps candidates use strategies effective for them when preparing for job interviews.

Limitations & Future Iterations: Due to this being a semester-long UX design project, development of the product stopped at a high-fidelity prototype. Next steps would be to do further usability testing, develop it, launch it, do further testing, and iterate.

Generative Research

Research Motivation: Understand what dyslexia is, learn about dyslexic strengths, and how dyslexia impacts peoples' experience in the recruiting process.

78%

of people with dyslexia believe the recruiting process puts them at a disadvantage.

Made by dyslexia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.madebydyslexia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Join-The-Dots-Workplace-Guide-1.pdf

Research Goal

Understand the impact of dyslexia on job interviews and determine opportunities for job seekers to leverage their strengths and overcome challenges.

Interviews

We conducted six interviews - five with working professionals and job seekers who have dyslexia and one with a speech-language pathologist that specializes in dyslexia.

Interviews included a hands-on mock interview activity to understand how people with dyslexia plan interview responses - including the tools and techniques they use to do this.

Analysis & Findings

Qualitative coding and affinity analysis were used to understand core interview themes. Quotes, observations, and mock interview artifacts were sectioned into topics in a Figma board (e.g., strengths, challenges, approach to planning). This created a map of content that facilitated review and further division into sub-themes.

This process culminated in the development of four core findings that informed the final design requirements.

The variability of dyslexic experiences
The value of additional time and practice during preparation
White-boarding, mind-mapping and other organization techniques
The role of mentoring and story sharing in the dyslexic community

"I can have some huge accomplishments, and if I don't have the bullet points in front of me, I probably won't remember it. It's silly, it's my own life...I basically forget my own stories.” - P4

Design criteria

Flexible in the ways people can interact with it
Accessible for people with dyslexia (e.g. text-to-speech, sans-serif font, reduced text)
Support increased practice time and rehearsal
Encourage knowledge and technique sharing

Ideation
‍Based on our design criteria derived from research findings, we brainstormed 20+ ideas for solutions. We assessed each idea against our goals and design criteria.

We chose to focus on ideas that could be used directly by people with dyslexia (as opposed to advocating for, educating non-dyslexic people, etc.). That decision narrowed down our solution options and since we all were interested in the potential, we went with designing a platform that would help job applicants prepare for interviews.

A screenshot of a digital whiteboard with sticky notes that have brainstorming ideas

user flow

We developed a user flow in order to clarify how users would move through the product, what actions they could take, what goals they can accomplish. This was very helpful in starting to establish ideas for the information architecture of our product.

wireframing and Information architecture

Wireframing served as a way to decide on and design key features and, by necessity, we started implementing our ideas for the information architecture from the user flow.

The first wireframe included several of the key features we'd carry through into the final design. I did a lot of individual work to iterate on the information architecture and content (language for features). Perhaps this could have been lessened through more critical and detailed work on the user flow, but both user flow and wireframes were valuable for refining information architecture. I pitched my changes, primarily the location of saved content and how users access that content, to the team and we moved ahead with my changes.

usability testing

Conducted four virtual, moderated feedback sessions with generative research participants. Each 45-minute session walked potential users through core tool tasks.

Feedback demonstrated:

Confusion due to lack of consistency in color or clear iconography
Navigation pain points. The system was too linear and users felt like it took too long to accomplish a primary task (creating an interview to practice)
Too text heavy and users desired more visuals to relay information
Community feedback feature was deemed intimidating and/or not very useful

final design: interview central

Users create an account in order to save interview information and questions, examples (stories or examples to use in interviews), rehearsal recordings, etc.

My Interviews is where users access their saved interviews or add another interview.

Interview Central screen highlighting a specific interview, company info, related job skills, etc.

Screen with interview questions listed on it.

When a user creates an interview, they input the job title and company (optional) and if they link to the job description Interview Central will aggregate the data and display the top skills the employer is looking for and company information so the user can practice speaking about their experience with those skills and have some background info on the company.

Additionally, when a user creates an interview, the Interview Hub displays suggested questions that are commonly asked in interviews for that job title. The user can then add or delete questions from the question bank.

Laptop screen with question and related diagram answering question

Laptop screen with question and audio recording and transcript of recording

Users can document visual diagrams, drawings, or text-based examples of work experience, personal strengths, etc. They can attach an example to a specific interview question (and add it to as many others that it applies to) and then reference it while verbally rehearsing answering that question.

Users can listen to their rehearsals (verbal response to an interview question). The rehearsal hub generates a transcript with highlighted key phrases to improve accessibility for users with dyslexia.

Future iterations

To bring Interview Central to the next phase of development, several things should be considered.

1. Generate Partnership Interest
Partnerships with like-minded organizations can help promote and fund the development of Interview Central.

2. Research Technical Requirements
More research needs to be done to plan out how the tool’s more technical features can be implemented (e.g., AI text analysis, whiteboard). Pricing can be determined with a firm development plan.

3. Expand Feature Implementation
There is potential to expand upon the features identified in this first development phase. Conversations with users andUX professionals highlighted integration and social opportunities.

4. Further User Testing
Testing the Interview Central with more people with dyslexia of various ages and careers can confirm the tool is meeting all accessibility, usability, and feature needs.

Interview Central

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