Home Depot
Path To Pro
UX Case Study
User Research: Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Journey Mapping
UX Design: Sketching, Interaction Design, Prototyping
Aug 2022-Dec 2022
-Class Project
2 UX Designs
2 UX Researchers
Roles/ Responsibilities
Timeline
Team
buildAR
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Sponsored by Path To Pro -
Free skills training and job board
Field Day Experience
Goals
Show students that trade programs are a viable career path. The lack of diverse opportunities presented to high schoolers creates a stigma against these professions.
Find ways to promote the program to students, parents, and other candidates. According to the sponsor there has been an influx of Pro members lately and they would like to see the number of Path to Pro trainees increase.
Market Path To Pro as a valuable resource for frequent patrons, known as Pros. These Pros purchase large quantities of material from Home Depot for their projects, and oftentimes will need to find reliable sources for hiring workers on various job sites.
Get more people to complete their profiles. According to our sponsor, the recent program metrics show that about half of the members completed their profile and the remaining half did not.
Product Overview
In sponsorship with Home Depot, our project was created with the intent of helping to recruit more individuals into trades careers and to join Home Depot’s Path to Pro network.
buildAR is an application that was created with the aim of displaying the benefits of a career in trades through an augmented reality simulation. Through this simulation, users can conduct tasks related to different trades careers and earn corresponding badges. Users can also chat with other trades professionals, watch videos from trades personnel, and participate in an “ask me anything” event.
Design Process
For the BuildAR App, I began with targeted research on the trade industry and interviewed users within trade careers to gain insight to the space. Post-research, I embarked on ideation sessions, creating initial wireframes that merged educational content with interactive elements. Through iterative design, testing, and feedback, the final interface was honed to be both engaging for the young audience and informative about trade careers.
Understand
Survey
User Interview
Define
Literature Review
Contextualization
Ideate
Brainstorm Workshop
Concept Sketching
Design
Wireframe
Mid-Fi Designs
Prototype
Test
Heuristic Evaluations
User Testing
User Research
Observations
30%
Disliked the workload/hours that come with working in trades
65%
Perceived trade careers as having a high workload
60%
Perceived trade careers to be high in demand
27%
Disliked the income associated with trade jobs
46%
Overwhelmed due to loud sounds in the museum space
With a survey, we targeted people already interested in or familiar with a trades career and understand their background, desires, and career goals. We hope to help Home Depot find ways to best recruit more applicants for their Path to Pro Network.
We pushed this survey out onto several online communities, primarily centered on Reddit. The subreddits we polled were focused on people within our target user group, as adults interested or working in trade careers, looking for new jobs in general, or seeking next steps after school.
Interview Insights
1.
The stigma and perceptions of trade careers have had an impact on people's willingness to seek employment
2.
People find that trade jobs disrupt their work-life balance
3.
A person’s satisfaction with their skilled trades career is largely impacted by the culture and the skills requirement.
Through asking users to discuss their personal perspectives and experiences, we were able to gain more context to our survey data. The information gathered from both our surveys and interviews helped to inform our task analysis diagrams and our design concepts. After creating an affinity map to further analyze the information gathered from the interviews, we observed 3 key findings.
Design Requirements
Address concerns - The eventual system should address the concerns that people in trade careers face.
Structured pathway - Streamline the hiring process for people who want to go into trades after higher education.
Comprehensive understanding - Provide prospective users with an objective overview of the benefits and requirements of trade careers.
Cross-Education Level Stewardship - The future system should market trade jobs as a consistently available and viable career choice to people of all education levels.
Community - The system should leverage the local Home Depot stores to encourage a sense of community.
Sketches of Design Product Ideas
Live AMA event:
The Live AMA is an event hosted on Home Depot’s social media platform/website where potential employees can have their questions answered by tradespeople.
In order to choose our top concepts, we considered the functional requirements, non-functional requirements, costs, how many 18-24 year olds will be brought onto Path to Pro Network, and the options we’re passionate about.
Trade Field Day:
A Path to Pro sponsored event where people can learn all about trades through a variety of interactive activities. The event will feature a number of different stations; info booths from local professionals, mock building sites with engaging information, shopping cart races, an interactive “sorting” hard hat that suggests ideal trade careers based on user’s skill set inputs, a VR experience, and a Path To Pro sponsored high school sports game. The purpose of the event is to attract high school students’ attention and give them the opportunity to view skilled trades as a viable career route.
Style Guide
Final Designs
Login/ Character Creation
The login screens are the first set of screens that appear when users download the app. If they are a new user, they are prompted to the next screen which allows them to create an avatar that they will use throughout the game.
AR Game
After character creation has been completed, users are given brief introductions to the in-app mission of collecting trade badges. Loading into the camera tab, users can wander around the store and find physical AR mats. When the camera reads these mats, an interactive model will pop up in AR, simulating different trade-related challenges like broken pipes, faulty wiring, or general construction.
Profile/ Badges/ Job Description
The profile screen allows users to preview all the badges they have earned in one convenient location. Based on the badges they have acquired, a list of related jobs is recommended to them. . On the profile page, the user can also click on the job listing, which will take them to a screen that provides a detailed description of the position. If they wish to apply, they will be directed to the Path to Pro website, which contains the listing.
AMA/ Ask Me Anything Event
The AMA is an event where interested candidates can have their questions answered by tradespeople. Candidates can learn more about the speakers on this screen in order to prepare for the event or network with the speakers afterward.
Community:Videos and Group
The community screen displays the videos created by tradespeople as well as the many groups they may form and join. The videos are the first component that appears on the screen, and users may search for videos by scrolling horizontally. On the bottom, there are the many organizations they might join, some of which may include "Women in Construction."
Key Takeaways
This project allowed for me to learn the process of working with a corporate sponsor and how to balance their feedback with that of the users. It was also interesting to learn how to prototype an AR-like experience using only Figma.
Museums
MUSEUMS
MUSENSE
EVENTS
DE-STRESS
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MUSEUMS
MUSENSE
EVENTS
DE-STRESS
