As part of the nvisionaries science fair, UX Designer Jennifer Posh created a mockup concept for transforming a dense skills matrix spreadsheet into a user-friendly application that would help empower consultants to better understand their career path.
“I was excited by the opportunity to take information that was complicated/difficult for the user to parse and try to make it more easily understandable.” -Jennifer Posh, UX Designer
The skills matrix is a tool that nvisia consultants use to track their career progression and identify areas for growth. Although its current state as a spreadsheet was functional, Jennifer wanted to experiment with designing an application that would present the same information in a more user-friendly format.
Jennifer used Adobe XD to first create low-fidelity wireframes outlining the basic functions of the skills matrix application, then updated these to high-fidelity mockups that align with the nvisia style guide to create a “true to life” concept. In this version, a user is able to select their track (technology, creative/UX, front-end, etc.) and view a progression of career roles within the track. The user can then select any two roles to see a side-by-side comparison of the skills expected for those positions with clear highlighting of where new skills may be required to progress to that role.
This project concept drew positive feedback from a number of consultants who agreed with the need for a more user-friendly version of the matrix. After its debut at the science fair, it became the base of a new bench project.
Inspired by the prototype, project team members took the concept through a full discovery process. Starting with the initial problem statement, they interviewed employees from across the company to better understand users’ goals and how they were interacting with the current state skills matrix. From there, the team identified patterns in the feedback and determined what features would best help the users get to their goals and alleviate any current difficulties.
The findings largely validated the initial nvisionaries design, and only small modifications were made to the initial feature set. Using these initial features, the team created stories for the MVP, an updated version of the designs, and an architecture direction for developing the product itself. The result was the foundation of a project that consultants can work on during time in between projects, enabling them to further develop their skills while helping to build out software to help them in their own career development.
From the initial concept to the ongoing bench project, this served as an example of how to ideate on a user pain point and proceed to research and develop a solution.
Meet the nvisionary
| Name: Jennifer Posh |
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