Case Study: Skyvo (OVPRO)

Guiding your career journey beyond the horizon

This case study is an adapted version of my comprehensive 65-page Master’s in UX Design (Máster Universitario en Diseño de Experiencia de Usuario) final project, OVPRO, originally completed in Spanish at Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR).

While the core content and findings remain unchanged, I’ve rebranded the project and made minor adjustments to the UI for clarity.

Motivations

Summary

In Ecuador, inadequate vocational guidance leads to high dropout rates, as students lack personalized counseling. I designed a mobile app to address this issue to provide vocational and professional advice. Existing apps in the Spanish-speaking market often fail to pay attention to crucial teaching methods and provide comprehensive support.
By understanding user needs and translating them into a functional prototype, we can offer practical guidance and support to students and educators.

Overview & Key Insights

Vocational and Professional Guidance is crucial for aligning individual interests with suitable career paths. Mobile applications offer accessibility to various activities supported by different development methodologies. Technology aids vocational guidance despite limitations in regions with inadequate infrastructure. Multiple vocational guidance apps, primarily developed by independent developers and Latin American universities, offer personality analyses and career recommendations.

Objectives & Methodology

Overall Project Goal

Develop a functional prototype of a mobile application for vocational and professional guidance based on the User-Centered Design methodology.

Specific Project Objectives

Methodology

The User-Centered Design (UCD) methodology guides the development process to create valuable and usable products tailored to user needs.

Based on principles outlined in ISO 9241-210, the UCD process is iterative, involving users throughout the design and evaluation stages. It incorporates multidisciplinary teams and focuses on user experience improvement.

Benchmarking

I benchmarked and analyzed four vocational and professional orientation apps, focusing on user and brand experiences.

The Test Vocacional y Laboral and DominGame app received the highest rating, with strengths in comprehensive content, easy navigation, and organized menus, although some features are not freely accessible.

QuEstudiar and Tu Profesión Futura scored 10 points, offering user-friendly interfaces and informative test results despite some design and content specificity limitations.

The Test Vocacional y Laboral app scored lower due to limited evaluation parameters and interaction opportunities.

Interviews

Overview

Interviews Summary

Personas

Interviews with vocational guidance professionals and students yielded qualitative insights, laying the groundwork for defining user characteristics for the app. Three distinct personas emerged, encapsulating key insights from the interviews.

Customer Journey Map

A Customer journey map was developed to understand how the vocational and professional guidance app could reduce user frustration during the vocational guidance process.

Information Architecture

After conducting thorough user and competitor app analyses, I refined the application’s essential functions to ensure it effectively meets user needs and concerns. Then, I designed the app’s sitemap/information architecture.

Prototype

Visual Identity

Wireframes (Paper & Low-Fidelity)

The paper and digital wireframes for OVPRO, offer a glimpse into the application’s design and user interface.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

High-fidelity screens applying the previously defined visual identity.

Prototype

The prototype has 10 high-fidelity screens that compose one user flow.

Usability Study

Summary

To identify and assess errors in the prototype, a usability test was conducted by having users perform tasks under supervision. These tasks were designed according to the app’s functions, allowing error detection and identifying needs to enhance the prototype’s design.

Participants were selected based on user profiles established in previous interviews. Three participants were chosen: a 33-year-old vocational counselor and two 17-year-old high school seniors.

Parameters

Results

Conclusions

Impact

Through my meticulous benchmarking and interviews, I discerned a strong inclination among our user base for intuitive design and user-friendly features. My target audience, comprising final-year high school students, educators, and vocational tutors, articulated a clear need for autonomous vocational guidance tools. I crafted a high-fidelity prototype focused on practicality and ease of use to meet these demands. Subsequent usability testing affirmed the effectiveness of my approach, with no critical errors identified and only one minor issue requiring attention.

What I Learned

Defining user-profiles and needs through rigorous research was instrumental in guiding the development of the application. Understanding the preferences and priorities of my target audience empowered me to create a prototype that resonated with users and addressed their key concerns. The usability testing phase further underscored the importance of user feedback in refining the product, validating design decisions, and ensuring a positive user experience.

Next Steps

1. To improve the app’s usability, a heuristic evaluation would be necessary, where specialists assess compliance with usability principles in the user interface.

2. Development of artificial intelligence to guide users step by step or provide assistance when doubts arise, possibly through a chatbot.

3. Implementing features to enhance the application’s autonomy, such as voice commands directly activating chosen activities.

4. Creating a web version of the application to offer more test options and even orientation sessions with professionals.

5. Develop a professional version of the application containing content, guides, and psychological-educational techniques to complement the vocational guidance process conducted by orientation tutors.