Mobile app to help students build career connections after career events.
How might we provide resources to students and career speakers to facilitate effective communication and engagement and maximize the benefits of post-event connections?
LinkUp : Linking students to career speaker communities
Client - Your Future is Our Business (YFIOB) a local Santa Cruz County organization that empowers students with skills and resources for career exploration.
Tools - Figma, FigJam, Google Docs, Trello
Timeline - June 2024 - August 2024 ( 9 Weeks)
Team - 6 UX Designers
My Role - Collaborated with my team to brainstorm innovative ideas and spearheaded the initial research phase. I took the lead in transforming interview insights and user journey data into intuitive wireframes and polished high-fidelity prototypes, ensuring a seamless and user-centered design process.
Project Impact- Our first pitch received 100% positive feedback during testing and was approved by the client for further development.
“What we’ve also noticed is that we [YFIOB] bring our career speaker in, they’re [students] super engaged, they love it, they’re interested and then we leave and nothing becomes of it afterward. Students are too shy to reach out or they don’t have a clear platform and we want to do something about it”
Problem
Students struggle to initiate conversations with industry professionals during & after career events due to uncertainty and hesitation in how to follow up effectively.
When the company reached out to us about this problem, we began our research by understanding why students struggled to stay connected after career events. This led us to ask: what could make it easier for students to connect with industry professionals before or after events and reduce missed opportunities for mentorship and career growth?
Solution
An app that offers voice calls, chats, and event & speaker directories to help students engage confidently, access speaker info, and build lasting connections all in one place.
To reduce the pressure and uncertainty students face when networking, the platform offers voice calls, community chats, and introductory panels that begin before the actual event. Through LinkUP students get to know speakers in a more approachable setting, lowering the barrier to conversation.
Gaining Insights Into The Issue
Only 1 in 3 students actively follow up on career fairs or events
Our online survey revealed that many students faced internal barriers that held them back from reaching out to event speakers after the event.
What specific challenges were students facing that prevented them from reaching out to industry professionals after the event?
From the four interviews I joined with career speakers and students, one common issue stood out: many students didn’t know where to start or how to approach professionals, which made following up feel confusing and intimidating.
3 main user pain points
Many students stuggles expressing ther throghts through chat and preffered an online community
Lack of Information: Students often don’t know the names or contact details of the professionals who spoke at the event, making it difficult to follow up or find them online.
Communication Anxiety: Many students feel nervous or unsure about how to start a conversation, especially when reaching out on formal platforms like LinkedIn.
No Central Platform: There’s often no dedicated space or system that allows students to easily reconnect with professionals or access post-event resources.
Our research showed that students struggled to stay connected with industry professionals due to unclear follow-up channels, often resorting to cold messaging.
So, How might we create a seamless platform that fosters meaningful, ongoing communication between students and industry professionals, maximizing the impact of career events and enhancing post-event engagement?
After some storyboarding, We Finally came up with an app that turns career fair connections into lasting opportunities!
Presenting LinkUP
Career events sign up page
Students can easily explore the event calendar and sign up for career events happening in their area. This feature also allows them to revisit past events and gain insights into the industry professionals who participated, helping them stay informed and make meaningful connections.
Students can engage with community chats, send direct messages, or even voice chat with volunteers at YFIOB and career event speakers. Since these professionals have willingly joined the platform, students can expect more meaningful interactions with a lower chance of being left without a response
As shown here, students have the ability to send and receive valuable feedback on their questions or connect with mentors in advance. The call feature can also be used for post-event debriefs, allowing students to ask follow-up questions and receive answers later. This enhances student engagement and contributes to a positive overall experience.
Chat/Call with industry professinal
What Makes This App Stand Out?
Speaker Direcotry
The Speaker Directory makes it easy for students to explore and connect with industry professionals. Through the directory, you can browse a list of speakers, view the events they've participated in, and learn more about their background and areas of expertise. If someone inspires you, you can send them a message directly through the app—helping you continue meaningful conversations beyond the event. It’s a simple and effective way to stay connected with the voices that left a lasting impression.
Our Design Process
Building an experience with the customer at the center
This diagram helped gain a comprehensive overview of the experience flows. We mapped out task flows to visually outline each step that the student will take. We began by defining key user actions and decisions, then organized them in sequence with shapes and connectors to represent each step and decision point along the way.
Visualizing student’s needs
Wireframes were an important aspect of our process as they provided a clear, visual representation of a website or app's layout and functionality before any design or development began, it helped us align on structure, content placement, and user flow. We created the wireframes using tools like Figma, and ProtoPie.
Before launching the app for user interaction, we needed to ensure it was intuitive and aligned with the students needs
Based on the user interviews conducted with 10 users, we found the following key issues:
29% were frustrated that the Next button was disabled so they could not identify which were missing required fields
29% of users found that it was easy to miss field inputs due to a lack of visual hierarchy
Results and Takeaway
Gained hands-on experience with the end-to-end design process, from research to handoff
Learned how to collaborate across teams and communicate ideas effectively
Applied stakeholder feedback to guide design decisions and align with project goals
Practiced user-centered thinking by iterating on real user needs
Developed a deeper understanding of how strategy, empathy, and design intersect
Finally, no product is ever truly finished—it’s always evolving and growing. Looking ahead, I plan to expand this project by introducing features such as AI-powered chat support, community-driven recommendations, and enhanced accessibility to make the app more inclusive for users of all ages and abilities.