FGI

 Responsibilities

• User Research

• UX design: Crazy 8s, Wireframing, Prototyping

• UI design + Iterations

The Problem in our immigrant community

According to an article from Forbes, the number one struggle in our immigrant community is “carving their own path without any guidance.” Moving from their home country to a foreign country comes with many obstacles from language and cultural barriers to discrimination. Without proper guidance, first-generation immigrants are going in blind when searching for a career.

A Solution for Guidance

An app where first-generation immigrants can read helpful career starter articles, book mentors to help with translation and other career guidance, and have access to resources such as building a US style resume and how to prepare for an interview.

Understanding the problem

As a child of immigrants, my parents always told me about their struggles when they moved from Vietnam to America. Back then, they didn’t have the resources to find a good stable career. Along with hearing about my parents experiences, I also interviewed 5 first-generation immigrants to dive deeper into other obstacles they faced. Most reported feeling stressed because of the pressure of finding a job to support their families back home and not knowing where to begin. It was made clear that language was the main barrier and having to figure out the process on their own. These are some of the questions I asked:

1. What were some challenges you faced when moving to America?

2. What was your process when looking for a job?

3. How did you feel when moving to America?

THe persona

Competitive Analysis + Sketches

For my competitive analysis, I researched non-profits that focuses on career guidance for first generation immigrants. It was pretty difficult to find direct competitors because most of them were targeted towards college students. It came to my attention that adult immigrants would have to look harder to find the resources they need. These were my top findings:

My analysis provided me direction on gaps and opportunities to address with the app. I then did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas to address the gaps identified. My focus was specifically on providing mentors and the necessary resources for the users.

Testing + Improvements

After prototyping the low-fidelity wireframe, I conducted 2 usability studies on 3 individuals who met the criteria as well as receiving 2 peer reviews from each study. Here are there few things I improved based on their feedback:

1. Initially, I designed the app as a job searching tool but I found that my users needed a tool with guides and articles to better help them with starting their career.

2. I originally had users input their language, location, skills and upload their resume during welcome onboarding process. However, after the second usability study, I was told that it was an unnecessary step and can be confusing for users so I scraped that process and added a translation icon on the top right of the home page.

3. When searching for mentors, there was some desire to have an easier way to look through the mentors. Thus, I decided to add language and occupation filters on the top of the mentors screen.

Final screens with revisions

Hi-Fi Figma Prototype

Reflections + Impact

• Don’t assume what the users need. When I first thought about project prompt, I assumed that the users wanted a job finder app. However, after sketching and creating a low-fidelity prototype for testing, I completely missed the mark. I had to go back, do more research and re-evaluate what the users really need. Going forward, I will confirm any assumptions I have first before starting on the designs.

• There’s always room for improvement. Coming up with a solution for a problem can be difficult but by taking the steps of researching and interviewing to understand the users will guide me through the design process. This project taught me how to learn from my mistakes and where to improve for future projects.

Overall, potential users shared that the app provided them with the necessary resources to help them start their career. One quote from a peer feedback: “the FGI’s app seems like it could actually help immigrants with their career in a simple and easy way.”

Thank you for reading!