🧩 Project Summary
Challenge
Job hunting is often overwhelming for recent graduates and early-stage professionals. They struggle with identifying suitable career paths, juggling multiple tools (email, documents, spreadsheets, browsers), and managing the stress and inefficiencies involved in tracking applications and preparing materials. This leads to emotional burnout and diminished motivation.
Approach
We adopted a user-centered design approach that involved:
- Conducting user interviews with 11 early-career professionals to understand their frustrations and needs
- Performing market and competitor analysis to uncover gaps in existing solutions
- Applying affinity mapping and prioritization metrics to shape our solution
- Developing and iterating on low- to high-fidelity prototypes
- Conducting usability testing and analyzing heatmaps to refine the design
- Creating a customizable and AI-integrated interface to centralize job-hunting tasks
Solution
CareerUp is an AI-powered coaching platform that consolidates essential career tools into one seamless, guided experience. The AI coach provides real-time, conversational support across all aspects of the career journey—from exploring interests, generating tailored CVs, to tracking application statuses. The platform enables a fluid, stress-free job-hunting experience that supports user motivation and productivity.
📈 Impact & Learnings
Impact
- Awarded:
- A Design Award 2024
- Huawei UX Innovation Pioneer Award
- 15th User eXperience Design Award – National Third Prize
- Positive feedback from target users and UX professionals at Google and leading tech companies
- Nominated for the UX Design Award 2023 (New Talent) category
- Actively progressing toward beta testing with real users
Learnings
- Empathy-driven research revealed deep emotional and cognitive burdens users face during career transitions
- Prioritizing efficiency and emotional design led to a product that not only solves functional issues but also addresses mental wellbeing
- Learned the power of combining AI-driven interactivity with human-centered design to reduce user friction and improve engagement
🔍 Project Details
- Team Composition:
- Myself – Project Management, UX Research, Information Architecture, UI Design, Prototyping, User Testing
- Collaborators – Peer reviewers and developers for feedback and technical support
- Timeline: 2 Months
- Tools Used: Figma, Notion, Miro, Adobe Suite, Webflow, UserTesting, Vimeo
🖼️ Visuals & Artifacts
- 🎥 CareerUp Demo Video
- 🌐 UX Design Award Entry
- Wireframes, user flows, and high-fidelity UI mockups (included in presentation deck and on project page)
- Affinity maps and prioritization matrices for user insights
📬 Call to Action
Want to learn more about CareerUp or collaborate on AI-powered UX innovation?
📧 Reach out at douglas.ym.lai@gmail.com
🔗 View more projects at yueminglai.cargo.site/ux
🔗 Connect on LinkedIn