Skill Crafter
Helping professionals enhance their soft skills by providing interactive activities and learning resources
Do you know what soft skills are?
Soft skills are personal attributes that are used in all professions which enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.
A few examples are: communication, teamwork, problem solving, time management, and organization
During our research, we asked a group of people if they knew what soft skills were. 8 out of 16 of these individuals were unsure or did not know what soft skills were.
Addressing the problem
Think about a time you had to deal with a difficult situation at work. Were you happy with the resolution or do you wish you would have handled it differently?
We wanted to find a way to help professionals better navigate these difficult situations. So we proposed the question: How can we help professionals become aware of their blindspots and accelerate learning soft skills?
Research insights
The first step of this process was to talk with professionals, so we scheduled a series of one on one interviews, asking them to share some of their personal experiences and ideas regarding soft skills.
I conducted a total of 4 interviews and reviewed audio from 12 other interviews conducted by my research partners. The user interviews were an essential form of primary research used to uncover pain points and challenges that individuals face around working with coworkers who have poor soft skills.
After analyzing the data from the interviews, we gathered the insights into a report and identified two behavior archetypes. In addition the information developed into an experience map, which captured the users journey and emotional results.
Behavioral Archetypes:
Journey Map:
Product Purpose
From this data, I was able to establish what actions and features would be beneficial to include in the product. A common theme found among the interviewees was that they believed that soft skills are learned through personal experiences and upbringing rather than through educational resources. We found that role-play could be a way for our users to learn soft skills in a way that imitated those personal experiences.
My original concept idea is solely centered around role-play. The main feature is an activity that pairs up users to act out roles to explore a particular scenario. This practice helps prepare them for unfamiliar or difficult situations. Another feature provides users with an analysis of their skills after they complete a self assessment test. Lastly users can message others, receive feedback, and join support groups.
Concept Mockup:
Concept testing
I presented this mockup with three alternative solutions to six participants during the preliminary concept testing. The concepts were presented in a randomized order, 2 participants (33%) chose skill crafter as their preferred way of learning soft skills. Each participant also shared additional feedback about each of the concepts. From this information, I was able to determine which features added value towards helping navigate the problem space and the additional features they wanted to see in a future prototype.
What the users loved!
Being able to interact with others within many of the app’s features
Receiving immediate feedback
The idea of learning from trial and error when interacting in the role-play activities
What they wished was different.
Incorporating more emotional reactions within the role-play feature.
Ability to share to LinkedIn that you are using the app
Sort through the users who are using the app inappropriately
Testing takeaways
The role-play feature had an overall positive response from users so I wanted to move forward with it being the main feature on the app. However while testing an alternative concept we learned that users really liked the idea of having access to multiple types of learning resources. Since this app is designed for all types of professionals with different backgrounds, I felt that in a future prototype, it was important to include a feature with learning resources. I want there to be an education style tailored for every type of individual.
Designing the prototype
The feedback from the concept testing was useful for outlining how our users wanted to interact with the product. I used this information and the data collected in the journey map to design a sitemap.
I then created a user flow to determine how the user will navigate through the app and to create myself a template for building the low fidelity prototype.
Sitemap:
User Flow:
Low fidelity prototype
I used the assets I created to build out the prototype which simulates the role-play activity feature, the messaging feature, the skill test feature, and a learning library feature that was added after concept testing. The prototype begins with the user already being logged into their account.
Explore the early prototype below:
Click any highlighted section to interact with this prototype
User testing
I presented the app to several people, in order to receive some feedback on the usability of the product I had created.
By watching the user navigate the app, I could see where I needed to add clickable spots. For example, on the prototype home screen some users tried to click the picture rather than the buttons so I made sure to adjust that in the high-fidelity prototype.
Some additional feedback I received from users was to add more instructions. A few users felt confused with how to answer the quiz questions so I went back and added a brief statement to the low-fidelity prototype on how to approach the quiz questions. Users also wanted an indicator to show them which player they were in the role-play activities. So I added the usernames to the low-fidelity prototype and then incorporated it into the high-fidelity as well.
The feedback I received during user testing was beneficial for how I wanted to develop the high-fidelity prototype. I wanted to prioritize that the user had enough directions to be able to navigate the app without confusion.
Defining the brand
I wanted the experience for our users to feel calming and clean. I chose this approach because the app was created for professionals who seek growth. Their motive for using the app may be because they are feeling anxious or frustrated with their current work situation. I didn’t want any of those negative feelings to be translated while using the skill crafter app.
For my color palette I picked a few main colors that had some pink and orange undertones, then I found some additional brown hues that accented the other three colors. The orange hues give the user a sense of welcoming, while the brown hues evoke dependability and friendliness. The overall simplicity of the neutral color palette provides a calm and simple aesthetic, which is reflected in my mood board.
High-fidelity prototype
After combining elements from the mood board and style guide, I developed a prototype that shows the experience a user would have when participating in a role-play activity. This version of the prototype is not fully wired like the low-fidelity prototype. I wanted to focus on the role-play experience since that was the focus for the original idea of the product.
Explore the latest prototype below:
Click the “roleplay” button to begin interacting with this prototype
Moving Forward
There is still more to explore with Skill Crafter and I want to continue to develop this prototype. But for now, feel free to try out the role-play feature on the prototype above!