Grad Cap

The aim of this project was to design a product in which third level students could not only develop their understanding of their own strengths, behaviours and skills otherwise known as Capitals, but also to help improve their ability to communicate them.

UX/UI - User Research - Branding

I began the project by conducting several forms of Research.

FULL REPORT

While I had an understanding as to what a graduate's capital was I wanted to understand the different models and reasoning out there. Along with this, in my Literature Review, I set out to understand what forms a graduate's capital and how to analyse the different forms. A total of 15 articles and works were read along with various blogs across the internet.

From this literature review I was able to identify the 5 Main Capitals and how to analyse them. I was also able to further my understanding of how to utilise these within the present and future labour market. To close off this type of research I performed a State of the Art or Competitor Analysis.

My next action was to interview the people this was going to impact, Students & Employers.

I recruited a variety of students and employers within industry that would play a role within the hiring process of graduates. All of the students were from various courses and departments. The employers were from varying sectors including IT, Medical Devices/Technology, Food & Beverage & HR/Recruitment.

I gathered my findings from both the interviews along with my earlier research to see what common problems or gaps there were to solve. This is where I came across the problem that:

"No one application was able to provide a user with an understanding of all their capitals as well as how to use them for the user benefit."

I then went on to create personas & storyboards based around research and the new found problem statement.

Personas