I would like to begin by thanking both the Careers Team and Gavin Connell for the opportunity to work on my first self-driven professional project. This project all originated with the detailed annual publication created by the Careers Division called ‘Opportunities 4U.’ The publication’s sole purpose is to inform students of all employers attending the UL Careers Fair. I began this project prior to my arrival, researching third-party vendors in preparation for the task. I wanted to gather an understanding of the process of creating the initial idea of an app.
Once I began my placement and really began to start working on the project several spanners were thrown into the works. This is when I learned all about GDPR and Data Protection. Certain restrictions needed to be considered which led to my conclusion that the app must be hosted internally. This is when the decision to create a website that is completely mobile-friendly and easy to use was decided. I began by researching the users; Students, Staff, Employers, and Parents. From this, I sketched out the required pages to have all the necessary components for the tool I was trying to create. After the completion of all paper models of UX and UI, I created a nearly fully functional wireframe prototype through FIGMA and AdobeXD.
I liaised with the UL Web Team, who must be credited for their willingness to help me learn and create such an interesting and useful tool. After several meetings, the testing site was live and hosted at UL.ie/Careers-Fair. I worked with Michael Gleeson to fine-tune and fix existing bugs.
The UL Careers-Fair Web App went live in early September. The tool hosts all necessary information surrounding the 160+ employers who attended the fair in October 2019. Each Employer page housed its logo, company information, application closing dates, and links to both their Careers Connect page and their own
graduate websites.
In summary, I see the project as a success as I completed all the tasks set out before me but I do see room for improvement. The web app is designed in a forward-friendly way. Easily to update with plenty of space to add more functions without it being too cluttered.