A application designed to
help you easily apply
your dream school

Aplicar is a comprehensive recruitment management platform designed to streamline the application process and enhance communication between recruiters, students, and educational institutions. Their platform simplifies application management, process tracking, and seamless communication. That helps international students apply for post-secondary studies abroad.

Problem

Redesign Website to leverage customer retention rates and minimize dropoff rates. making sure the interactions and flows are seamless, intuitive, and visually pleasing.

Solution

Aplicar provides simple and efficient for students and recruiters to archive their goals. Information is easily accessible and the knowledge of what to expect out of the process is laid out with ease.

My Role

• Lead UI/UX Designer

Process

• User Stories

• User Flows

• Wireframes

• HiFis

• Syle Guide

• Dev Handover

Primary Research

To gain insights into how users handle study aboard search, I employed screener surveys to identify and select suitable participants. I then synthesized the findings from the screener surveys and subsequent interviews to create affinity maps, empathy maps, and personas. These tools helped me gain a deeper understanding of user behavior and design an app that caters to their needs effectively.

Surveys

When creating the screener survey, the main objective was to find participants who looking for study aboard. I built an online survey using Google Forms and shared it to various potential candidates. I received 15 submissions and based on these, selected 6 candidates to conduct interviews.

Interviews

I interviewed six participants who matched the target demographics, with a focus on looking for international student, I explored how they approached problem-solving, whether by hiring professionals. Through these interviews, I gained valuable insights into common habits, frustrations, and resources utilized or required by students.

Questions that elicited the most useful responses:

• What is your general feeling about looking to apply school?

• Can you tell me about the time you are apply school? How did that make you feel?

• Did you run into any struggles/frustrations? If YES: can you tell me about this experience

Akash

“I want them to show me the whole application process before I apply”

Sajan

“I want to make the application process as simple as possible”

Kamal

“I go to many different study abroad office to ask for help”

Research Synthesis

With valuable insights gathered from my secondary research, surveys, and user interviews, I organized the findings into affinity and empathy maps. These tools aided me in creating design deliverables that effectively addressed the identified user needs and pain points.

Affinity Mapping

With the information I abstracted from the interviews, I created an affinity map with the following 5 themes:

• Current solutions being used

• Why study oversea

• Challenges of hire agency

• Challenges of applying school oversea

• Why hire agents to help

Personas

After a deeper look into both empathy maps, I created a persona based on a student seeking to apply oversea university.

Micheal is a student that has just graduated high school and is looking to apply to university overseas to learn a new culture and find a job after graduation, but he is overwhelmed with the qualification checks and application process.

How Might We Statements (HMW)

Leveraging the insights gained from my research, I formulated "How Might We" statements to convey the most significant issues and prioritize them effectively to have the most significant impact.

• How might we improve the chances each students results in the expected outcome

• How might we create an easy way for users to apply university

• How might we display all the important information that users want

• How might we create an easy way for users to track their application progress

Brainstorming

With the "How Might We" statements as a foundation, I proceeded to brainstorm potential solutions to address the identified issues. Drawing from the research synthesis, I began sketching ideas and conceptualizing approaches to tackle users' problems.

Site Map

After gaining a better understanding of my users' needs, I developed a sitemap with the goal of aligning simple application process and filter system. Although the sitemap has undergone changes from its initial architecture, it now incorporates insights from my initial sketches.

User Flows

Starting with the sitemap as a foundation, I created user flows to gain insight into how users would accomplish their intended task with minimal friction.

1. Do a user survey to find out potential interests
2.Select program and start time
3.Apply the program

Wireframes

In the initial round of medium-fidelity wireframes, I iterated multiple designs for each user flow. I evaluated whether I was effectively addressing the red routes by cross-referencing them with the HMW statements and sketches. These iterations helped me refine how I presented information and essential features.

Moodboard

Following some preliminary research and careful consideration of how to bring this brand to life, I honed in on the essential qualities to attain desired outcomes: reliability, the capacity to interact with fellow users, and the capability to share information.

Style Guide

To establish a consistent visual language, I started creating the design system with the wordmark, emphasizing a clean and minimalistic style. I maintained this aesthetic throughout the application to prevent overwhelming users with information complexity. I opted for a green color palette to reinforce the notion of dependability and establish the app as a trusted resource.

High Fidelity Screens

To kick off the creation of high-fidelity (HiFi) designs, I focused on the most critical screen for each workflow. Analyzing the application of color also helped me identify which design components were effective. However, I had to strike a balance between content and color to prevent overwhelming the user.

TESTING

As a student, developing this website and all the user insights I have gleaned has been a really rewarding experience. I have come to understand better that what I experience can be quite different from other students in terms of expectations, confidence levels, and capabilities to deal with or track application status. This forced me to constantly keep in mind that I need to be impartial but still remember the valuable insight I have as a potential power user.

I’ve enjoyed doing competitor analysis, implementing patterns, and better understanding how users interpret visual designs. Creating all that user research and testing allowed me to iterate and develop a better functioning app, implementing some features that may have been further down the priority list and delivering a more functional MVP.

Next Steps

Feature Build Out: I would like to build out a program search on the homepage to simplify the process

User Testing & Iteration: I’d like to conduct another round of user testing to confirm the revisions were a fitting solution to the issues I encountered during the previous round of testing.