Improving the Student Journey: Career Services UX Redesign
Overview
Designing a seamless transition from classroom learning to real-world healthcare experience.
Stepful is an ed-tech startup that helps individuals launch their careers in healthcare. As the Product Designer, I led the end-to-end UX redesign of the Career Services portal. The goal of this project was to streamline the transition from learning to externships by improving engagement, task clarity, and progress tracking.
Team | Product Manager, Engineers, Operations
Tools Used | Figma, Typeform, Interviews via Zoom
Timeline | ~3 months
The Problem
Stepful’s Career Services struggles with inefficient externship placements, slow approvals, and low engagement.
Placement Delays
The goal is to have 80% of students placed in an externship by the Career Services start date, but currently, 80% are being placed within two months after starting the program instead—which is later than intended.
Approval Delays
The goal is to have 80% of students fully approved within three months of starting the program, but right now, it’s taking five months for 80% to get approved—which is two months longer than expected.
Core Hypothesis
A lack of clear guidance caused students to disengage and overly rely on coaches. The Career Services portal needs to be more actionable and integrated into the learning journey.
Research & Discovery
Methodologies
Survey: 58 student responses about externship struggles.
Interviews: 7 students walked through the current Career Services portal to identify pain points.
Prototype Testing: Walkthroughs of the Daily Task Module prototype.
I asked students about their biggest challenges in finding externships.
Student walkthrough on Figma
Key Interview Findings
100% of students rated satisfaction with the new design as 5/5.
85% overall task completion rate.
Average ease of task completion: 4.8/5.
Students appreciated clear step-by-step guidance and deadlines.
Preference for career services to be on the main dashboard rather than a separate page.
Some survey responses when asked “Have you encountered difficulties with Career Services?
Key Pain Points
Unaware of next steps: Student felt like they were lost or confused on their next steps for an externship
Mobile Usability: Checklist visibility issues; needed prioritization on mobile.
Awareness Gaps: Students didn’t know how to unlock their coach or use career services fully.
Lost of motivation due to lack of communication and clarity: Students don’t feel like they are given enough information and support from Stepful
To improve student engagement and streamline the externship process, I designed a Daily Task Module that provides structured guidance, progress tracking, and clearer next steps.
Solution
Stage based tracking with goals as incentive
Before, Career Services was on a separate page, the checklist now lives on the main dashboard and appears while the student is still in their learning journey to keep externship tasks top of mind.
Integrated career services into the learning journey to reduce friction.
The daily task list is broken into stages for clarity, with unlockable goals to incentivize students to complete their tasks.
To resolve confusion in the process, we created a progress map that shows each step of the stage and what students can expect next.
Progress map for transparency
Each daily task has an actionable item as well as any deadlines so students are always aware of what’s next on their agenda.
Actionable Daily tasks with deadlines
Impact & Results
The new design improved engagement, increased externship approvals, and boosted student satisfaction.
10% increase in externship approvals after implementation.
25% QoQ improvement in students reaching externship confirmation on time.
14% increase in students registering for NHA by Week 15.
Based on a release survey I conducted, 77.6% of students rated satisfaction as 8 or higher.
By making career services more actionable and integrated, we helped students transition more efficiently into their externships.
Conclusion
The redesign not only improved student engagement but also reduced reliance on coaches and made the externship process clearer.
