Educating parents about unconventional careers
Service Design | UX Research | Product Design | Prototyping
OVERVIEW
Comet is an integrated online and offline service that puts parents at the heart of it and helps them connect with their children to make informed decisions about their futures. It is a collaborative service where parents gain awareness about unconventional careers based on their child's skills.
GOAL
Help children achieve their dreams by countering societal and parental pressure, providing accurate career information, and correcting misconceptions about unconventional career paths.
OUTCOME
Through our Comet app, parents interact with their children by gaining practical insights into their child's skills through activities that will determine their inclination towards potential unique careers.
CONSTRAINTS
An extremely short timeline of only 1 week. Participants engaged in a SCAD StartUp competition amidst over 110 competing teams. Participants were provided solely with a list of deliverables and a designated theme: "Embrace the Unorthodox." Each team was tasked with devising a project topic that aligned with the overarching theme of the competition.
ROLE
Service Designer and Researcher
TIMELINE
1 week | Jan 2023
TOOLS
Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Figjam
Adobe After effects Adobe Premiere Pro
TEAM
Aakriti Gupta - Service designer
Priya Shroff - Service designer
Rhea Shukla - Graphic and visual experience designer
Tapan Mujumdar - Animator
FINAL SERVICE VIDEO
Challenge
Children often give up on their dreams due to societal and parental influence, lack of information and misinformation about unconventional career opportunities.
Children feel their parents strongly
influence their career decisions.
2 out of 3 parents feel disappointed their child did not pursue a career of their choosing.
Children feel pressured to follow their
parents’ career advice.
Introducing
What ?
Information
Creating a collaborative service where parents gain awareness about unconventional careers based on their child's skills which can help to make informed decisions about their future.
How?
Activities
Giving parents practical insights into their child's skills through activities that will determine their inclination towards potential unique careers.
Why?
Awareness
Children often give up on their dreams due to societal and parental influence, lack of information and misinformation about unconventional career opportunities.
Market Landscape and Competition
Market Research gave us an understanding of the market and the competitor offerings. We researched similar services existing in the market, closer to our concept of an educational platform in the context of both parents and students.
We then did a competitive study with the help of a segment matrix.
2x2 Matrix
Students and parents were interviewed to understand their key pain points.
Empathy interviews showed that lack of awareness is a common issue with majority of the parents.
Interviewing stakeholders (industry professionals and students) gave the team deeper insights into parent thought and behavior patterns.
Empathy Map
Stakeholders & Core User
Majority traits of parents were clustered and a persona was formed to represent the case. The persona is named ‘Maya’ for reference.
Persona
““I want my child to not only be successful but also happy.””
-
43 years old | Accountant | Has a 12 year old child | Lives with husband and child
Goals
As my child grow up, his education should make him smarter and capable of leading a financially stable and an independent life .
Biggest achievement is for my child to be happy and do some thing he enjoys and can make a decent living out of.
I want him to have job satisfaction & earn respect in his field.
Needs
Educational system that is equipped with practical knowledge.
Financial independence for her child.
Job security from the profession.
Insights
Opportunities
How might we assist parents in gaining awareness about unconventional careers and in overcoming their belief that they know better, thus enabling them to support their children in making well-informed career decisions.
Problem Statement
Service Statement
Our educational service COMET helps parents who want to become aware of the career prospects for their children by keeping them motivated to stay up-to-date and enable to make informed decisions through a platform of knowledge and relevant information about unconventional careers.
How does Comet work?
Every month the box has different types of activities testing the child’s aptitude and interests to gauge which career would be best suitable to them. This monthly exercise goes on for an entire academic year towards the end of which parents will receive a comprehensive report about their child’s dominant skills.
Parents are incentivized to use Comet by receiving periodic perks and gifts for logging in their progress.
What to expect in your Comet activity box?
Benefits
Be informed and educated about unconventional careers.
For Parents
Earn reward points and get one on one time with an industry professional.
Connect with other like-minded parents.
Get informed about their options.
For Students
Realistic opportunity of not having to give up their career of choice.
Better goodwill = Wider network.
For Professionals
Monetory incentive by networking and being available to expand.
Expected Changes
Interact
Bridging the gap and disconnect between the parent and the child.
Make parents fearless and aware so children don't have to let go of their dreams due to parental pressure.
Stay informed
The emphasis on changing the way parents are used to thinking about non traditional career paths.
Importance is given to Professional Careers since they’re safe and guarantee a good income, rather than on being open to exploring the potential of untapped careers that have the potential to grow in the future.
Revolutionize unconventional careers
Business Model Canvas
Process and Methodology
Lessons Learned
Teamwork and time management: Recognizing the importance of teamwork and the capacity to work together efficiently under time constraints.
Goal and delivery alignment: Understanding the importance of aligning project goals with the overarching theme of the competition to ensure relevance and competitiveness.
Utilizing business model for market understanding: Learning the importance and relevance of a business model to introduce a design concept into the market.
Valuable experience from the SCAD StartUp competition: Engaging in the competition gave me valuable experience in navigating limitations and coming up with innovative ideas within a condensed timeframe.