Lead Product Designer

Project at Pivotal Labs - April to May 2019

I led design from start to finish - thinking through the experience, working with product and engineering to conduct research, planning an outcome-oriented roadmap, and thinking through overall strategy for the product. I paired with a Meritize designer, who had no previous experience, to teach him end-to-end product design.

Because Meritize is not a software company, I frequently had to demonstrate the value of design thinking by facilitating workshops that created alignment and focus with stakeholders and the product team.

The Challenge

Meritize hired Pivotal Labs to tackle the skills gap and to expand the amount of merit-based loans they disbursed to students attending vocational training programs. Meritize wanted to reach customers directly, instead of relying on schools for referrals, by building a digital solution where individuals could gain access to vocational training programs and funding for that training.

The Research

 I led and conducted user research and synthesis to ensure the product team understood user needs inside and out and was making evidence based product decisions.

We spent 4 weeks conducting 20+ user interviews to understand the landscape of this problem, the business, and opportunities for impact. Out of all the insights and user problems we discovered, we ended up focusing on the most frequent and highest pain problems:

The Opportunity

Meritize reached skill-seekers in the final two phases of their journey to starting a vocational training program. After weeks of research, we saw an opportunity for Meritize to begin interacting with skill-seekers earlier in their journey which we believed would lead to several user and business outcomes:

1. Allow skill seekers to explore different vocational training programs that fit their interests and needs

2. Shift Meritize from a “pull” to a “push” customer acquisition model by reaching customers directly instead of relying on school referrals

3. The strategic outcome of increasing access to training and loan applications would eventually lead to Meritize’s primary business outcome - increasing revenue

Overview

The United States is facing a skilled labor shortage. Over the next decade, 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will likely be needed and 2 million are expected to go unfilled due to the skills gap. 

Meritize collaborated with Pivotal Labs on a responsive web app to tackle the skills gap. MeritizeConnect allows skill-seekers to discover vocational training programs such as welding, diesel mechanics, medical technology, etc. and secure funding for those programs by applying for merit-based loans.