The Problem:

UPKEY is a company that offers career preparedness tools for high school and college students. While there were many good things about what they were doing, the art, animation, writing seemed disjointed, they did not work together to create a compelling cohesive brand narrative. UPKEY created a resume-building web app, that students would use and never come back, we needed a way to keep students engaged in the UPKEY site, explore the other aspects of the site and make UPKEY a destination for students looking to prepare themselves for their future.

Evaluation:

After reviewing all of UPKEY’s offerings, the were some obvious flaws that were screaming to be fixed, their target audience was 16 to 26, but the vast majority of the content was not usable on mobile devices. To build any kind of student participation, we needed to think “Mobile First” The Art style was not reaching the target audience, the mascot characters were a turn-off, user comments referred to the art as “Cheesy”. To appeal to this audience we needed to appeal more to their career aspirations, than their childhood. The writing. was uneven, overly complicated, and tried to address Students Colleges and Universities, and Corporate partners with the same message. Ultimately UPKEY was not really addressing the core audience, the students.

Solution:

In the final analysis, there was a lot to do, but the main thing was to find a unified voice for UPKEY. This voice needed. We needed a better, faster way to get through the interactive modules and create a sense that the students were working toward a goal, that goes beyond just finding a job, but developing a career, and ultimately giving back and becoming a mentor to other students. We updated the Art, Writing to better address the core demographic, by narrowing our focus, our rallying cry was “For the Kids”. If something was not for the Kids, it was out, we were no longer trying to talk to Corporate interests on Upkey.com, we would have separate sites that would address Corporate or University needs. Being able to focus on one audience freed us up to be able to focus on having some more fun art and writing, and changing the focus from the characters to the users and make them feel like the module was actually being customized to them.

Interactive Learning

UI and Screens for the “Pitch Perfect” module. An interactive experience that instructs users on how to best present themselves to potential employers. Users are prompted to reflect on their life experiences and instructed on how they can create a compelling story that will help them in their pursuit of Internships, jobs and developing their personal brand.