An AI-powered career discovery platform for students.
An AI-powered career discovery platform for students.

Career Compass

Career Compass

Helping Grade 8–12 students in India move beyond marks and pressure to make confident, informed career decisions.
Helping Grade 8–12 students in India move beyond marks and pressure to make confident, informed career decisions.
expertise
expertise

UI/UX Design
(Academic Project)

UI/UX Design
(Academic Project)

ROLE
ROLE

UX Researcher
UX Strategy & Feature Ideation
UI Design & Prototyping

UX Researcher
UX Strategy & Feature Ideation
UI Design & Prototyping

timeline
timeline

10 weeks

10 weeks

team
team

4 Designers

4 Designers

Getting to know the Baseline

Getting to know the Baseline

Career decisions in India still get made by accident. Marks decide majors. Peer pressure decides ambition. Parents decide the safe option. By the time a student is asked what they actually want to do, it's usually the end of 12th grade, too late to explore and just in time to choose.


The data backs up what the interviews kept surfacing. Over two-thirds of India's workforce has had no vocational or technical training at all, and only a small fraction received anything formal. Schools reward marks. They don't reward, or even notice, the strengths that never show up on a report card.

Career decisions in India still get made by accident. Marks decide majors. Peer pressure decides ambition. Parents decide the safe option. By the time a student is asked what they actually want to do, it's usually the end of 12th grade, too late to explore and just in time to choose.


The data backs up what the interviews kept surfacing. Over two-thirds of India's workforce has had no vocational or technical training at all, and only a small fraction received anything formal. Schools reward marks. They don't reward, or even notice, the strengths that never show up on a report card.

Problem Space

Problem Space

Career choices based on familiarity, limited to Engineering & Medicine.

What we discovered

What we discovered

Secondary research mapped what already exists: psychometric tools, RIASEC-based apps, school counselors, LinkedIn Learning, generic career quizzes. The same gap showed up everywhere. Strong at labeling, weak at guiding. Static, one-time, revenue-driven, or just not built for someone in grade 9.


Primary research went straight to the people living the problem. Students in grades 8 to 11 talking through their confusion and the pressure behind it, parents explaining how they define success and what they can't say out loud about money, and school counselors describing the structural limits of what a psychometric test can actually tell them.

Secondary research mapped what already exists: psychometric tools, RIASEC-based apps, school counselors, LinkedIn Learning, generic career quizzes. The same gap showed up everywhere. Strong at labeling, weak at guiding. Static, one-time, revenue-driven, or just not built for someone in grade 9.


Primary research went straight to the people living the problem. Students in grades 8 to 11 talking through their confusion and the pressure behind it, parents explaining how they define success and what they can't say out loud about money, and school counselors describing the structural limits of what a psychometric test can actually tell them.

Aarush Mehta, 17, Mumbai.

Class 12. Good grades, no clarity.


"I want to be sure before choosing my career."


Aarush isn't struggling academically. He's struggling to trust that any of it means something.


He's taken tests before. They gave him a label and nothing else.


What he actually wants is a roadmap: skills, education, income, in that order. Something he can hold onto that isn't just a personality type from a fifteen-minute quiz.

Aarush Mehta, 17, Mumbai.

Class 12. Good grades, no clarity.


"I want to be sure before choosing my career."


Aarush isn't struggling academically. He's struggling to trust that any of it means something.


He's taken tests before. They gave him a label and nothing else.


What he actually wants is a roadmap: skills, education, income, in that order. Something he can hold onto that isn't just a personality type from a fifteen-minute quiz.

How Might We

How Might We

How might we help students experience and understand careers early, so they can make confident, informed decisions about their future?

How might we help students experience and understand careers early, so they can make confident, informed decisions about their future?

Iterations

Iterations

With the concept defined, we mapped the full userflow and sitemap, from login, through the psychometric assessment or Explore Career hub, into the 3D Career Districts map, the Scenario Lab quizzes, and finally the AI Intelligence Report, before moving into visual design.

With the concept defined, we mapped the full userflow and sitemap, from login, through the psychometric assessment or Explore Career hub, into the 3D Career Districts map, the Scenario Lab quizzes, and finally the AI Intelligence Report, before moving into visual design.

1st Iteration

2nd Iteration

3rd Iteration

Final Look

1st Iteration

2nd Iteration

3rd Iteration

Final Look

Design System

Design System

We built a design system anchored in a purple palette with semantic colors for success, warning, error, and info states, paired with gradients for the more immersive 3D map moments. Typography paired DM Sans for body text and UI with Syne for display headings, giving the platform a friendly, approachable feel for body copy and a bold, confident voice for section headers and metrics.


The final product brings the three-layer structure to life visually, introducing students to the platform one experience at a time.

We built a design system anchored in a purple palette with semantic colors for success, warning, error, and info states, paired with gradients for the more immersive 3D map moments. Typography paired DM Sans for body text and UI with Syne for display headings, giving the platform a friendly, approachable feel for body copy and a bold, confident voice for section headers and metrics.


The final product brings the three-layer structure to life visually, introducing students to the platform one experience at a time.

Primary Color

Primary Color

DISPLAY FONT:
SYNE (HEADINGS)

DISPLAY FONT:
SYNE (HEADINGS)

BODY FONT:
DM SANS (UI / PROSE)

BODY FONT:
DM SANS (UI / PROSE)

Font

Font

Gradients

Gradients

Semantic Color

Semantic Color

Buttons

Buttons

Getting Started

Getting Started

Students begin with Alex, an AI companion who welcomes them in, explains how Career Compass works, and sets expectations for the journey ahead.

Students begin with Alex, an AI companion who welcomes them in, explains how Career Compass works, and sets expectations for the journey ahead.

Psychometric Quiz

Psychometric Quiz

A structured psychometric assessment, blending RIASEC personality profiling, cognitive mini-assessments, and behavioral questions, kicks off the process of understanding who the student really is.

A structured psychometric assessment, blending RIASEC personality profiling, cognitive mini-assessments, and behavioral questions, kicks off the process of understanding who the student really is.

Ai Profile

Ai Profile

Career Compass combines those responses, behaviors, and assessment patterns into an evolving AI profile, moving beyond a one-time label toward a picture that grows as the student interacts with the platform.

Career Compass combines those responses, behaviors, and assessment patterns into an evolving AI profile, moving beyond a one-time label toward a picture that grows as the student interacts with the platform.

Career District Map with
AI Mentor

Career District Map with
AI Mentor

Career exploration becomes an interactive city, where every district represents a professional field students can step into and explore at their own pace.
Each district comes with its own expert persona, like Pixels, Byte, and Pulse, ready to answer questions and guide exploration in that specific field.

Career exploration becomes an interactive city, where every district represents a professional field students can step into and explore at their own pace.
Each district comes with its own expert persona, like Pixels, Byte, and Pulse, ready to answer questions and guide exploration in that specific field.

Career Scenario Lab

Career Scenario Lab

Inside each district, students work through hands-on career simulations instead of reading job descriptions, so they understand what a profession actually feels like before committing to it.

Inside each district, students work through hands-on career simulations instead of reading job descriptions, so they understand what a profession actually feels like before committing to it.

Intelligence Report

Intelligence Report

Students close the loop with a downloadable AI Intelligence Report summarizing their strengths, blind spots, recommended paths, and next steps. Built to support rather than replace a career counselor, the report gives students and parents a shared, evidence-backed starting point for the conversations that follow.

Students close the loop with a downloadable AI Intelligence Report summarizing their strengths, blind spots, recommended paths, and next steps. Built to support rather than replace a career counselor, the report gives students and parents a shared, evidence-backed starting point for the conversations that follow.

User Testing

User Testing

Real students, real devices, a real working prototype, not a click-through mockup.

Real students, real devices, a real working prototype,

not a click-through mockup.

What worked

What didn't worked

the interface itself.

Students responded well to the visual language and the overall experience.
The Scenario Lab was very well appreciated

The experience felt limited in places, they wanted more input, more depth. And the voice feature had a discoverability problem.

Several students didn't realize the orb or mic icon was how you talked to Alex at all.

the interface itself.

Students responded well to the visual language and the overall experience.
The Scenario Lab was very well appreciated

What worked

What didn't worked

the interface itself.

Students responded well to the visual language and the overall experience.
The Scenario Lab was very well appreciated

The experience felt limited in places, they wanted more input, more depth. And the voice feature had a discoverability problem.

Several students didn't realize the orb or mic icon was how you talked to Alex at all.

the interface itself.

Students responded well to the visual language and the overall experience.
The Scenario Lab was very well appreciated

Learnings

Learnings