Launching a new professional insights tool to drive platform subscriptions

MYTRUDY

MyTrudy is the first personality-based career platform that empowers young professionals to discover and showcase their authentic talent. It uses advanced technology, personality science, and real-time job market insights to create comprehensive career insights.

In early 2025, myTrudy aimed to introduce a new top-of-funnel feature (Career Paths) to help bring the product to a bigger market and quickly generate revenue.

TEAM

Product designer (me)
Lead product designer
Brand designer
Content designer
Product manager
Engineering team

Design for a Gen Z audience

  • By 2030, Gen Z is projected to make up 30% of the U.S. workforce

  • Taking a mobile-first approach: 46% of Gen Z users have applied for a job on mobile

  • Provide valuable insights catered to research on what Gen Z values most: financial independence, work-life balance, and fulfillment

  • Introducing new brand guidelines catering to a younger audience

SKILLS

Information architecture
Wireframing
Prototyping
User testing, data synthesis
Rebranding, design system updates
Design handoff

Craft compelling data visualization

  • Redesigning complex data visualizations in visually impactful and intuitive way, especially for limited real estate on mobile

  • Incorporating platform rebrand into data visualizations and updating the existing design system

TIMEFRAME

6 weeks

AGENCY

PROJECT BRIEF

MyTrudy started with two primary features: a resume builder and a personality assessment tool. In order to bring the product to a bigger market, the goal was to introduce a new top-of-funnel feature: Career Paths. Our primary objectives for Career Paths were to:

  • Drive new user acquisition

  • Increase platform subscriptions

  • Translate data-heavy insights into mobile-first, digestible visuals

To accomplish this, we determined the following high-level design requirements:

Create a seamless upsell experience

  • Design an enticing free version of the product to drive interest in subscriptions

  • Create social-driven share cards to boost word-of-mouth marketing

  • Build an intuitive onboarding experience that introduces product value as early as possible

SOLUTION

Designing and launching Career Paths

We designed Career Paths, a mobile-first digital product that helps users identify the best career matches for them, and actionable steps for how to get there.

  • Career Paths allows users to view recommendations for their top career matches based on their unique traits, including personality, work experience, and skill set. Users can also view various suggested career lists based on factors such as higher salary, better personality fit, and more.

  • In addition, Career Paths also offers detailed insights into specific career trajectories, providing viewers with insightful, personalized information such as their compatibility scores for the role, insights into transitioning to the desired role, a skill gap analysis, and more.

  • Career Paths is available both as a free and premium product, with differing degrees of insights. Users are also able to quickly view and share their results through personalized share cards designed for social.

OUTCOME

A mobile-first design that delivers unique product value

With this product, our business goals were to drive new user acquisition, increase subscriptions, and design visually impactful data visualizations.

  • In testing, we saw significantly positive indicators for product adoption, with 92% of users saying they would utilize the product.

  • We also built a seamless upsell experience, providing users with immediate value through the free version of the product while also hinting at the premium offerings in an enticing way.

  • Following the launch, we plan to track the number of accounts created for this specific feature, the rate of subscription upgrades, as well as the number of clicks on the upgrade buttons and banners.

Concept-testing a personalized career insights tool

Once the team came up with the general concept of a career predictor tool, it was important to conduct initial research to gauge the level of interest among users for this type of product. We built the following initial concepts and surveyed 1,000 job seekers—50% Gen Z, 50% non-Gen Z.

DESIGN EXPLORATION

INITIAL CONCEPTS

High level of interest from Gen Z

  • We received a strong indicator of interest in the product overall, and from Gen Z specifically

  • Paired with other business decisions and factors, this pushed us to shift our focus more directly to Gen Z users

Desire for career exploration

  • With other professional platforms, users expressed frustration with tools that lack interactive or exploratory features, making it difficult to visualize career paths

DESIGN EXPLORATIONS

WIREFRAMES (MOBILE)

Desire for personalized insights

  • Users expressed frustration with generic tools that didn’t account for individual skills, goals, personality traits

  • Specifically, our research showed that Gen Z users highly value fulfillment in their work, second only to financial independence

High value placed on match scores

  • Users highly ranked 1) overall match score, 2) personality score, and 3) expertise score as the most valuable modules when viewing a specific career

Guided by these insights, I began further exploring data visualizations with the following goals:

  • Taking a mobile-first approach for data visualizations with the goal of appealing to Gen Z users

  • Emphasizing how personality factors into the results generated for each individual user

  • Simplifying insights and data into scannable visuals that provide immediate value and reduce number of clicks for the user

The following key insights that emerged were:

Validating information architecture and feature value

Once we had initial wireframe designs, we decided to conduct further testing. Although we were on a short timeline, it was crucial to validate whether the information we presented was valuable to users, if users were able to correctly interpret the data, and if the feature was intuitive to use. From a business perspective, we were making a big bet that this feature would encourage subscriptions and user adoption, so it was a worthwhile effort to test the product at this stage, before investing more time and resources into further design and development.

With just one week for testing, we decided to conduct unmoderated testing through Maze. I wrote a detailed testing script, collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders (Product, Content, Marketing) for review, and also created a prototype for testing. We tested with 50 participants, ages 21-34.

USER TESTING

Testing insights and recommendations

  • There was a strong indication of interest in the product, with 92% of participants said they would use the product.

  • Users most highly valued the “Your path to this role” feature, with 95% saying the it was helpful, and 58% ranking it very helpful. The least valued feature was the “Skill trends” section. This information guided us on how to prioritize the order of modules on the page.

  • We found that users rarely explored tabs or scrolled horizontally, leading us to combine modules to one screen when possible.

FINAL DESIGN

Incorporating the platform rebrand to create scannable and visually compelling professional insights

Platform rebrand

Collaborating with our brand designer, we applied the updated branding to the designs, leaning into bright, modern colors. The new visual identity also utilizes puzzle pieces to illustrate how personality, skills, and opportunities align seamlessly. We translated this approach by utilizing percentage bars throughout the product to illustrate the high percentage matches and personalized insights offered, something we knew users deeply valued based on our research.

Career Paths home page - Free vs Premium

After users upload their work history and complete a personality assessment, they can access the Career Paths homepage, which displays their top 10 career matches based on their personality compatibility and work experience. They can also view different categories of career suggestions, whether they’re looking for a higher salary or breaking into a new field.

A key part of the final design was making sure that free users could still access their top 10 career paths (or recommended careers), while presenting the premium features in an enticing way.

FREE

FREE

PREMIUM

Career details page - Free vs Premium

When users click on any of the careers listed, they are redirected to a detailed page about the specific career. This page also offers personalized insights based on their individual traits, skills, and more.

On this page, free users can access the career’s average salary range, the user’s overall compatibility score for the career, and the career description. The premium features include more personalized insights, such as timeline and path to the career, a personality trait comparison, skill comparison, and more.

PREMIUM

OUTCOMES

Driving user activation and conversion

We delivered a new feature design that is visually engaging and delivers complex data insights in an easily digestible manner, resulting in 92% of users responding that they would use this product.

The launch of the new Career Paths feature will happen in conjunction with a targeted marketing campaign, allowing us to track the number of accounts created specifically for this feature.

We will also be looking at the number of paid subscribers generated from this new feature. More specifically, we’ll be tracking the number of clicks on the “Unlock” buttons or banners that appear on the free version of the product. (Stay tuned for updated numbers)