10,000 Degrees: Redesigning the Career Success Platform
Making career support more accessible for students and alumni as they navigate their next steps.
Role: Lead UX Designer
Duration: 6 months (2022-2023)
Tools: Figma, Google Workspace, Zoom
Target Users: 10,000 Degrees college students and alumni
Collaborators: Cross-functional teams across Career Success, College Success, and Marketing
Why this project mattered
As part of its 5-Year Strategic Plan, 10,000 Degrees, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educational equity, aimed to enhance its Career Success Program. A core focus of the plan was transforming the outdated Internship website into a centralized, user-friendly platform to better support college students and alumni in their career journeys.
I led the end-to-end redesign in close partnership with the Career Success team, using student feedback to guide actionable design priorities that aligned business goals with user needs. The new site features an interactive resource library, an events calendar, and clearer support pathways, making it easier for students and alumni to discover relevant opportunities and guidance.
OVERVIEW
“Thanks for keeping the students front and center during the process and being so intentional about including their ideas and feedback…”
My Collaborators
Career Success
Primary Stakeholder (1)
Aligned design priorities with the Director of Career Success to meet program goals.
College Success
Subject Matter Experts (7+)
Partnered with college advisors to surface real user pain points and motivations.
Marketing & Communications
Integration partners (2)
Coordinated late-stage integration to ensure visual consistency and seamless alignment with the main site.
Why change was needed
The original Internship website hadn’t been updated since early 2022. Students and alumni—many of whom are first-generation college students—struggled to find internships, career guidance, and the right contacts for support.
Outdated content, poor accessibility, and a lack of visual engagement made the site difficult to use. Staff often shared resources via email or social media instead of directing users to the site, which limited its effectiveness and hindered students’ access to timely, relevant career support.
Key Issues:
THE PROBLEM
01
Accessibility Issues
Poor color contrast and dense layouts made the content difficult to read.
03
Outdated Information
Users encountered outdated staff listings and unclear points of contact.
02
Low Engagement
Text-heavy pages lacked visual elements, interactivity, and clear structure.
The color combinations used had contrast ratios below 1.5:1, failing to meet basic WCAG accessibility standards.
The resource pages were dense and overwhelming, making it difficult for users to engage with the content.
⁉️ Problem Statement
10,000 Degrees students and alumni struggled to find internships and career support through the Internship website due to outdated content and limited access to relevant resources, ultimately restricting their career development opportunities.
✨ How Might We
How might we redesign the Career Success website to make it easier for 10,000 Degrees students and alumni to access guidance and opportunities as they navigate their careers?
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
Understanding our users’ needs and pain points
To better understand the needs of students and alumni, I reviewed results from a large-scale interest survey (~500 responses) and conducted interviews with the College Success team, who serve as subject matter experts. Together, these methods revealed key gaps in accessibility, content formatting, and clarity of support.
04
Students appreciated the structure, but found the design hard to use.
Users appreciated the step-by-step layout on the homepage. 12 users specifically mentioned visual strain due to poor color contrast.
02
Navigation and mobile experience were frustrating.
7 users specifically mentioned the site was challenging to navigate, especially on mobile.
01
The contents were overwhelming, text-heavy, and lacked variety. Users wanted a mix of formats, not just long blocks of text.
127 users (25%) preferred short videos
45 users (9%) preferred written content
324 users (65%) preferred both
"I don't like how there is only text in the resume, cover letter, and other resource pages. I believe it would be easier to digest if there were visuals or variety."03
Students wanted clearer access to career events
53% (265) wanted a career calendar to easily find networking and job search workshops.
05
Students and Alumni were unsure who to contact for support.
The contact page lacked clarity, and outdated listings led to confusion, particularly for alumni unsure whether they were still eligible for assistance.
DESIGN GOALS
Bringing the Vision to Life
Based on user research, I focused on improving three core areas: the Career Resource Library, the Events Calendar, and early explorations around the Support Contact experience.* These became the foundation for a more accessible, engaging, and student-centered platform.
**The Support Contact page was later de-scoped, but early design work informed how support information was surfaced across related pages.
CAREER RESOURCE LIBRARY
Making Career Support Easier to Find, Browse, and Use
The original resource pages were hard to scan, overly text-heavy, and not aligned with how students searched for support. I worked with the Career Success team to redesign the library into a modular, tagged system that made content easier to explore, maintain, and adapt to student needs.
Collaborative Exploration
The Career Success team brought an initial idea inspired by Immigrant Rising. They wanted something visual, intuitive, and easy for students to navigate. We worked together to brainstorm how to bring this to life in a way that was both user-centered and easy to maintain over time.
I proposed adapting the Step-by-Step Guide layout from the previous site—a format students had already responded positively to. Together, we explored options like keyword tagging, content categories, and modular blocks, then refined the direction based on usability goals and technical constraints.
Reference site provided by Career Success, praised for its clarity and structure.
Early layout exploring category-based, modular content inspired by student feedback.
Early Layout Concept
Content Strategy & Interaction Design
To improve discoverability and reduce cognitive load, I organized resources into three clear content categories: text-based guides, short video content, and vetted external articles. This structure aligned with user preferences from the interest survey and also supported 10,000 Degrees’ desire to feature multimedia and community-sourced content.
The tagging system and breadcrumb navigation were introduced to support clarity and choice. Students could filter content based on their goals while also being aware of their current location on the site.
Since there was no assigned developer on this project, I consulted with a peer developer to check the feasibility of the tagging and filtering system. My goal was to ensure that the design could be realistically implemented and maintained over time, even with limited technical resources.
Making Career Resources Easier to Explore
Career Resource Details
EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
Narrative Heading
From the interest survey, students and alumni shared that they wanted easier access to upcoming events and workshops — especially for networking and job search preparation.
Exploration & Stakeholder Feedback
I explored a few layout options and presented them to the College Success and Career Success teams. These included designs with a featured calendar alongside upcoming events, and others that prioritized upcoming events more prominently.
01
Displaying Upcoming Events by Month
Early concept featuring a prominent calendar with upcoming events on the side—designed to help students and alumni view all events at a glance by month.
‼️ Career Success expressed concern about months with no events.
02
Displaying All Upcoming Events
A layout that highlights upcoming events first. This version was preferred by both teams, although there were some concerns about empty months on the calendar.
🌟 Both teams preferred this version. Although they liked having a calendar on the page.
⚠️ 10,000 Degrees’ Dilemma
There was internal hesitation about showcasing events on a public page since most events and workshops were reserved for students and alumni. Career Success worried about overexposing content meant to stay private, but also felt that omitting events entirely would underrepresent the work they do.
Iterations & Design Decisions
Based on stakeholder feedback, I refined the layout to prioritize upcoming events while maintaining calendar accessibility on the same page.
In the mid-fidelity version, I began working through event categories, access indicators, and content visibility. I also explored how to distinguish public content from login-gated information. Sketches helped me think through event detail hierarchy, visibility logic, and related content placement.
Browsing Upcoming Events
Career Resource Details
Event Detail Page
EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
Narrative Heading
From the interest survey, students and alumni shared that they wanted easier access to upcoming events and workshops — especially for networking and job search preparation.
Discovery & Early Explorations
Through research and SME interviews, I learned that students and alumni often encountered outdated staff listings and weren’t sure who to contact for help. I explored multiple ways to clearly and consistently surface support information — including adding a general email address to the site footer, drafting a staff-based About page, and collaborating with Career Success to create a simplified contact form.
01
Displaying Upcoming Events by Month
Early concept featuring a prominent calendar with upcoming events on the side—designed to help students and alumni view all events at a glance by month.
‼️ Career Success expressed concern about months with no events.
02
Displaying All Upcoming Events
A layout that highlights upcoming events first. This version was preferred by both teams, although there were some concerns about empty months on the calendar.
🌟 Both teams preferred this version. Although they liked having a calendar on the page.
Iterations & Design Decisions
Based on stakeholder feedback, I refined the layout to prioritize upcoming events while maintaining calendar accessibility on the same page.
In the mid-fidelity version, I began working through event categories, access indicators, and content visibility. I also explored how to distinguish public content from login-gated information. Sketches helped me think through event detail hierarchy, visibility logic, and related content placement.
Career Resource Details
Career Resource Details
Event Detail Page
🤝 Cross-team alignment
I collaborated with Career Success (primary stakeholders), College Success (subject matter experts), and Marketing (integration partners).
Each team had different priorities and perspectives, so I had to consistently realign on goals while maintaining a cohesive user experience.
✂️ De-scoped features
Several planned pages, including Contact, About, and Alumni Stories, were removed from the scope to streamline implementation.
I worked closely with Career Success on the Contact and About pages before they were dropped, and repurposed those insights to improve team visibility and surface support information across related pages.
Alumni Stories was wireframed but ultimately deprioritized to focus the MVP on core content and functionality.
🛠️ No assigned developer
Since there wasn’t a developer on the project, I designed everything to work with no-code or low-code tools. I also consulted with a developer peer to confirm that features such as tagging, filtering, and access gating were feasible within the existing resources.
CHALLENGES & CONSTRAINTS
Navigating shifting goals, limits, and decisions
This project involved shifting requirements, evolving priorities, and the absence of a dedicated developer, which meant designing adaptable, scalable solutions that could flex with the organization’s needs.
🔄 Changing scope
Midway through the project, the Marketing team decided to integrate Career Success into the main 10,000 Degrees website. This meant adjusting layouts, visual language, and feature scope to align with broader site constraints.
💭 Next Steps:
Although I wasn’t able to conduct usability testing post-launch, it’s something I would have loved to do. Validating the navigation, tagging system, and resource layout with real users would have helped uncover additional opportunities to refine the experience.
OUTCOMES & LEARNINGS
Measuring impact, adapting along the way
With stakeholder approval, the final designs were handed off for implementation. While some visual elements were later adjusted to align with new branding, the core UX structure, including the reorganized resource library and event calendar, remained intact.