hope akello

experience designer / systems thinking / facilitation

Creative Careers

Designing a system to help users explore identity and role within a creative community.

hero image

Overview

CLIENT

Emily Carr University's Career Development + Work Integrated Learning Office

OUTPUTS

Website/Digital resource hub
Three interactive career tools

ROLE

Design Lead and Project Manager overseeing a team of 5 student designers and developers

TIMEFRAME

8 months

Context

The Career Development + WIL Office provides career advising and career-related programming for students and alumni. The office discovered that valuable career resources were siloed and dispersed across multiple university departments. To address this, they envisioned a centralized website that would serve as a comprehensive hub for all career resources.

Career resources from various university departments.

Objectives

  1. A digital hub for career resources;
  2. Three interactive career tools designed to address the most common challenges students bring to career advisors.
Simplified information architecture.

Final Design

close up shot of expandable section on the resources page
Expandable sections to reduce scroll fatigue
Consistent language, as determined by the Career Development Office
close up shot of a list of resources beginning with the phrase 'How to...' class=
close up shot of the resources page with expandable sections
Modular design for easy updates and additions

Impact + Results

Designed and launched a centralized digital platform that streamlined access to career and work-integrated learning resources, supporting over 1,800 students, alumni, and prospective applicants annually.

Extended the reach of the Career Development Office by transforming formerly in-person services into a 24/7 accessible digital resource, increasing off-campus and asynchronous access.

Improved capacity of the Career Development Office and student autonomy by designing an intuitive, self-serve portal that addressed common student challenges and FAQs.

Created a digital advising toolkit staff now reference during appointments, improving advising efficiency and consistency.

Consolidated 30+ fragmented resources into one user-friendly hub, reducing friction in the advising process and empowering users to find support independently.

Integrated into curriculum; the platform was adopted by faculty teaching Professional Practice, the university’s mandatory career development course for students, and has been shared with faculty at other institutions.

The updated Creative Careers website.

Update

Since launch, the Creative Careers site has continued to evolve. While the current design reflects updated university branding, the core functionality, layout, and structure remain true to our original goals of making career resources more accessible, student-centered, and actionable.