Student Employment and Career Exploration (SECE)
Reimagining Career Exploration for the Student Community
After serving students for many years, Student Employment and Career Exploration (SECE) sought to revamp its outdated interface. I was tasked with redesigning the entire website—spanning roughly 10 to 15 pages—and creating a new, modern landing page.
Tools
Figma
Overview
What is SECE?
SECE is the University of Hawaiʻi’s job platform connecting students across all campuses with on- and off-campus employers. It plays a vital role in helping students secure their first jobs and internships, often shaping the foundation of their careers.
Splash page is outdated and does not reflect the branding of University of Hawaii
The old login relied on segmented options with poor hierarchy and outdated design, creating unnecessary clicks.
The outdated dashboard offered limited functionality and unclear options, leaving employers uncertain about posting internships or linking to external applications.
Our Challenge
SECE serves as the primary job board across ten campuses within the University of Hawaiʻi system. However, the platform’s outdated interface and fragmented workflows made it difficult for students and employers to navigate efficiently. The redesign presented an opportunity to modernize the experience and align it with the university’s mission and digital standards.
Research
Understanding the Problem
While SECE has functioned effectively over the years, several usability and content issues emerged through an evaluation of the existing platform and informal feedback from students and staff. These findings helped uncover opportunities to create a clearer and more user‑friendly experience.
Here are the insights:
UI is very outdated.
Most commonly asked question by students is finding jobs in specific departments.
Most commonly asked question by employer is changing pay grade for employees.
Lack of job notification makes it hard to keep track of new opportunities.
Employers are sometimes confused on job status or are not sure if posting internships are allowed.
What's out there?
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed established job platforms to understand common features and design patterns that could inform SECE’s redesign. To avoid feature creep, I prioritized refining existing workflows and modernizing the UI. Insights from competitors guided how to better streamline interactions while staying focused on SECE’s unique needs.
Design
Rapid Prototyping
Due to budget/time constraints I created multiple mid-fidelity mockups and iterated from there. After showing the first version to the my managers and stakeholders, I further iterated from there.
Setbacks
This is where I reached my first couple of setbacks. First of all, I didn’t utilize a UI library before building out most of the pages which made the design process slow at times. Second, some of the color did not meet WGAA accessibility. As a result, I furthered iterated the design to meet accessibility standards and utilize more components from a UI library but still reflect UH branding.
Version 2 with edited Shadcn components
Handoff
In order to make the development easier, I annotated each flow and added their components next to each frame so the developer did not have to spend time trying to find each component.
Final Designs
