Occupational Outlook Handbook
Website Redesign
Digital | Sketch, Illustrator, AfterEffects | 2017
The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is a government website that documents labor statistics. The website provides a general outlook for different occupations within the US. What started out as a class project with a partner grew into a more detailed redesign of the webpage.
You can find the original website here. They have since updated the website as of September, 2022.
Challenge
The U.S. Bureau of Labor first started collecting data in the early 1970s. To this day, it continues to provide data about employment, wages, and other generalized information about jobs. However, with this wealth of data and a multitude of job opportunities, one can easily get lost in this online handbook.
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Most recent screenshots of the website, as of 2022. Although it was utilitarian, it was not easy to navigate. The text was small and condensed and you were forced to open many tabs if you weren’t sure which industry you wanted to explore.
Process
Early ideas leaned heavily on experimentation and interactivity. One iteration was a dynamic filter-search home page that was coded to narrow down results using sliders. This was good for users who were just exploring choices, and we found that having a range of parameters helped focus their intentions. It also brought our attention to the importance of comparing occupations, which would help us later down the line.
From there, we had to take a step back. While it would be more attractive for a website to have interactive elements, we were also forced to consider the purpose of the website, a statistics website.
Character Profiles
We wanted to focus on two different approaches to this website: a student or young professional about to enter the workforce, and a weathered adult opening up options for a career change. Thus, our focus was to refine the search process and add a place where you can easily compare different jobs on one screen.
Franklin
45 years old
Divorced, 2 kids
Recently laid off because of mass company restructuring. Looking for job stability and high pay to support his family.
Jun
21 years old
Single, no dependents
About to graduate from college with a Computer Science degree. Looking for full-time employment or an internship to get her feet wet.
Conclusion
For our job comparison page, we drew from our own experiences of websites that used filters or had product comparisons like Amazon, Walmart, and many apparel brands. I think the advantages of that association was to make exploring job information as entertaining as online shopping, while also giving more options for people who want to spend more time looking through the data. Overall, we wanted to draw people’s attention to the data that has been collected, and help jumpstart the process of learning about a job.
Total Overview
Home Page
Search Bar and Filters
Occupation Page
↑ Scrolled down version of the Occupation page
Job Comparison Page
↑ Scrolled down version of the Job Comparison page