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Opportunity Search / PeopleGrove

Rebuilding search around how students actually look

Role
Product Designer
Owned mobile, team of 3
Timeline
September 2026
6 weeks
Type
Opportunity app
Internships & jobs
Focus
Mobile app design
Student experience

Overview

PeopleGrove’s Experiential Learning platform is how college students find internships, scholarships, and other career opportunities in their field. Its opportunity search was built for a desktop browser first. The goal was to design its search and discovery for mobile, around what students actually do when they’re looking for an opportunity, not around what the platform assumed they’d need. On a team of three under a Sr. Designer, I owned the mobile redesign and its research; we aligned our design systems, synthesized research, and tested each other’s wireframes together in FigJam.

4student interviews
5students in the final benchmark
3.0 → 4.0confidence out of 5, current site to redesign
21%faster opportunity discovery than the current site

TL;DR

The problem
Students search PeopleGrove for internships on a site built for desktop first: 14,791 unfiltered results, with every filter in a separate sidebar.
What I did
Owned mobile on a team of 3: interviewed 4 students, built a persona and journey map, tested wireframes of 4 core screens with 3 students, revised them, and benchmarked the redesign against the current site with 5 new students.
The outcome
A mobile search redesign shaped by testing: one filter sheet, Save beside Apply, and clear saved, applied, and completed tabs, handed off to PeopleGrove's product team.

The current experience

The Experiential Learning platform today: a desktop layout, built for a big screen first.

The current Experiential Learning Dashboard: a welcome banner, a keyword search bar, capstone sign-up links, then a 'Recommendations for you in Accounting' row of job cards.
The dashboard opens on a block of capstone sign-up links, then just two recommended job cards, with everything else below the fold.
The current Search screen with a sidebar of filters (Paid, Categories, Tags, Locations) beside a list of 14,791 results.
14,791 unfiltered results, with Paid/Categories/Tags/Locations each its own separate sidebar filter.
The current My Opportunities screen with Favorited, Applied, and Participated tabs down the left side.
“My Opportunities” tucks favorited, applied, and participated into side tabs, so there’s no single place to see where everything stands.
The current Interests screen with a Subscribed Interests sidebar next to a searchable grid of 606 interests.
606 interests to search through, with no indication of what job types any one of them actually surfaces.

So I went and listened to the people actually using it.

Research synthesis

Find opportunities relevant to her field without digging through everything else
Understand at a glance what's saved, applied to, or completed
Narrow results down with filters that actually match how she thinks
“I know what I’m looking for. I just can’t tell if it’s showing me that.”
Fiona's empathy map, “Says” quadrant

Meet Fiona

Built from interviews with 4 college students about their goals, expectations, and frustrations using the platform.

Fiona Hill

The Time-Pressed Applicant

  • 21
  • College Student
  • Stanford, CA

Bio

Current college student actively looking for internships or entry-level opportunities in her field. She’s used this platform before, along with similar ones (LinkedIn, Indeed, Handshake, Glassdoor), so she’s not intimidated. She gets the concept immediately, but how confident she feels using it well depends on how clear the layout and filters are.

Personality

AnalyticalCreative
Leans Analytical
BusyTime-rich
Leans Busy
MessyOrganized
Leans Organized
PassiveActive
Leans Active
SafeRisky
Leans Safe

Fiona

“It looks like a platform for businesses to post jobs and people to search for them.”
“The layout is too minimalist. Not enough filter options.”
“It's pretty straightforward and easy to follow.”
“It's a website where you find opportunities in your field.”

User journey map

Fiona on today’s platform. Each stage’s low point became an opportunity.

Tasks

  • Lands on a dashboard led by capstone sign-up links
  • Scrolls down to two recommended job cards
  • Opens Interests to tailor her recommendations

Feelings

Neutral, then unsure. She wants it to feel personal, but can't tell what an interest will get her.

Opportunity

Make Home personal from the first screen, with interests that say what they'll find.

Less on the search screen, not more

Students weren't missing options. With 14,000+ results, they were overwhelmed.

  • Ruled out

    Every filter up front

    Mirrors the desktop sidebar, but more on screen only adds to the overload.

  • Chosen

    Filters only once added

    One “+” opens every filter; only the ones a student adds show as chips above the results, cutting the cognitive load.

The team's FigJam board: Avery's sticky note asking whether mobile needs every filter option while searching 14k+ jobs, beside the current search screen marked up by three teammates.
Where it started: my note on our team’s FigJam board, on the current search screen we marked up together.

Wireframes

Home, Search, Saved, and Interests, from rough structure to detail.

  • Home
  • Search
  • Saved
  • Interests

Before locking anything in, I put it in front of students who use it.

Usability testing insights

Three students who use the platform walked through wireframes of Home, Search, Saved, and Interests, thinking out loud. Their confidence averaged 3.0/5, and the low scores came down to how clear the filters and layout felt, not what the platform does. What kept coming up shaped the refined wireframes below. In a final benchmark, 5 new students tried the current site on a laptop and the redesign on a phone, in alternating order: they found and saved an internship 21% faster (median 52s to 41s), and every one rated their confidence higher, from 3 to 4 out of 5.

“I kept looking for the filters on the first one. The second one made more sense immediately.”
A student in the final benchmark
Saving was just a small heart icon, so it became a labeled Save button beside Apply.
The first wireframes dropped the closing date the current site shows, so every card got it back.
Search showed no result count or sort order, so both now sit above the results, with a “+” to add filters.
Saved opened on a row of category boxes, so they became Saved, Applied, and Completed tabs.
Interests were a grid of bare titles, so each one now spells out the roles it covers.
The tab bar marked pages with plain dots, so each tab now has its own icon.

The refined wireframes

  • Refined Home wireframeHome
  • Refined Search wireframeSearch
  • Refined Saved wireframeSaved
  • Refined Interests wireframeInterests

A mobile experience built for discovery, clarity, and confidence.

What I built

PeopleGrove's Home screen with its 'Set Interests' prompt and a Bank Operations Intern card both popped out for a closer look.
  1. 01

    Home

    Recommendations that start with you.

    • A prompt to set interests, so recommendations are personal from day one
    • Recent opportunities, each tagged by type, pay, and arrangement
    • Closing dates shown on every card, in red as the deadline nears
    • Save and Apply side by side, no detour needed
    PeopleGrove's mobile Home screen: a prompt to set interests for personalized recommendations, then Recent Opportunities with Save and Apply on each card.
  2. 02

    Filters

    Every filter in one sheet.

    • Search a job category or location; picks show as removable chips
    • Onsite, remote, or hybrid in a single tap
    • A Paid Only toggle hides unpaid opportunities
    • Result count and sort order stay in view behind the sheet
    PeopleGrove's mobile filter sheet with UX, Rochester, NY, and Hybrid chosen and Paid Only switched on.
  3. 03

    Saved

    Where every opportunity stands, at a glance.

    • Saved, Applied, and Completed tabs, each with its own count
    • Saved listings keep Apply one tap away
    • The Save button turns to “Saved,” so status is never a guess
    PeopleGrove's mobile Saved screen, with Saved, Applied, and Completed tabs and two saved internships.
  4. 04

    Interests

    Interests that say what they’ll find.

    • Search interests by name
    • Each result spells out the roles it covers
    • Add an interest, then confirm
    • A reminder that interests shape what’s picked for you
    PeopleGrove's mobile Interests screen, with User Interface Design (Product, UX, UI, web design roles) added and a Confirm button.

Accessibility

  • Labeled actions. Save is a labeled button, not just a heart icon.
  • Not color alone. Closing dates are written out, not shown by color.
  • Text with icons. Every tab has a text label beside its icon.

Every decision tied back to something a real student told me.

What worked

Letting usability testing drive the redesign, not just the visual polish: a labeled Save button beside Apply and a clearer way into filters were direct responses to what three testers got stuck on.

What I'd do differently

Test at a larger scale, on the high-fidelity design. Five students showed the direction; a bigger round would show whether the gains hold.

What I'd track

Save-to-apply rate, how often people actually use the filters, and how fast someone finds a job worth applying to.

Want to hear more?

I’d love to walk through the details.

Email me