Background
Recruiting is difficult - the process could be extremely stressful and ambiguous to navigate and often end up being resource and time-consuming - and the global pandemic has made it even more so…
Interviews.live is a smart interview prep platform designed to help students and professionals prepare for “that interview” to get their dream job. Built on a powerful web application with 460K+ real interview questions across 91K+ organizations and 100+ professions, Interviews.live provides diversified, intelligent, and automated support to users while creating a safe, accessible, and exploratory environment for preparing for their job applications and their next big interviews.
Throughout the development period, our team rebranded the web application from MockingJ to interviews.live, delivering design assets (logo, color palette, typography) and mockups for existing pages consistent with the redefined website UI/UX. We implemented an interactive, animated landing page and a Manage Applications feature for the users to organize and manage upcoming interviews.
Demo
Timeline
Week 0
- Solidify project timeline with deadlines
- Set up GitHub
- Set up recurring meeting times with client and team
Week 1
- Developers: user database setup
- Designer: themes (color, design, font styles) and logo, begin revamping UI/UX for the overall website, as well as restructure components.
Week 2
- Developers: user authentication, storing questions asked upon sign up
- Designer: lo-fi mockup for landing page
Week 3
- Developers: backend development manage applications page
- Designer: hi-fi mockup for landing page
Week 4
- Developers: front-end development of landing page
- Designer: manage applications tab lo-fi mockup
Week 5
- Spring Break — no meeting!
Week 6
- Developers: front-end development manage applications page
Week 7
- Deadline: first iteration of app with MVP features delivered to client
Week 8
- Designer: creating Figma mock-ups of existing pages
Week 9
- Developers: landing page animation
- Designer: continue creating Figma mock-ups of existing pages
Week 10
- Developers: implementing manage applications page intermediate view only pop-up page
- Designer: tuning Figma mock-ups of existing pages given client feedback
- Deadline: Deliver!
Challenges
Our biggest challenges came with working out the technicalities of implementing the client’s vision. On the backend, for example, we had to decide on what types of information to store in our application and user databases. We also had to figure out what routes to include and how to navigate between them in a way consistent with the user flows we were implementing. Although our developers had experience with React, exploring and learning how to use different UI libraries to implement the frontend in accordance with the client’s vision also posed a challenge for us. Through this project our team was able to gain more experience with the technicalities of implementing a vision for a project and the integration of frontend and backend.
Takeaways
- Subin K: Building upon my experiences as a PM from last semester, I gained more insight into how to manage a project in a way that is optimal to both the client and the team. Keeping track of deliverables, timeline, etc.
- Jimmy C: I gained more experience with implementing a Figma mock-up on the frontend as well as setting up a user database and authentication for the backend.
- Acelyn C: I got to work with different React UI packages for landing page design, as well as the process of integrating the backend and frontend.
- Claire Z: This was my first time designing for a client, and I learned how to translate their ideas into mockups.
Looking Forward
The next big step for interviews.live would be to integrate the revamped design, UI/UX, landing page, and Manage Applications feature from this project into the existing web application (MockingJ is currently under closed beta testing). Given more time, an email reminder feature for the Manage Applications page would be our priority in building on the feature we implemented.