Back to workPROTOTYPE · UX · 2024

KAUGrads
Platform

Skill-first job matching for KAU IT graduates

RoleUX Design · Prototyping
StatusPrototype — not deployed

A cold-start job market for new graduates

KAU IT graduates leave university with strong technical skills but no public footprint. Existing job platforms reward profile completeness — which new graduates don't have — so they get filtered out before a recruiter ever sees them. KAUGrads flips the model: start with what you know, not what you've done.


The goal was a fully-bilingual (Arabic / English) platform prototype that surfaces candidates to employers through a skill-first match flow, with transparent scoring and a 30-second time-to-first-match.


Key decisions

Skill-first onboarding over résumé-first

The cold-start UX problem for a job-matching platform is real: new graduates have nothing to show. I led with a chip-based skill picker (3–7 chips) before any résumé upload, so the first match could land within 30 seconds of landing on the page. The résumé came later, as enrichment — not as a gate.

Figma as the deliverable, not a sketch

Twelve fully-linked screens with realistic data, an interactive prototype flow, and a component library. The artefact was designed to be demoed to stakeholders, not explained. Every screen was bilingual from day one — the same frame flipped direction without rebuilding.

Bidirectional layout, designed in

Arabic users are the primary audience, so RTL was the first layout pass — not a translation. Spacing, type scale, and component density were calibrated for both directions before any final pixel work, which kept the prototype visually balanced in either language.


Selected views

screenshot
Onboarding — skill chips before profile fields
screenshot
Graduate dashboard — matches surfaced first
screenshot
Match detail — transparent scoring breakdown
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Arabic RTL — same flow, mirrored layout

What shipped

Designed and prototyped KAUGrads as a 12-screen Figma deliverable: a skill-first onboarding flow, graduate dashboard with match rankings, transparent match-detail scoring, and a full Arabic RTL pass on every screen. The prototype was presented as a clickable demo with realistic data — ready to be handed off to engineering.