1. Discovery & ideation

Working with six participants in pairs across three workshop sessions, I used PLEX Cards—a framework of 22 playful experiences—to co-create user stories based on emotional journeys. Each group imagined a career-guidance scenario using three randomly drawn cards, each representing a different playful experience, and then arranged them into a three-step narrative (beginning, continuation, and end) to shape the story.

2. From stories to structure

I then analyzed the user stories and participant's reflections over a blank canvas, and started exploring how to better adjust these ideas to the context and expectations. This led to the definition of five key user flows, each designed to evoke specific playful experiences identified in the workshops. These flows represented the core actions within the platform, such as creating an account, exploring careers, and setting goals, and established the structural foundation for the product.

3. Building the platform

Starting with Crazy 8's sketches for each flow, I created digital wireframes to test structure and user actions. From there, I developed a visual identity (colors, typography, and logo) aligned with Orient’Est’s brand but also influenced by the project’s playful character. As the prototype evolved, these elements became reusable components forming a lightweight design system. The final interactive prototype included 27 mobile screens with playful elements such as Lottie animations and interactive components, allowing users to be fully immersed during testing sessions on their mobile device.

Feature 1: visual career exploration

Career guidance platforms typically present careers only as endless scrollable lists or search results, overwhelming and disconnected from the relationships between fields. Users needed a way to understand how domains relate to each other while exploring freely.

I designed an interactive visualization where career domains appear as sized bubbles, with larger bubbles representing fields with more demand in the Grand Est. Users can tap domains to reveal related careers, explore parent-child relationships, and understand the career landscape spatially. The interaction feels less like searching a database and more like exploring a landscape, eliciting Discovery and Exploration at every tap.

The career page then provides concise and visual information, with playful animations and interactive graphs showing employment data in the region (Competition) as well as career evolution prospects (Fantasy).

Feature 2: goal setting & journey tracking

Career goals feel abstract and distant, especially for students. The platform needed to help users commit to a goal and support them along the way, visualizing their progress in a motivating way.

I created 'My journey,' a personal space where users collect interesting careers in 'My careers,' then set a goal when ready. The moment of goal-setting triggers a celebratory animation (Thrill), acknowledging the commitment. Then, users are presented with their future prospects (Fantasy) and an evaluation of their skills, as well as extra information. The journey page visualizes progress through skills gained, courses enrolled, and milestones reached. Users can update their goal anytime, maintaining flexibility while building momentum. The design balances structure (Submission to their chosen path) with freedom.

Feature 3: regional data visualization

The platform presents Grand Est-specific employment data through visual representations (unemployment rates, contract types, gender distribution), making abstract statistics tangible. Users can compare career paths side-by-side, understanding not just what jobs exist, but the reality of entering those fields in their region (Competition).

Key findings

9 out of 10 participants rated the overall experience as playful, with 6 giving the highest rating.
Specific playful experiences were successfully elicited:

• Exploration and discovery: 100% positive perception. Every participant felt these experiences, particularly during career browsing and goal setting.
• Thrill: 70% positive. The celebration animations and goal-setting moments successfully created excitement.
• Competition and Fantasy: mixed but promising. Participants appreciated seeing employment data and visualizing their future, though implementation could be strengthened

Broader impact

This work demonstrated that playful design frameworks, like PLEX, can be systematically applied to non-playful contexts. It contributes methodology for translating workshop insights into concrete design decisions, addressing a gap in the HCI research on situated play.

Key learnings

• Translation requires interpretation: moving from workshop stories to implemented features required design judgment. Some playful experiences (like Exploration leading to Discovery) naturally reinforce each other, while others (like Cruelty in this context) need careful framing to resonate. I needed to carefully evaluate when and how to introduce them in the user journey.
• Workshop method flexibility is the key to creativity: adapting the PLEX Scenario method across three different sessions, from canvas, post-its and markers to remote collaboration, revealed that process flexibility matters. When participants could write individually before sharing, ideas were more diverse. This taught me that workshop facilitation is also about creating the right conditions for thinking, not just rigidly following a plan.
• Context shapes perception more than intent: some experiences I designed for weren't strongly perceived (Competition, Submission), while others emerged unexpectedly. Besides the nature of each experience, this gap between designer intent and user perception taught me that context heavily influences which playful experiences resonate. For us designers, this means validating assumptions early and often.

Looking forward

Given more time, I'd iterate on the underperforming experiences, test with a broader demographic sample, and develop design patterns for translating specific PLEX experiences into UI elements.