I began by analyzing both the existing Orient’Est platform and the broader landscape of career guidance tools. Since the company had already surfaced key needs and pain points for Orient’Est Métiers, I used those insights as well, defining where design could meaningfully shift user behavior.

With this foundation in place, I facilitated three PLEX Scenario workshops with diverse participants. These sessions surfaced user stories from randomly drawn playful experiences, that were mapped to concrete interaction flows. This emotional-to-functional mapping ultimately provided the basis for the design of an interactive prototype that captured the specific experiences we set out to evoke.

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:

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.

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.

I evaluated the prototype through task-based testing and structured interviews with 10 participants, measuring the elicitation of specific playful experiences using a Likert scale. The results validated that playfulness can succeed in serious contexts.

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.