Award-winning, mobile-first website improved city-wide vocational education awareness

Gamified mobile-first platform with material design principles and website personalization helping job-seekers discover careers and training opportunities across Philadelphia's workforce system.

Project snapshot

  • Client: Pennsylvania CareerLink® Philadelphia
  • Year: 2019

Services

The Background

Pennsylvania CareerLink® Philadelphia is in partnership with the PA Department of Labor and Industry and Human Services, along with various direct-service providers, employers, and community organizations—to support Philadelphians in becoming work-ready and accessing career opportunities.

The Problem

PA CareerLink® Philadelphia needed a mobile-first solution and a cohesive brand representation online. The old website had:

  • Unclear messaging and poor user experience
  • Accessibility issues preventing users from finding next steps
  • Poor information architecture with hundreds of technical errors
  • Low brand awareness critical for community service providers
  • Fragmented resources across multiple pages

The Solution

Key Medium designed and streamlined a comprehensive career discovery platform with award-winning experience:

Gamification & Personalization:

  • Mobile-first design featuring engaging components and subtle personalization
  • Gamified elements to encourage exploration and action
  • Website personalization for users who submit lead forms
  • Material design principles for modern, familiar interactions

Information Architecture:

  • Two-sided platform serving job-seekers and business partners
  • Clear action tiles from homepage: "I'm looking to…" with options for finding jobs, training, disability services (individuals) and searching talent, viewing labor market data, industry partnerships (businesses)
  • Restructured to surface: job search, career discovery, skills training, support services, workshops
  • Clear menus and graphical interface elements

Technical & SEO Strategy:

  • Custom WordPress theme with mobile-first development
  • Stakeholder and constituent engagement before launch
  • Rapid deep dive into analytics and brand research
  • Brand identity design aligned with State guidelines
  • Web analytics and Google Data Studio implementation for unified dashboards
  • Schema markup and accessibility best practices

Analytics & Measurement:

  • Real-time data points and performance tracking in unified dashboard
  • Accessible 24/7 analytics with easy-to-understand executive scorecard
  • Self-service forms with goal measurement aligned to workforce development strategy

The PACareerLinkPHL.org site reached over 146K users from Mar 2019 - Aug 2022

The Results

Transformational impact on career discovery and workforce development across Philadelphia:

Traffic & Engagement:

  • +25% lift in sessions year-over-year, reaching broader job-seeker and employer audiences
  • +48% increase in user acquisition demonstrating improved visibility and relevance
  • +36% increase in organic traffic showing strong search visibility
  • 4+ million organic impressions in Google Search
  • 146K+ total users over the platform's lifetime
  • 444K+ page views indicating strong engagement with content

Conversions & Outcomes:

  • 1,300+ new leads for upskilling (Vocational Skills Training) through first personalized self-service form
  • 3.5K additional interested users for training opportunities
  • 31K+ outbound referrals to partner programs and services
  • 38K+ referrals to state resources
  • 6.7K people called a phone number from the site via mobile
  • 155+ businesses expressed interest in workforce solutions

Awards & Recognition:

  • 2019 Communicator Awards Distinction (Features-User Experience for Websites)
  • 2019 Communicator Awards Distinction (Websites - General-Employment)
  • 2019 Hermes Creative Awards Gold (Web-Mobile Information Experience)
  • 2019 MUSE Creative Awards Gold (Website - Employment)

The platform demonstrated how thoughtful design, gamification, and data-driven optimization can create transformational outcomes for workforce development at scale.

Results

Metric Value
Traffic lift +25% YoY
User acquisition +48% YoY
Organic traffic +36% YoY
Organic impressions 4M+
Total users 146K+
Page views 444K+
VST leads generated 1,300+
Outbound referrals 31K+
Phone calls from mobile 6.7K+
Businesses seeking solutions 155+

Awards & Recognition

  • 2019 Communicator Award of Distinction (Features-User Experience for Websites)
  • 2019 Communicator Award of Distinction (Websites - General-Employment)
  • 2019 Hermes Creative Awards (Web-Mobile Information Experience)
  • 2019 MUSE Creative Awards (Website - Employment)