Instead of using a paper and pencil for a career test, a team of developers from EdPlus created a unique and modern approach to help students decide on a future career path.
From 2015 to now, over 100,000 users have downloaded Arizona State University’s career tool app called me3. Me3 is a picture-based game for ages 13 and older to help aid students, teachers and parents plan for the future.
The app is intended to motivate children from a young age to prepare themselves for college while promoting ASU’s higher education programs. ASU students can also use the app to find out what major or career best suits their interests.
EdPlus’ team has used the me3 app as a way to reach out to students struggling with choosing a future career path during their time spent at ASU. The app is designed to help those students align their major choice with their interests.
Lisa Flesher the ASU director of strategic initiatives at EdPlus discussed the positive and negative aspects of the me3 app throughout its development.
“For positive aspects of the app, we’ve heard a lot across the board that students love that ability to explore with careers that may have not crossed their mind,” Flesher says.
She says the image nature of the app attracts a wide population from ages 13 and up.
“A lot of other tools on the market have a lot of questions," Flesher says. "The image nature of me3 has seemed to connect well with this population."
Flesher says some negative feedback she received was centered around the topic of photo diversity.
"The photo diversity has come up a lot, so we worked really hard in the past year by refining and adding these photos by representing a diverse population across all the photos,” she says.
Flesher continued to elaborate on the marketing aspects of the me3 app that draw in consumers across the board.
“For students, really just the image based nature sort of draws people in on its own," Flesher says. "The teacher’s really like that there’s a tool that gives them guidance for college. We haven’t done extensive marketing, so it’s something we’re really focusing on a lot this year.
Flesher says in 2018, EdPlus will shift their marketing focus.
"Initially it's been partnerships with ASU, but in 2018 we’ll start to shift to see how we can start to do some targeted marketing towards various audiences."
Flesher added that this upcoming 2018 year there will be a lot of marketing ideas to help the app further market, expand, and grow.
"The first version of me3 was a website that had PDFs, and there was no way it was ever going to resonate with high school students," Flesher says. "So, we consulted with an outside company to add engagement and created an image based game. We adapted the tool so that it was applicable to ASU students. We’ve had so much progression since 2015, and want to keep it relevant and keep users engaged.”
Leah Lommel the chief operating officer for EdPlus discussed why the ASU me3 app is effective in engaging with students ranging from high school to college ages.
“I think the big thing is that ASU is continually looking for ways for people to explore their potential and recognize a path,” Lommel says. “Many times what you see in other career assessment tools is that they are very wordy ... ASU is continually looking for ways to help people prepare and look for options to get through higher education, get a degree, and recognize all their career potential.”
