Tech Design Sprint · AK Wien × CTSi
JobNav AT
Austria's employment rules are public but buried in legal language. Most of the information people need is there, just written in a way nobody can use. We built the layer that makes it readable.
01 / Challenge
The information exists. Almost nobody can reach it.
AK Wien briefed us from their Digital Worker research: complex site structures, unexplained legal terms and no guidance push people out of digital services. Hardest hit are those with limited German, limited digital literacy, or both.
Barriers
What blocks people
- Language. Not everyone reads German or English
- Legal complexity. You must know the terms to search
- Impairment. Eyesight and motion conditions
Interfaces
Where sites fail
- Screen-reader support implemented badly
- Navigation too deep to find anything
- Legal text in unbroken walls, no context
People
Who needs this
- Foreign workers arriving with a job offer
- First-time job seekers and young Austrians
- Older workers re-entering the market
Moments
When it breaks
- Applying for a permit or visa sponsorship
- Finding and filling official forms
- Registering after a sudden layoff
02 / Research
Four wrote alone, then we compared
Before agreeing on anything we each described the current experience in our own words. The overlap told us what mattered.
My board landed on the line the whole concept was built from: the people who need this are dealing with legal German on their worst day.
03 / Personas
Two users, and one we ruled out
Divina and Gerhard hit the same wall from opposite directions. Dr. Richter marks the edge: if a feature only helps him, it is out of scope.
Divina
35 · nurse from the Philippines
- Hospital job offer in Vienna. Permit must clear first
- Husband and two kids follow once she is settled
- Reads no German, limited English. Forms are German only
Gerhard
50s · laid off after 20 years
- Last job search predates every current online process
- Needs AMS registration and benefits fast to support family
- Reads German fine, but cannot parse collective agreements
Dr. Richter
Employment lawyer
- Reads statutes directly. Needs no plain-language layer
- Professional network for anything unclear
- A feature aimed at him is aimed at nobody who needs us
04 / Scenarios
Where the path breaks and what replaces it
We walked both personas through the real process. The highlighted step is where JobNav AT steps in.
Divina · arriving with a job offer
Gerhard · laid off after twenty years
Original storyboard, Scenario 1
Original storyboard, Scenario 2
05 / Solution
Stop fixing the websites. Build the layer above them.
A chat backed by a knowledge graph built only from current law and official procedure. Narrower than a general model, every answer traces back to a source.
Stage 1
MVP
- Chat interface on the web
- Local LLM over official page content
Stage 2
Demonstrator
- Knowledge graph for traceable answers
- Browser extension for on-site guidance
Stage 3
Vision
- Widget partners embed directly
- Automated content sync
From wireframe to screen:
How do I apply for a work permit as a nurse with a job offer?
LINKEASY EXPLANATION
First digital pass, sketched from the paper wireframes on day 2
Two features carried the pitch:
Easy Explanation: action steps, not prose
Form helper: fields explained in your language
06 / Reflection
What I would do next, and what it led to
Looking back, I'd push harder on the visual side. I was the only one on the team with a product design background, the other two came from business and cybersecurity, so a good part of my three days went into leading the design thinking process itself: keeping us on brief, explaining why personas and storyboards came before screens. The right call for the team, but it meant the interface still reads closer to an MVP than a finished product.
Three days bought a concept and a demo, not evidence. The personas came from expert input, not interviews, and no user ever touched the prototype. The honest next step is testing with foreign workers through AK Wien and Integrationshaus before another screen gets designed.
The sprint's chat interface also raised a question I explored in part of my master thesis research: how the structure of a conversational UI shapes what information people actually receive, and what gets quietly left out.
Full FigJam board ↗07 / Try it
Try it yourself
A working recreation of the chat and the Easy Explanation toggle. Pick a topic or type a question, then switch between standard and easy mode. The answers are scripted from the sprint prototype; the interactions are real.
Ask about working in Austria, or start with a topic.
During the sprint, a teammate had a real local model answering this exact permit question by day three. The terminal screenshot and both storyboards are in the archive below.
08 / Archive
From the sprint room
Storyboards, the working local model and the pitch deck. Click to zoom.
Full prototype, as designed on day 3:
