CodeGorilla Academy: one calm place for people on their way to a job in IT
CodeGorilla trains career switchers to become IT professionals, often people who have been out of work for a long time. Together we built codegorilla.academy: one place where a participant sees what needs to happen today, and where coaches notice in time when things are not going well.
The challenge: everything in one place, without it getting busy
CodeGorilla in Groningen and Utrecht guides people towards a job in IT. Participants often receive benefits from the UWV or their municipality, have been out of work for a long time, and some of them have autism or ADHD. For this group a busy screen with ten notifications is not a small thing. It is a reason to drop out.
They needed one clear place with everything in it: what to do today, their lessons, their appointments and their job applications. Coaches wanted to see in time when things are not going well. And the UWV and municipalities ask for reports. A standard learning platform does not cover that.
Lessons, calendar, check-ins and job applications lived in different places. That is a lot for someone who is just getting started again.
A participant who gets stuck is noticed late. And reports for the UWV and municipalities cost coaches a lot of digging.
One calm environment per participant, with visibility for coaches and reports that come out of it by themselves.
The approach: think it through together, build in sprints, adjust
We did not build the platform from a list of requirements collected once. The CodeGorilla team used it themselves after every sprint, and their feedback decided what we built next.
Brainstorm
Around the table with CodeGorilla: who is it for, what do they need to be able to do and what should each role see? A participant sees something different from a coach, a buddy or an admin.
Sharpen the brief
Together we wrote a clear description of what the platform had to do, in CodeGorilla's language and house style. Calm was a requirement, not an extra: one next step per screen, plain language and a focus button that hides everything except your current task.
Build in sprints
Short rounds. After every sprint the CodeGorilla team worked in the platform themselves and told us what did not feel right.
Adjust
That feedback went into the next sprint. That is how applying for jobs became simpler: a vacancy tracker your coach can follow, and ready-made prompts participants paste into their own AI to improve their CV and cover letter.
A look inside codegorilla.academy
All names and data on these screens are fictional. Real participant data never appears on screen.
codegorilla.academy is every participant's personal learning environment: onboarding, the Change Agent programme, the calendar, lessons per development track, downloads and job applications. A participant starts the day with a short check-in and then sees one next step.
Coaches and admins follow progress and get a signal when someone is dropping off. They create reports for the UWV and municipalities in the platform, only with the participant's consent and never with private content. CodeGorilla keeps developing the platform together with Empathree.
If you build for people who get overstimulated easily, calm is not an extra. It is the feature. And you only know how calm something feels once the people who use it have tried it themselves.
“Empathree thought along with us, built in sprints and listened to our feedback after every round. Now we have a product we work with every day, and the quality of our service has actually improved!”
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