85Kworker gap
BC needs 85,000 new skilled trades workers by 2030
Built to turn a broken system into a clear path forward.
RoleLead UI/UX Designer
Team8 Members Cross-Functional
DurationSep - Dec 2025
FocusUI/UX Case Study
[ Objective ]
The path to Red Seal shouldn't feel like a maze.
British Columbia is facing a serious skilled trades shortage, and the problem isn't a lack of willing workers. It's that the system built to guide them was never designed with people in mind. Aspiring tradespeople are met with scattered government PDFs, outdated ITA BC pages, and no clear indication of where to even begin. The information exists but it's buried, fragmented, and overwhelming.
By the time someone figures out what they actually need to do, many have already given up. The numbers reflect that.
70%drop-off
Female apprentices who never reach certification
6Khours
Hours of work required to reach Red Seal certification
Panday was built to fix this. Not by reinventing the trades system, but by bringing all the relevant information into one place and giving students a clear visual roadmap from wherever they are today, all the way to their Red Seal.
[ Research ]
The problem wasn't a lack of information. It was that nobody could tell you where to start.
I surveyed trades students and apprentices to understand what that experience actually looked like.
Without anyone to guide them through the system, three problems kept coming up.
Too much, too scattered
The information is out there, but it's spread across government PDFs, outdated ITA pages, and forums with no clear hierarchy. There's no single place to start and no way to know what actually applies to you.
No clear path forward
The guidance that exists treats everyone the same. It doesn't account for where you're coming from, your entry point, your background, or how far along you already are. It's generic advice for a journey that isn't generic.
No signal between steps
Even when someone figures out what to do first, the next step isn't obvious. There's nothing connecting one requirement to the next. Every transition from one level to the next is a guess.
The system wasn't broken because the information was missing. It was broken because nothing connected it together. No structure, no starting point, no way to know what came next. And for thousands of apprentices in BC, that gap was the difference between finishing and giving up.
[ Ideation ]
The problem wasn't too much information. It was that none of it had any shape.
Everything felt equally urgent and equally confusing. There was no clear starting point and no way to tell what actually mattered.
Then something clicked.
In video games, you never face the final boss first. The game builds you up to it. Level by level, checkpoint by checkpoint. You always know where you are and what comes next.
That's what the trades path was missing.
Red Seal is the final boss. Levels 1 through 4 are the stages to get there. And within each stage, three types of nodes give every requirement, obstacle, and next step its own place on the map.
[ Tri-Node Ecosystem ]
Three node types. One clear system.
Once the level structure was in place, the next question was what actually lives inside each level.
The trades journey isn't one type of thing. There are resources to work through, obstacles that might slow you down, and actions that move you forward. Treating them all the same way would bring back the exact problem we were trying to solve.
So every milestone on the roadmap gets categorized into one of three node types. Each one has its own color, its own purpose, and its own place in the journey.
Resources
These are your foundation. Before you can move forward, you need to know what you're working with.
- Study guides, technical manuals, and government forms relevant to your current level
- Work through a checklist as you go
- The node fills up visually as you check items off, so your progress is always visible on the canvas
Actions
These are your next steps. No ambiguity, no reading between the lines.
- Specific tasks that need to happen to move from one level to the next
- Each action is ordered so you always know what to do first
- Check them off as you complete them and watch the node fill up as you move closer to the next level
Roadblocks
These are the obstacles that catch most apprentices off guard. Panday surfaces them before they happen.
- Common industry hurdles like seasonal layoffs, exam anxiety, or re-entry after a break
- Each roadblock comes with a contingency plan so you know what to do if it hits
- Work through the checklist and track your preparedness the same way as every other node
[ Roadmap ]
This is where it all comes together.
The roadmap is the core of Panday. A visual canvas that shows you exactly where you are, what needs to happen next, and how far you've already come. Every node from every level sits in front of you in one place, organized by stage and color coded by type.
No more digging through pages. No more guessing what comes next. Just a clear path from where you are today to your Red Seal.
Track your progress as you go
Every node has a built in checklist. As you work through each item and check it off, the progress bar fills up and you can see exactly how far along you are. No separate tracker, no spreadsheet. Your progress lives directly on the canvas.
Ask anything, get answers grounded in the source
The AI assistant lives alongside your roadmap. Ask it anything about your journey, requirements, or next steps and it pulls answers directly from official ITA BC and government sources. No searching through PDFs, no second guessing whether the information is accurate.
[ Design System ]
Color isn't decoration here. It's how the system speaks. Every color in Panday was chosen with intention, directly tied to the trades world and the node system it powers. When you're navigating something this complex, color shouldn't make you think. It should already tell you what you're looking at and what to do with it.
#0077CC
Blueprint Blue
Represents trust, intelligence, and stability. The same thinking behind an architectural blueprint. When you see blue, you know you're looking at the information and materials you need to study and work through at your current level.
#FE5000
Construction Orange
High visibility and high energy, just like the safety gear worn on every job site. Orange marks the obstacles and challenges you might face along the way, surfacing them early so you can prepare before they slow you down.
#00A36C
Tradesman Green
A deep, confident green that signals growth and forward movement. Green marks the specific steps and tasks that need to happen to move from one level to the next. When you see green, you know exactly what needs to be done.
[ Retrospective ]
The hardest part wasn't building the system. It was making something genuinely complex feel simple enough.
Clarity Over Complexity
The temptation was to represent all the complexity faithfully. But that was exactly the problem we were solving. Every decision became a question of what to take away, not what to add.
Designing for Real People
We started by talking to trades students to find the problem. We ended by putting the live product in front of those same people. Seeing someone open the roadmap and immediately know where they were without any instructions was the moment it all clicked.
A Foundation, Not a Finish Line
Panday launched with electricians but the system was built to grow. Plumbers, welders, HVAC technicians, carpenters. The same framework applies to every trade. What started as a 15 week project has a lot further to go.