Background
For this project, I have decided to run a 5 day shorten Design Sprint with a developer to enhance the recruiting process in the perspective of job seekers.
What is a design sprint?
Before digging deep into a project, a design sprint is a five-day (Typically) iterative process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, testing ideas with customers. This concept has been developed by team at Google Ventures (GV) calling it their “greatest hits” for business strategy, innovation, behavior science, and design thinking. A design sprint is a time-constrained, being divided into five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market.
Design Sprint process
My Role
I have been responsible for facilitating the design sprint and manage the development work. Leading the end-to-end design process such as conducting research, user interviews, wireframing, low and high fidelity prototypes, and usability testing.
Timeline
5 Days
Problem
The recruiting process is all about trust and credibility and one best way that can be obtained is through transparency. However, when it comes to the perspective of the job seekers, that is often overlooked. In most cases, job seekers are unaware what hiring step they are on and don’t even get a single response to the companies they applied for.
Solution/Product
For this design sprint, I wanted to tackle this problem by improving the experience of the job application process by being able to inform job seekers on what hiring step they are on. So this product has been called Step Up, a job application tracker where we help make it accessible for job seekers to understand where they are located in the hiring process.
Day 1 - Map
User Interview / Key Takeaways
The first step in the design process for Step Up was to better understand the problem at hand, this was done through user interviews to better empathize their job application process.
“It’s annoying whenever you apply for a job and finish writing up a personalize cover letter, they just go completely ghost on you and don’t even reject you”
“I applied for over 200 jobs and being able to keep track of all of them can be difficult and there was even a time I got a call back from a job that I forgot I applied for”
“I just wish recruiters and companies can be more transparent whether you got the job or not.”
Persona
Based on the user interviews, I have established a user persona to have a clear representation of who I will be designing the solution for and to guide me on my design decision.
User Flow
I was able to create a preliminary end-to-end user experience for what can be delivered as a minimal viable product (MVP)
Day 2 - Sketch
Competition
The direction of this design became clearer after going through process of user interviews and defining the user flow. The idea of tracking an individual’s hiring step isn’t new, so for my next steps I have looked at 2 companies that have the users have mentioned in the user interview phase that they personally use to keep track of their jobs.
Trello
Huntr
Ideas From Competitors
After conducting a solo lightning demo by viewing the competitors and getting inspiration from existing platforms.
Pre-defined hiring steps
With already created hiring step templates, Michelle can now focus on her goals and applying for jobs.
Automated job tracking
With automated job tracking, Michelle can know what hiring step she is located on for a company that she applied for.
Crazy 8's
With the help of Crazy 8’s exercise, I was able to get my ideas down on paper on how the critical screen will be represented. The screen that has been created represents the page where users will be able to see their hiring steps. I have posted a red dot on the screen I plan on implementing my designs.
Solution Sketch
With the critical screen decided from the Crazy 8’s sketch, I have created a solution sketch to demonstrate the screens that the shopper would go through before and after the critical screen.
Previous Screen
Critical Screen
After Screen
Day 3 - Decide
Storyboard
Based on the lightning demos and solution sketches, I have created 5 rough sketches of screens to complete the end-to-end user experience and sorted them into a storyboard. Keeping in mind the user persona and the key takeaways of having a centralized platform for tracking all jobs automatically. I knew that the website I am creating should be able to integrate with Indeed, LinkedIn, and other job posting.
Day 4 - Prototype
Prototype (Version 1)
For the 4th day, I have spent the whole day dedicated to creating high-fidelity prototypes. By being to aggregate the sketches, storyboard, user flow, and information I was able to obtain from competitors and interviews. This has aided me in my process of making my design decisions as well as functionality.
Day 5 - Test
Usability Test
With the prototype in place, it was time to start testing it with users. The 3 features I have tested are:
New User Onboarding
Connecting Indeed account feature
Job tracking features
Test Key Takeaway
New user onboarding
The users were not sure on what they will need to do next and how they plan on accomplishing it.
Connecting Indeed account feature
The user was not aware that they had to connect to their Indeed or LinkedIn account.
Job tracking features
The user did not like the fact that they did not have control in being able to edit their own hiring step and adding more information.
Design Changes
Based on the results of the usability test, I have made design changes in order to combat the friction the participants have gone through when doing their tasks.
Design Changes #1
Dedicated page to onboard new users
Users were unaware that they had to sync with their Indeed / LinkedIn account. In order to combat this, a new user will be redirected to a dedicated page where they will need to connect with their Indeed / LinkedIn account.
Design Changes #2
Increase exposure to connect to Indeed
User were unaware of the top banner to connect their Indeed account so a color change and providing a dedicated section can help user recognize the message.
Reformat layout and display more jobs
The main goal for users is to apply for many jobs as they can, displaying more jobs to users can incentives them to start applying.
Design Changes #3
Reformat layout and enable editing feature
Reformat layout and enable editing featureThe layout has been reformatted so that it can accommodate for easier views on more jobs and user should be able to add/edit/delete their job’s status.
Rejected jobs bucket
A separate space for all rejected jobs to help users better organize their jobs.
Removed Job Tips
Prototype Version 2
Retrospective
Dedicated experience
In my first iteration, the onboarding experience was to let the user sign-in their Indeed or LinkedIn account, however, in most cases the user were not aware that this was something they needed to do, since there were so much content. So creating a dedicated experience for user to complete a specific task was crucial.
The Power of Color
When trying to emphasize a notification or a new feature, using a color that really stand out can help guide the users notice the message/content