The product: JobFind is a website that helps people to find a job quickly by their online tools. Now, the company focus on helping people that are visually impaired to find a job. JobFind’ primary target users include college students and adults who have recently graduated and senior level professionals.
My role: UX Researcher leading the app and responsive website design from conception to delivery.
The problem: The strategy team at JobFind has identified this niche market. This tool will help the company to develop an expertise on creating assistive technologies for this target group.
Responsibilities: Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
The goal: Design an app that will improve and customize the job search process and help people that are visually impaired find a job.
USER RESEARCH: SUMMARY
I used JobFind’s data on job search to develop interview questions, which were then used to conduct user interviews. Most interview participants reported feeling badly about job search. The feedback received through research made it very clear that users would be open and willing to work towards optimizing job search.
USER PERSONA
Problem statement: John is a graduate who has a partial vision from one eye and he want to find a job as soon as possible because he lives by himself.
EMPATHY
Empathy Mapping helped me to better understand the user, distill information in one visual reference
, call out the key insights from research
and to easily customize research goals.
IDEATION
Ideation: I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically on JobFind can add assistive technologies throughout the job search.
DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
JobFind’s Wireframe
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the JobFind app. These designs focused on delivering personalized guidance to users to help optimize their job hunting process.
LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Low-fidelity prototype
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected the user flow of reviewing the job hunting process.
USABILITY STUDY: Findings
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Job hunting Material
People want easy access to job hunting material that specialized in each sector and industry.
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Add or Build a Resume
Uses have difficulty in re-filling in their existing resume in the platform.
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Cover Letters
People preferred clear cover letter templates for each industry and sector.
MOCKUPS
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes like providing a clear section from the home screen to browse jobs near by and apply filtering to very first step of research
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.
Accessibility considerations:
Clear labels for interactive elements that can be read by screen readers.
Initial focus of the home screen on personalized recommendations help define the primary task or action for the user.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Impact: Users shared that the app made job search seem like something they could actually help them in the job searching process. One quote from peer feedback was that “the JobFind app helps trains myself for all the phases of job hunting.”
What I learned: I learned that even though the problem I was trying to solve was a big one, diligently going through each step of the design process and aligning with specific user needs helped me come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.
NEXT STEPS
Conduct research on how successful the JobFind app is in reaching the goal to help all people find a job.
Add more features related to assistive technologies, optimize focus of the home screen on personalized recommendations help define the primary task or action for the user.