1. Indeed App — Redesign for good
I am a masters student (MSc in User Experience Design), at IADT (Institute of Art, Design and Technology), in Ireland.
Here my team proposes the redesign of Indeed Jobs App (Mobile). This project started on 9 of November of 2020, for Module 2 — User Research and Interaction Design.
Our team is called ‘Venus’, and the participants are Fernanda Fonseca dos Santos (myself), Rachael Kay Mellor, Elizabeth Nolan, and Ultan O’Broin.
Welcome!
Research Process
The process of research included several steps and techniques. Each team participant brought a different application to compare features and functionalities critically. Once it was done, the pros and cons were demonstrated in a meeting. As a result, we elected the job board Indeed App. The heuristic analysis (Nielsen and Molich, 1990; Nielsen 1994) methodology was used to identify usability problems in the interface. We had a total of 10 evaluators. Through their analysis, aspects such as user control, visibility of system status and consistency, and standards were particularly cited. These findings were crucial to defining our scope of studies for improvement.
We ran 3 different surveys (quantitative methodology) with a total of 170 respondents. Our surveys included rating scales, closed questions and open-ended responses.
We also conducted 4 remote moderated task-based studies, to understand job seeker users most typical behaviour to find and apply for a job.
We interviewed (qualitative methodology) 9 job seekers such as recent graduates, returning workers, international job seekers (those ones that moved to Ireland and look for opportunities here), accessibility challenges and neurodivergent users.
As defined in Sharp et al. (2019, p. 308) qualitative data is more common as words and images, while quantitative data is more commonly translated into numbers.
The task of applying for jobs was several times described as cumbersome, and do not hear back from companies as frustrating. The absence of important information about the candidature process was also described during the research process.
At the same time, we conducted a competitive analysis by comparing the biggest companies in the sector in Ireland, such as Monster, LinkedIn and Glassdoor. By doing it, we assessed what is being used in the market, how it has been evolving (favourably or not), opportunities to bring innovation, and it helped us to decide in which direction we would go, visual choices, information that is commonly exhibited in job boards, and familiar elements. As result, we created our problem statement to align and allow consensus in our team, as much as understand the change we wanted to make in our users lives:
“We want to create an easy way for users to search, find and apply for the perfect role with confidence.”
As a way of launching our brainstorming process, we used the method “How Might We…?”(HMW) to frame our ideation exercise and Jobs to be Done (JTBD). It then was translated into problems such as the hierarchy, the language and filter.
Moreover, we created personas based on the results of data aggregation from real users. It gave us a target audience to focus on. We created a total of 6 personas, divided into groups that encompassed returning workers, international job seekers, recent graduates, people with disabilities, and a corporate ladder climber. Each team participant created a standard and extreme version of these personas. Our primary persona is Zack (Figure 1), being his needs our main focus (Cooper, 2004).
Figure 1
Our empathy maps were used as artefacts to ensure that the team shared the same understanding and also to guide our decisions (Gibbons, 2018).
Customer journey (Figure 2) and Scenarios (Figure 3) were vital to show opportunities precisely at the moment they could be beneficial.
Figure 2
Customer journey as-is
Figure 3
Scenario to-be
Figure 4
It is important to highlight that the research phase never ends completely. Every stage that needs more investigation, can possibly become a reason for further research and re-structure. Having it in mind, and deadlines, we will use this way to frame, but not use strictly this order.
Reference List:
Cooper, A. (2004). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd ed.). Sams Publishing.
Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2014). About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (4th ed.). Wiley.
Gibbons, S. (2018, January 14). Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/
Sharp, H., Preece, J., & Rogers, Y. (2019). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction (5th ed.). Wiley.
