Role
Product Designer
Timeline
December 2023 - June 2024
Skills
User Research
Product Strategy
Interaction Design
Tools
Figma
LottieFiles
Brief
Designed interactive features for this project, encompassing both mobile and desktop platforms, to enhance user engagement and streamline the recruitment process for hiring managers and candidates
Project Overview
This project is a modern hiring platform that transforms the recruitment process with a swipe-based job matching system and video application submissions.
Designed to enhance user experience and engagement, the platform allows candidates to express interest in jobs seamlessly while providing hiring managers with a comprehensive view of applicants through scrollable reels.
My role as a UX/UI designer involved user research, ideation, prototyping, and collaboration for a user-centric and efficient hiring solution.
Key Objectives
Conducting a competitive analysis to get a better grip about the ecosystem of similar apps and how they operate
Enhancing user experience to create a seamless user journey
Make the hiring and job finding process more engaging for hiring managers and candidates
Design Process
Given the competitive landscape where many major competitors employ a similar premise, we undertook a thorough design process to identify areas for expansion and deliver an enhanced user experience.
01
Discover Phase
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a detailed competitive analysis and documented their flows. I Identified their strengths and weaknesses for us to adapt and expand upon
02
Design Strategy
Design Strategy
It was time to devise a design strategy for an app catering to hiring managers for job postings and talent recruitment, candidates for job searches, and an admin dashboard for app management and data collection. I structured the application into three main work areas for clarity.
1. Hiring Platform
This hiring platform is designed specifically for hiring managers providing them with the ability to post job listings, conduct talent searches, and recruit skilled individuals by reviewing candidates' short video profiles in a reel-like format.
2. Job Seeking Platform
Research indicates that the average American checks their phone approximately 262 times daily, equating to once every 5.5 minutes. Consequently, the candidate app will be launched on mobile devices, enabling users to seamlessly browse, save, and apply for jobs, as well as connect with recruiters.
3. Admin’s Platform
The admin dashboard empowers platform owners, specifically administrators, to monitor analytics and take necessary actions based on reports, suggestions, and other relevant data.
03
User Research
User Research
I gathered a group of diverse volunteers, including people who want to look for a job and people who hire for their own jobs.
Qualitative Research
I asked our users a few open ended questions so we can understand and build more empathy towards them.
How has the job seeking process going for you? If you already have a job, how did it went when you started looking for it?
“It’s so intimidating, when I look at the qualifications for a job I just end up never applying to them”
“I don’t usually have the time to write cover letters or so. Luckily I was approached by a recruiter”
“It’s kinda jarring honestly... You never know if your application might make it to review before someone else is selected”
“From my experience, networking is much better than applying to jobs from the posts. Reaching out to the HR’s and casually starting the convo immediately makes you stand out”
“Pretty smooth, applied for jobs, cleared an interview and started working”
“I believe the accounts with more active posts and all get noticed better, which wasn’t the case with me. I couldn’t really express myself better in the cover letter and since my account was inactive the HR’s just brushed past me”
How has the recruitment process been for you when you were hiring people for your firm?
“I usually go to job fairs in universities to physically conduct interviews and get to know them better. I believe it’s harder to shortlist people based on a CV”
“Look for active people on Linkedin, who post about their projects and all. You know they’re passionate”
“Lots of people tend to apply to our job posts. They do get shortlisted based on they’re resumes but don’t show the enthusiasm when they get recruited”
“We hire people remotely so they only have to clear a test to work. If they produce good results, we grant them permanent position”
Presenting our idea
Within a limited timeframe, I developed a basic paper prototype to validate the core concept of our idea. I simulated the candidate's app interface, including the job-swiping feature, using paper cards.
“This is fun! I never thought I’d actually have fun browsing jobs ”
“It seems great on paper but I doubt I’d be ready to record a video on the go just like that. I’d rather save the jobs for later”
“It’s quite unique, I believe this can make the job hunting process quite fun for young individuals! ”
“It’s like another social media app! Easy to get addicted to and forget I’m on a very serious platform that’s deciding where I end up working.”
Quantitative Research
Alongside open ended questions I also conducted surveys to get a grasp at factual data.
How many Jobs do you apply to when looking for a specific job?
1-5
11-20
6-10
20+
Are you active on LinkedIn or any other similar platform?
Yes
No
How often do you get updates about your application in process?
Often
Not Often
How many jobs have you published in the past month?
1-5
11-20
6-10
20+
How many successful conversions did you get from that job post?
1-5
11-20
6-10
20+
Are you satisfied with the individuals you hire?
Yes
No
04
Persona
Persona
Once we had our data, it was time to create personas representing the vast types of people that tested our app
Eddie
Student
18
"Passion fuels
success!"
BIO
Eddie is a Gen Z student in his final year of high school. He is a dedicated sports enthusiast, particularly passionate about Rugby, and is eager to find a part-time job to gain experience and support his education.
PAIN POINTS
Limited work experience due to being a student.
Finding job opportunities that align with his interests and schedule.
Lack of visibility into available jobs suitable for students with sports commitments.
GOALS
Secure a part-time job that allows flexibility for sports activities.
Gain valuable work experience to enhance future career prospects.
Connect with employers who value his skills and passion for sports.
Jane
HR Manager
25
"Efficiency is key in talent acquisition!"
BIO
Jane is a busy professional managing recruitment for her company. She values efficiency and seeks streamlined processes to quickly assess and hire suitable candidates for various job roles.
PAIN POINTS
Time constraints when reviewing numerous job applications.
Difficulty in gauging candidates' personalities and fit for the company culture through traditional resumes.
Need for a user-friendly platform to manage and track applicant information effectively.
GOALS
Identify top candidates efficiently based on relevant skills and qualifications.
Gain insights into candidates' personalities and potential cultural fit early in the hiring process.
Utilize a platform that offers intuitive features for streamlined recruitment workflows.
05
Empathy Maps
Empathy Maps
From our user personas, we created these empathy maps to better empathize with our users and provide them the best of the experience
06
Define Phase
Candidate’s Userflow
06
Define Phase
Hiring Manager’s Userflow
07
Define Phase
Candidate’s Information Architecture
07
Define Phase
Hiring Manager’s Information Architecture
08
Design Phase
Low Fidelity Wireframes
After our information architecture was finalized, I started with lo-fi wireframing. During this process, I sketched out a variety of rough designs to see which one would work best for our app. It helped me have options and evaluate those options to finalize which design we should opt for that presents a complete solution to our problems.
09
Design Phase
Design System
After the Mid-fi wireframes were done, it was time we finalized our design system. Hence I derived:
Color Styles
Typography
Iconography
Color Styles
I collaborated with my design lead to choose color for the design system. We chose our main colors after an extensive research and trial and error. This is the resultant color palette and from these we derived different shades of our color styles
Typography
Gilroy
regular
medium
semibold
bold
Iconography
These icons were sourced from Iconsax Library by Farhan Ullah on Figma. I added some extra tweaks to it i.e. each icon was supposed to be in a 24x24 px format and the layout of the icon should be 18x18 px having a minimum of 3px spacing. This was done to give extra padding to an icon so where ever its placed it does not touches the walls/bounds.
Linear Icons
Filled Icons
Integration Icons
Final Screens
01
WALKTHROUGH
02
Main Feed
03
Swiping Job Cards
04
Explore
05
Profile
06
Result Screen
Testing
Once I finished with the prototyping, I created an interactive prototype and had it tested by volunteer users within our target demographic. The participants found the design intuitive and easy to navigate about. Alongside testing from user, we also created design documentation as well for the devs to understand different states and local variables we used. We gathered some useful insights from users + the devs.
Feature Ideas
Candidate to add projects, or record and post reels
Hiring mgrs to post job offers as reels to get more engagement
Joinable community and groups
Option to connect or follow other users/pages/companies
Tools Accessibility
Evaluating the heatmap of the screens and assessing better layout strategies to bring the user to the complete experience of our app
Having Fun!
As users expressed in the beginning, the swiping jobs feature is really the selling point for this app. It reaffirmed that the users love this feature!
Design System
Update
Along the way we got various insights about where our design system was lacking regarding local variables and could use a bit of improvement. So we can look into that in the future.
My Learning
This was my first project working on a platform which had a web app as well as a mobile app so I learnt how to translate the same design language across different platforms.
We also gained some important insights regarding design systems, specifically local variables, semantic tokens and number tokens. We plan to strengthen our design system by our new found insights.
Another important thing we learnt was managing our files. Since Figma files tend to get too heavy with a complete project with a huuuge number of screens and components, even with design system file and main screens file separated. So we plan to create separate files for UX research, workspaces, in review, ready for dev and discarded files.
