Solution
This UX case I want to show is my project exam from Noroff.
We worked well as a team all the way.
We were tasked to develop a solution to help people struggling to find suitable work and explore the job search process for two target groups: Full-time or part-time students and digital nomads (freelancers). From the brief, we read that both these groups can experience challenges finding work when they need it. At the same time, employers struggle to find suitable resources at short notice. The world is also evolving, and digital tools and systems are developing extremely fast, making us more digital than ever. This growth also affects the labor market, where the term Gig Economy has occurred.
We worked well as a team all the way.
We were tasked to develop a solution to help people struggling to find suitable work and explore the job search process for two target groups: Full-time or part-time students and digital nomads (freelancers). From the brief, we read that both these groups can experience challenges finding work when they need it. At the same time, employers struggle to find suitable resources at short notice. The world is also evolving, and digital tools and systems are developing extremely fast, making us more digital than ever. This growth also affects the labor market, where the term Gig Economy has occurred.
Different companies and industries can hire or rent resources remotely, and people do not necessarily have to meet up at work in person to complete the job. We have followed The Design Thinking Process throughout our assignment when developing a solution where we have focused on how we can help those who have challenges finding work, but also how the digital world is changing our ways of thinking and interacting with each other.
My role
My role as a UX designer is to collaborate well, be involved and supportive, take responsibility for the tasks that are my responsibility, and think of user-centered design throughout the design thinking process.
Other responsibilities are:
-Researching
-Problem-solving
-Ideation
-Data analysis
-Defining
-Personas
-User scenario
-Brainstorming
-Mind mapping
-Information Architecture
-User flow
-Wireframing
-Wireflow
-Usability test
Timeline
May 2023 - september 2023
Tools
- Figma
-FigJam
-Airtable
-Google collaboration tools
Problem statement
To address the challenges faced by less experienced individuals in finding suitable work and employers in finding the right employees, we can explore a solution that focuses on connecting these two groups more closely in a quick and effortless way. This approach aims to bring awareness to each group's challenges and create mutually beneficial outcomes.
Design thinking process
The design thinking process crunches down all the details to tangible milestones. This is how we pursue data-driven decisions from the beginning to the end, and this technique can provide excellent designs in the future. As a UX designer, you have tremendous power and influence to implement this methodology in a development environment. We are our users' lawyers where we need to ensure that everyone actually understands the users’ goals and pains. If no one tells their story – how can we develop awesome products for the ones who will use them?
Empathise
Project planning
We discussed the project plan quite thoroughly, discussed the criteria and distributed the weeks to see if our milestones in every design thinking phase were possible. By doing this as a collaboration exercise, we managed to discuss potential rabbit holes or challenges and engage every one of us to understand small and significant goals and what this project will demand from us as a team.
Research Goal workshop
We determined our goals and questions at this stage with a workshop together. First, we came up with research questions separately before collaborating to tweak and refine the best questions. We did this step by step and ensured that we discussed all the aspects of what we wanted to learn in the beginning.
View the picture here to see some of the workshops we did to agree on a research goal.
Research goal
To create a useful solution to help students and freelancers to find flexible work in their area, we first have to understand who they are and what needs they have.
Research questions
Research plan
Research methods
Primary research
We chose interview and survey to be our primary research method. Those two are both descriptive methods and can provide us with answering all of our research questions. Also, those methods develop our empathise levels while we listen and read through real people’s thoughts and opinions. Our goal was to receive 100 responses in total for our survey and interviewing 8 participants (both students, freelancers and employers).
Secondary research
As our secondary methods we found that literature review and competitive analysis would be beneficial considering the brief and what to explore. We started with literature review in the beginning to simply understand the brief/problem and also to explore the gig economy more. During the research process we found more interesting literature that guided our interview and survey scripts that could help us finding answers literature reviews did not do. In the middle of the ideate phase we also conducted a competitive analysis, that we will elaborate more later in our presentation.
Data analysis
By using three different kinds of research methods, we managed to collect 272 facts. After analysing these facts using affinity mapping, we found 21 insights, eventually becoming 3 recommendations. The What (132 facts) and the How (76 facts)-questions were beneficial in providing good answers from all the research methods.
Define
Empathize workshop
After we were done with conducting the research methods, we had a workshop with empathy mapping so we could empathize more with the persona and create it as detailed as possible. Both primary and secondary personas will give us a broad understanding of users' personalities, motivations, frustrations, and goals.
Personas
Primary
User scenario
Secondary
User scenario
Defining problem statement
After we finished the work with personas and their contextual scenarios, we started a workshop to define our problem statement. We used several angles like The Four W’s, Point of View and The Five Whys to come up with the best one. By producing suggestions by ourselves first and combining them in several rounds, we finally were confident that we had a good standing point for starting with the following process of producing How might we - questions.
Problem statement
To address the challenges faced by less experienced individuals in finding suitable work and employers in finding the right employees, we can explore a solution that focuses on connecting these two groups more closely in a quick and effortless way. This approach aims to bring awareness to each group's challenges and create mutually beneficial outcomes.
Ideate
Ideation workshop
The goal for this workshop was to produce at least 15 ideas during brainstorming with the help of all our best How might we-questions from previous stage. We discussed our suggestions in plenum and executed a dot voting. During the brainstorming we saw that several of our ideas could be merged or complement each other and together make a good starting point for a solution.
We chose brainstorming and mindmapping as our ideation techniques because they are great collaboration tools. They can be effective during a workshop since we get forced to open our minds, but also let us discuss sustainability together using divergent and convergent thinking.
Mind mapping
Concept
aSpire
Finding work for a rookie can be difficult, time-consuming and frustrating. You don't have the skills or the experience. But you got your personality.
The aSpire is an app that aims to simplify the job search process for less experienced people. This is an easy matching-solution for rookies and employers, where mutual personality and values are the driving force for hiring.
Once the rookie has a match with a company, a video meeting takes place and a personal connection is made – a unique opportunity for the rookies to get a job based on who they are.
Our solution will help the rookies expand their possibilities in a difficult labour market but also help the employers find people they would not have found through traditional methods.
Herb Kelleher (one of the co-founders of Southwest Airlines) once said, “Hire for attitude, train for skills!”.
Personal capability and motivation should have the most focus somewhere, and we believe that in our solution we can fulfill a hole in the market. With aSpire we can connect employees and employers on a set of terms that probably will let them see that they can help each other out – without spending a lot of time on it either.
Choice of name
The name aSpire comes from a combination of aspire (The hopes or ambitions towards achieving something), Spire (Sprout from Old english and Norwegian language) But also Spire which is something that points to the sky.
Vision statement
"To help people throughout the job search process by focusing on the value of their personality”
Core features
At this point our solution had up to three core features we wanted to explore further.
1. A matchmaking system using an algorithm for both the employee and the employer (companies) that will let them find correct candidates based on personality tests. The employees and companies need to take the personality tests for finding the best matches for each other.
2. When reaching out to each other, they will have the possibility to make short remote video meetings where the employees have the chance to connect and present themselves to future employers.
3. A database where employers can broadcast their need for workers or announce available jobs.
Competitive research
To make us more confident about the ideas that accommodated future users, we collected a SWOT analysis amongst competitors and other solutions in the market. We needed to be more aware of what already existed out there and what we should do or don't regarding the ideas we had on the table.
Our most exciting finding by executing the SWOT analysis was that several solutions are extensive and confusing. They wish to meet all sorts of needs and manage many different functionality. Another aspect was the focus on skills and competence, which is the opposite direction our solution will go.
Our conclusion on this point was that there is a need for a solution that can provide less experienced people with a chance in the labour market.
Swot
Requirements
At the end of the research stage and after conducting a competitive analysis, we gathered requirements to understand the user's needs. This was an excellent way to start getting an overview of the functionalities of the app we are creating.
We have iterated on the requirements along the way as we did our usability tests and gathered meaningful insights.
Here are some of the requirements.
Early sketching
After finishing the requirements, we started with early sketching to start ideating and communicating our design thoughts to each other. Doing it this way makes it easier for us to explain ideas and iterate on them further.
Information architecture
We did an information architecture to create a logical navigation structure that will help users find what they are looking for without getting confused or frustrated. It helps us structure and organize the research content and the requirements in a clear and concise way.
User flow
We made a user flow to show users' logical paths to explore our app. It maps out the user's entire experience, from the initial access point to the last interaction, detailing each touchpoint along the way. This can also help us show the result of their actions and identify and fix problems we may have before the next step.
Norman’s Three Levels of Design
When using Norman's Three Levels of Design we discussed the emotional aspect of our product at an early stage. We had to make this app appeal to our users on several levels. We did not need to decide what kind of specific design element or colour at this point, but establishing some overall principles regarding the visceral, behavioural and reflective design made it easier for us as a team to determine our design choices before developing wireframes.
Prototype
Low-fidelity wireframes
Developing low-fidelity wireframes is really beneficial for collaboration. It forced the team to think fast and not spend a lot of time focusing on details that will become a thing we will work on later in the process anyway. The flows and structure were our focus areas when developing low-fidelity wireframes.
Task & wire flows
Definition:
Wireflows are a design-specification format that combines wireframe-style page layout designs with a simplified flowchart-like way of representing interactions. NN/g Nielsen Norman Group
Wire flows can help a team collaborate better and make us all understand the navigation and interaction in a product. We focused on making task-based wire flows to keep track of test candidates' interactions during our first test session.
Usability test first round
Planning the usability test
We decided to do formative research which collects qualitative data to seek improvements of the early stages of a design. Our design needed both attitudinal and behavioural research about what participants said, thought and communicated while they tested the prototype. The test was conducted as moderated remote sessions, but with a semi-script. This mean that we had some questions we had to ask, but if the participants told us something interesting, we went away from the script to explore further.
Recuitment process
We reached out to people from the survey who had agreed we could contact them later in the process, but also recruited people from our network that met our criterias. The participants for this test needed to be or have been in a job search process the last year. They had to be in the age of 18-50 years old based on the demographics from the previous survey we conducted.
Conducting the test
As in previous usability tests, we agreed that the facilitator needed to be non-judgemental and neutral. It was important that all of us in the test sessions actively listened and took notes for later use. Our experience is that these notes can come in handy when describing facial expressions and body language where it is possible.
Data analysis
The findings was once again tremendous! Our analysis in the affinity mapping needed four rounds of sorting before we felt confident regarding the overview and pattern we needed to start with the insights.
Our goal was to collect both quantitative and qualitative feedback. In this table you can see our quantitative data and if you click on the link, it will take you to affinity mapping, where the qualitative findings with insights and the recommendations for our next step are.
Next steps
Now that we had some improvements to deal with, we started our transition from low to mid-fidelity wireframes. It was too soon to jump into high-fidelity already. We needed some discussions before delving into every page's details. After a couple of rounds of figuring out how to solve what our participants highlighted, we slowly changed our wireframes with more details.
Since we already knew that we should have one more round of testing, we agreed to conduct the last test on a high-fidelity prototype. But before we started on the high-fidelity level, we established more design choices regarding details on a mid-fidelity level. Choices regarding some of our colours, text, labels, design elements and other information arose in our mid-fidelity wireframes.
Prototype
High-fidelity wireframes and Prototype
After we agreed and finished with the mid-fidelity wireframes, we iterated it further to high-fidelity wireframes. The design choices we agreed on together based on the first test. And now, we will do a new test on this level to get some idea of our next step.
To maintain a consistent design and ensure efficiency during design iterations and development of the concept aSpire, we built a design system for internal use. This will be our Bible to keep the design simple and understandable for our users and those who will continue working on our solution, like developers and other designers. We have listed up accessibility - and UX interactive design principles in our design system.
Usability test second round
Planning the usability test
We agreed on executing a new round of formative research, and collecting both quantitative and qualitative data to analyse. The test was executed remotely and with a script to ensure that every participant gave us feedback based on the same starting point.
When you make a whole new product like aSpire, there are a lot you can test between iterations. Designers need to prioritise what to test, and it can be challenging to define a concrete goal with a big enough scope and clarify metrics that give comparable results at the right time in the project phase. Therefore, in the second test, we focused on usability issues and received general feedback on the concept’s sustainability and value for the users.
In general, our script was different from the last one. Now, we wanted participants to figure out the most part by adding enough details to make a move on how to accomplish the goal of the scenario. Hopefully, the elements in our high-fidelity prototype were self-explanatory.
Therefore, this was our first test where we included the completion rate metric to have something to compare with in the future.
Also, the last test lacked feedback on several areas of the app, so we decided that the final task in the second test was to explore the app in general. The feedback from this test helped us discover several improvement points that can be a basis for comparison for future iterations.
Recruitment process
We did use some of the same persons from previous tests. It was interesting to collect insights from people who have already seen some parts of the solution. Our screening was the same as the last test. They needed to be or have been in a job search process the previous year and could be between 18 – 50 years old. Being in a job search process can affect people of different ages, and therefore, we still wanted to test the solution on several age groups. We managed to recruit two in their 20s, two in their 30s and 1 in their 40s
Conducting the test
Before the test sessions could start we talked about how to act during remote meetings with participants. Also this time we needed to ensure that we had some clear guidance about being non-judgemental and neutral. At this point we have worked so much with the solution and got a bit blind regarding issues and design so it was important that participants understood that we are not afraid of their honest opinions.
The pilot test in the first test went perfectly and we chose to include data from this because there were many valuable facts which we felt were worth including from this candidate. The same applied to the pilot test in the last test round, it went well apart from a couple of small prototype errors that we chose to fix as soon as possible.
Data analysis
We managed to collect 14 insights and 9 recommendations from the test sessions. The analysis was made with the use of affinity mapping for both quantitative and qualitative data.
Based on the previous satisfaction score, we still have a high satisfaction rate during tests. Which also means the high-fidelity level on the prototype also deliver a positive experience to test candidates.
Regarding completion rate, this was the first time we included a completion metric. No one of the test participants failed executing their tasks, but we saw some indications about questioning “What happens if a click this button?” and “What happens next?”. Those discoveries are included in our qualitative insights in our affinity mapping.
To view the insights and recommendations, click the link under the picture.
We had some interesting quotes from the participants.
Improvements
Here are our recommendations on how to proceed further in this project.
1. Stakeholders should decide on what to iterate on in our proposed recommendations from the last test. Those are listed in previous pages.
2. Implement more testing on accessibility. We are well on our way regarding the contrast between shape and colour, sizes, language and navigation. It will benefit both the users and the solution if we focus more on accessibility. A straw test can be a good start to check that the most critical information is visible to those who have to enlarge their screens.
3. To make the solution even more robust and sustainable, consider making aSpire operable with SmartWatches. A smartwatch is an extension of the phone device to keep track of important notifications and give reminders on the go. It can help users remember meetings and alert them if new jobs are available.
4. We know too little about how employers will think about this product and suggest more research in this area. A hypothesis could be that they expect the product to have a web version if this is the device they use most at work.
5. Regarding the job search process after the meeting, we also need to do more research and explore what else we can do so that both employer and employee can streamline their processes if you are looking for people or jobs.
6. Messages, overview of all companies, more control over rejections and completed meetings will be features to look at in the future. Today, our solution is leaning too much on notifications; this will be chaotic over time, and we believe our users will lose the overview they probably will need after using this app for a longer period.
7. Find investors and start recruiting developers, testers and a business strategist - release the gentle giant!
Coclusion
Undoubtedly, having little experience or being a recent graduate of the labor market can be challenging. We need more focus on personality and less on competence when looking for a job. The market needs a product to help employers and employees with this problem. In this study case, the main focus was on the employee; this could be just the beginning of such a solution, and the participants were very positive about having an app like this to find a job. More research is still needed to determine how it works best for employers and employees.
We worked well as a group through the entire project.
Feel free to view my teammate's portfolio here:
Feel free to view my teammate's portfolio here:
Thank you
for your attention!
