UX Case Study: JobHunt
Timeline
September 2024 - December 2024
Design Method
Lean UX / Agile Scrum
Role
Lead UX Designer
Tools
Figma, FigJam
Overview
Through my time as a student and rising professional I have witnessed and experienced personal frustrations with existing job search applications, such as tedious and error prone application processes. Additionally, I recognize the feelings of fatigue and discouragement associated with the process.
Following the Lean UX process, I led a team of three designers from idea conception to a realized prototype called JobHunt.
The Problem
It is mentally tasking to fill out tedious applications, keep track of every application you’ve submitted, and discover networking opportunities all while remaining engaged and motivated in the process.
Our Solution
JobHunt is a website designed to streamline the job search and application process while addressing the mental challenges users often face such as stress, anxiety, and cognitive overload that hinder the search process.
Methodology
However, these pain points are simply hypotheses of what we thought users would need. This is where Lean UX -- a design approach that emphasizes collaboration, continuous experimentation, and testing becomes essential to the development of a user-centered job search platform.
Lean UX is a framework that forces designers to rely heavily on assumptions instead of extensive user research. To assist us in this process we utilized a Lean UX canvas on FigJam, a collaborative tool designed to help our team align on the project's goals, assumptions, and hypotheses in a structured way, while emphasizing user-centered design and experimentation.
As a group, we moved through the steps provided on the canvas to brainstorm what we all assume to be difficulties in the market, who we expect to target, and how we will solve their problems.
Sprint 1, Design Week 0
The Lean UX Canvas is comprised of 8 boxes to move through as a team before creating our feature backlog. In step one, our team participated in an affinity mapping exercise to narrow down the focus of our project. From this exercise, we created what is called a New Product Problem Statement for our hypothetical stakeholders that addresses our target audience, the gap in the market, how we plan to solve this gap, and what measurable outcomes will show that we have solved it.
After aligning user and business goals, we developed three personas to represent early, mid, and late-career professionals, reflecting the diverse range of our target audience. These fictional yet realistic profiles helped us hypothesize user goals, pain points, and how they might differ, enabling the team to empathize by putting a name and face to our users' needs.
In box 5, the team used affinity mapping to brainstorm potential features, identifying recurring ideas among individual contributions to prioritize for implementation.
After identifying user goals and how to support them, we created a hypothesis table to align business outcomes with personas and their goals, guiding feature development to meet both user and business needs.
The result of this 8-step process was a shared understanding amongst our team of the problems we want to address and the features we want to build. Furthermore, we developed a product backlog for Sprint 1 ordered by most risky to least risky. This helped us in deciding where to begin and in what order we want to test our hypotheses.
Sprint 1, Week 1 & 2
At the start of week 1, we held our first 2-day stand up. The purpose of a 2-day stand up is not only to discuss and delegate what needs to be completed for the week, but also a way of holding each other accountable. In each week of our design sprints, I scheduled three short 15-minute meetings to discuss what each member has accomplished and will do.
Interviews & Wireframes
During these interviews, we used A/B testing to understand our user’s preferences more than we would from simply having a conversation. A/B testing allows us to make data-driven decisions in the design process.
At the end of each interview, the team did an affinity mapping exercise to draw patterns between each of our observations.
Sprint 1 Key Points
the lack of responses and open lines of communication between applicant and recruiter is quite discouraging.
expand upon our current networking feature by adding the ability to connect and contact recruiters associated within a company
the main areas that cause stress for our participants were the job search and application process followed by the post-application waiting period
Sprint Retrospective Meeting
The end of Sprint 1 concluded with our first retrospective meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to determine what has gone well for us so far, what needs improvement, and what we plan to do differently. We planned to set stricter, smaller deadlines and attempt to schedule our interviews early in the week if possible to give us more room to pivot and design.
Sprint 2, Week 0
Persona Iteration
We recognized that three personas was a bit repetitive due to the fact that our research indicated a lot of overlapping goals/obstacles amongst users.
We completely removed persona #3, Rosa, and shifted some of her goals to fit within persona #1 & #2 based on our research findings.
Sprint 2, Week 1 & 2
Revalidating our assumptions
The start of Sprint 2 began with a meeting to revisit our Lean UX canvas to revalidate our assumptions. The meeting was centered around two questions:
1) What did we learn?
2) What has changed?
Through A/B testing we learned…
Users prefer positive language and playful icons such as emojis as opposed to traditional rating systems
Users prefer to tailor search filter by skills/qualifications and job descriptions over company demographics
Users dislike the typical autofill from resume feature entirely
Users feel more overwhelmed and anxious by the waiting period that follows the job hunt process rather than during the use of the platform
Users feel anxious to network in the beginning of their career
Users feel overwhelmed by how many applications they have to keep track of
How have these findings changed our assumptions?
We originally assumed that negative emotions such as stress and anxiety would occur during the time spent on the platform. Through user interviews, we realized that those feelings began outside of the platform. Lack of confidence, career connections, and responses from recruiters resulted in a grueling post-application anticipatory stage. While on the platform, users were most frustrated by tedious application processes and overwhelmed by the sheer number of listings to view and open applications to keep track of.
We shifted away from our desires of creating mental health related features and towards addressing the greater issues impacting job seeker’s overall attitude towards the job hunt.
In other words, we wanted to help stitch the wound rather than stop the bleeding.
Testing our high fidelity prototype
During this time we interviewed six more participants, some from our Sprint 1 interviews and some first-timers. This was beneficial to see how the feedback was different in users with differing knowledge and expectations of our prototype.
Unike Sprint 1 where we focused interviews on behavioral questions more than MVPS, Sprint 2 was all about measuring user feedback. We included methods of measuring the success or failure of our wireframed features by adding…
User sentiment scale (1-5, 5 being very satisfied)
Usability test questions
Card sorting activity
Measurable MVPs allow you to collect quantitative and qualitative data to make informed decisions about what features to prioritize, modify, or discard.
Refining the details
Towards the conclusion of this project, we made some refinements and prioritized the implementation of our design system. This included following a relative 8 pt. grid, utilizing auto-layout, and using color/text styles. Additionally, we tidied up the file and focused on the detail work.
Discover events in your area and begin making connections.
Search for jobs manually or through a curated recommendation list.
Reach out to recruiters to learn more about an opportunity or inquire about the status of your application.
Takeaways
Continuous iteration can be both challenging and rewarding. Designing within a sprint is fast-paced, creating a sense of urgency as there's always something evolving. Embracing these constant changes is essential for the success of the project, allowing you to adapt and witness your work transform and grow.
The devil is in the details. With so much to accomplish in so little time, it's easy to overlook the finer points. However, elements like pixels, margins, and spacing deserve just as much attention as the overall design of the page.
Have a plan, but be prepared for it to change. As team lead, it was my responsibility to delegate tasks, organize meetings, and schedule due dates. However, leading a team of four college students with varying schedules requires a certain level of flexibility. Additionally, research can change the entire trajectory of the project so remain open to change as much as possible.
Moderating interviews is both enjoyable and a crucial part of the design process. After this project, I feel much more confident in conducting interviews and building meaningful connections with the users we aim to design for.