Extending an Existing Design
Client: Internship on Demand
Team: Amanda Snyder, Rylie Lonetti, Michael Roth, Barbara Guttman
My Roles: UX/UI Research & Design
Methods: Competitive Analysis, User Journey Maps, Sketching, Low-Fidelity Wireframing, Feature Cards, Tech Scoping, Kano Analysis, High-Fidelity Wireframing, Annotations
Tools: Figma, Figjam, Zoom
TL;DR
Problem
In the interest of streamlining its processes and scaling up the service it provides, Internship on Demand is seeking to build out the online hiring manager experience.
Solution
A web app extension allowing Hiring Managers to search and organize IOD’s pool of candidates, and manage information about work opportunities
PROJECT INTRODUCTION
Client & Goal
Internship on Demand (IOD) exists to recreate the early talent experience for college students and employers. Through their pre-internship programs, IOD ensures that the right candidate finds the right career, company, and role.
Currently, Hiring Managers working with IOD go through the company’s founder for everything. The work is done via email and video call. Hiring Managers need to create their own ways to keep track of the information provided by IOD, such as creating spreadsheets for the pre-interns that they are considering employing for full-time internships. This is tedious and inefficient for both IOD and its company partners. It is also preventing IOD from being able to expand their business and increase their reach.
In the interest of streamlining its processes and scaling up the service it provides, Internship on Demand is seeking to build out the online hiring manager experience.
Current User Journey of Hiring Managers partnering with IOD
RESEARCH & EARLY IDEATION
Competitive Analysis
To identify features that may meet the needs of the Hiring Managers that partner with IOD, our team conducted a competitive analysis to see what similar products offer.
Early Ideation
Using what we learned from our competitive analysis, and also from what our client shared about what they hope the online experience can provide to its users, we began to create sketches and low-fidelity wireframes of features that we believed would best meet the needs of the Hiring Managers that partner with IOD.
Dashboard:
This would be the first page that Hiring Managers see whenever they log in. From here, users can see an overview of all possible actions/features available to them and navigate to anywhere in the website to begin their work.
Fit Predictor:
With a Fit Predictor, Hiring Managers have the opportunity to identify values, goals, or requirements they have of potential candidates. They can select from a pre-defined list of categories. Some examples might include Location preference, GPA, Hard/Soft Skills, Personality, etc.
Fit Predictor, continued:
On this page, Hiring Managers can rank the values, goals, and requirements that they previously identified during the first step of the Fit Predictor. When the Hiring Managers complete a search, IOD can then provide suggested candidates based on how well these rankings match, and filter out those who would not be a good fit.
Search Results:
After completing a search using the Fit Predictor, candidate snapshots will appear. These cards will have a brief overview of the candidate’s experience/skills. The Hiring Manager can click to view more details about the candidate, including comments about them and their work. There are also options to favorite/save a candidate, to message a candidate, or to remove a candidate from the list.
Kano Analysis
From the many ideas we created, we honed down to a list of 10 to present to four current IOD users. We surveyed them using the Kano Analysis method to determine which of our proposed features would be considered “must-haves” and which would be “anti-features” that would negatively impact customer satisfaction.
The results showed 5 features that were considered important by the existing users:
Dashboard:
This feature allows users to see an overview of shared company information, and view the available actions and areas within the site.
Search, Filter, View Candidates:
This feature allows users to search a list of candidates using a pre-defined set of filters. Hiring Managers can then add or edit filters to refine their results. Filters might include location, industry, GPA, values, skills, etc.
Discovery Mode:
This feature allows users to switch between two modes for discovering candidates. “Recommended” mode shows a pre-populated set of candidates suggested by IOD as good fits for the company. “Search All” mode allows for standard key word searching and filtering to manually find candidates.
Save & Organize Candidates:
This feature allows users to save and organize candidates in different lanes. Candidate profiles are displayed as cards with a snapshot of key information. The lanes denote which candidates are currently employed by the company, which candidates are somewhere in the hiring process, and which have been saved but have not yet been moved into the pipeline.
Internal Team Comments:
This feature would be an addition to the existing candidate profiles. It would add a sidebar where users within the same company can write and view each other’s comments. These comments can be seen by others in the company account, but not by the candidates. This will allow users to organize and align their feedback of a candidate before moving forward.
One feature that was assumed to be a “must-have” feature by the client and my design team surprised us as being an “anti-feature” for the four users that were surveyed:
Fit Predictor:
This feature would allow users to identify values, goals, or requirements they have of potential candidates from a pre-defined list of categories. Some examples might include Location preference, GPA, Hard/Soft Skills, Personality, etc. When completing a search, IOD can then provide suggested candidates based on how well these rankings match, and filter out those who would not be a good fit.
FINAL DESIGNS
High-Fidelity Wireframes & Annotations
From the 5 features identified as “must-haves” by the IOD users that were surveyed, I selected 3 that would fit within the allotted time budget of 40 development hours. I created high-fidelity wireframes using IOD’s design system, and then added annotations to share my research-based rationale with the client.
CONCLUSION
Next Steps
As Internship on Demand continues to build out the online Hiring Manager experience, I recommend that they add additional features based on user feedback, starting with those identified by current users as “must-haves”. The Dashboard is one feature that would result in increased customer satisfaction with the addition of more widgets and functionalities, such as a calendar widget to show events happening within company pre-internships and/or upcoming interviews.
As the business grows and more companies begin to partner with IOD, there will be increased opportunities to survey users about existing and potential new features. The “Fit Predictor” is an example of a tool used by competitors that might receive different results from a user survey with a larger number of participants.
During the process of implementing these new features and functionalities into their product, IOD should conduct usability tests with their primary users. This will ensure that the features are not only desirable but also that the designs feel intuitive as users navigate through the experience of using the Internship on Demand website to achieve their goals.
Future User Journey of Hiring Managers partnering with IOD