Increasing the usability and active applicants of a job seeker app
Role
Senior Product Designer: covering testing, prototyping, design system and mentoring.
Year
2021
Company
Reed.co.uk
Reed.co.uk is the UK’s leading job site, featuring vacancies from over 25,000 recruiters a year. Each month, more than 7 million jobseekers turn to reed.co.uk in their search for work, making over 160,000 applications every day. Our mission is simple: to help the world Love Mondays.
The Opportunity
To become the lead in our industry as the mobile app of choice.
Expand the user base of the job seeker app. Drive more traffic to Reed rather than through Google, (about 40% of overall job applications generated currently are through paid click).
Show empathy and build user’s confidence who often experience anxiety and stress from job searching.
Business Objective
Increase active applicants.
User Problems
Users feel the job hunting experience is cold and isolating, they feel like just a number. As a results users lack confidence and self-esteem.
Users are often juggling multiple CV’s and searches, their situation isn’t black and white.
Missing or vague job descriptions, information like salary and location helps users to decide if a job is worth applying.
Users like to know about the company they are applying to, they’ll often check sites like Glassdoor to check their rating, etc.
Users struggle to keep track of their applications, sometimes there are prolonged periods of silence from application to contact. This can result in deadlines being missed.
Lack of transparency in process, users often get no feedback or silence on their application.
Users like recruiters who are proactive, listen and carefully consider their strengths and skill set. Users don’t like recruiters who push irrelevant jobs on them or get mis-sold to an employer.
Search and admin tasks work on mobile, but labour-intensive tasks are reserved for computers.
KPI
User growth: increase monthly active users.
Engagement: increase the number of active applicants.
Feature adoption: increase the volume of new user CV uploads within first 7 days.
Satisfaction: improve app store rating.
Stickiness: increase repeat usage.
The Process
User journey mapping
Competitor Analysis
User groups
User flows
Wireframe mocks
Prototype user testing
New design system (including dark mode)
Alpha release
Beta release
Soft launch
General release
(A global re-branding also occurred during this process meaning the app was re-skinned to align with the new brand)
Prototype Testing
We conducted three rounds of user testing on prototypes as we worked on wireframes and user flows. Testing the application journey we found the following:
Uncertainty on whether their registration was successful.
Users ignored the tooltip showing where to find their application overview.
Confused about the additional information required after registration.
We addressed the findings in the next iteration by:
Adding a registration confirmation modal.
Changed from full screen to a draw, simplifying the journey.
Combined all additional information required on one page.
In testing the sort and filters, we found users liked seeing the options visible. However there was some confusion around the ‘newest’ sort and the ‘date posted’ filter. Users didn’t realise these were two separate options that gave them different results. Users also mistook the sort button as one of the filter options.
To bring clarity in the differences of sorting and filtering, we opted to go with two clear buttons as seen commonly in e-comm.
We look at this as a temporary solution until we can understand more about users needs on sorting and filtering.
Alpha Community Testing
After testing the prototypes we were able to start testing the app in development with our alpha community (volunteers of Reed.co.uk employee’s). Working iteratively, we had three releases where we gathered results via:
Moderated user testing
Survey
Ad hoc feedback
The results were then prioritised in a UX/UI improvements backlog.
One of the feedback items to come out from testing was that users did not intuitively discover swiping cards to save or hide jobs. Although, on accidental discovery, it was evident they were delighted by this feature.
We looked at adding an in-app tutorial showing how to save jobs as well as where it goes when saved.
Another item of feedback was uncertainty of the third navigation item called ‘Manage’. From a card sorting exercise we discovered ‘Manage’ was actually not the best word to describe this page.
Although ‘Dashboard’ appeared to be a more suitable choice, users pointed out the page was hosting two different sections. This has highlighted a redesign of this page would be suitable to explore.
Descoped Features
As the project progressed we had to look at descoping some of the features as continual delay on the project was occurring. This compromise was to get to release as quickly as possible so we could test for bugs and gather feedback.
We focused on delivering the core journeys of:
Search
Apply
Sign in/Register
These were some of the descoped features.
Explore
Guided job search
Multiple CV’s
CV builder
Profile (full version)
Managing applications
Multiple job alerts
Keeping with our iterative approach we would have to keep these items in the backlog and prioritised amongst other items such as bugs and UX/UI improvements.
Beta Community Testing
After alpha community testing we were ready to go into beta community testing (testing with a closed group of external users). Lead by a researcher we had a workshop to identify what questions we wanted answered by the beta community.
What is the impact of missing features? Is the new app an improvement compared to the current app?
NPS
Feature grading (Kano model)
Analytics
What is the usability of the beta community app?
Qualitative survey
System usability scale survey
Can users save jobs and find them again? Do users need guidance through this journey? How many location do users want to search?
121 qualitative user testing
Can users differentiate us from competitor apps?
Competitor multivariate tests
Do users use the save jobs feature?
Diary study
Looking at releasing the app with missing features, we needed to look at potential impact. To start, a kano survey was conducted to identify these areas.
Stack View
We found users didn’t have any attachment to the stack view from the original app. We already had data from a previous test to confirm this where we asked users to choose their preferred the results view.
Multiple Keywords
The survey also showed people would be adverse to this feature removal. We already had analytics that showed around 50% of people used 2 or more keywords in their search. However, as we know users complain about the relevance of job results, further research will be required to check if this is a work around.
CV Builder
From the survey we could see users felt indifferent about this feature, therefore we could put this as a low priority. We also know features such as multiple CV’s would be more valuable to users.
Soft Launch
After beta community testing we were ready to go into a soft launch release (a separate app we invited active users to download).
In the soft launch we looked at metrics (below) that gave us confidence to move to hard launch. Although the new app had features missing from the current app, it still performed better so we were able to move to release.
Results
App store rating
Before 4.6/5
After 4.6/5
System usability score
Before 71.5 (Grade C)
After 76.2 (Grade B)
Applications per applicant
Before 6.73
After 7.91
Applications per session
Before 0.494
After 0.673
Session to application conversion
Before 16.6%
After 16.8%
Next Steps
Items to prioritise:
UX/UI improvements
Descoped features: Explore, guided job search, profile (full version), multiple job alerts
Outstanding user needs: Multiple CV upload, manage applications, feedback on application
Missing features: Multiple keywords and location, CV builder
Bugs
Challenges & Learnings
Challenge: Features being descoped due to incorrect estimations and unforeseen side effects of COVID-19.
Learnings: To have prioritised features so when descoping was required we could ensure user problems wouldn’t be sacrificed.
Challenge: Multiple stakeholders and contributors leaving or changing.
Learnings: Better documentation and handover so knowledge is not lost with team members departures. Format design reviews to be more collaborative and build a culture to expect assumptions to be tested.
Challenge: Keeping internal users engaged with new releases for testing.
Learnings: Work on building a culture where people are proud of their product so they feel excited about new releases.
Challenge: Losing sight of purpose for the mobile app redesign.
Learnings: Keeping visibility and reminding the team of the purpose of the redesign.
Future Vision
To be the one app for your career whether it be searching for a job, up-skilling or getting career advice whilst inspiring the feeling of planning a trip.
