Company
CultureLancer
Nov 2023-Dec 2023
Contribution
Research Lead
Interaction Co-Lead
Team
Alisha Liu (Interaction Lead)
Wendolinne Zarate (Project Lead)
Stakeholder Interview
Through previous independent research, CultureLancer felt that their onboarding system for employers needed to be fixed, as well as their employer dashboard needed work.
Who is CultureLancer?
CulutureLancer is an ecosystem for HBCU students to prepare for their future now while being found by other HBCU alumni, professionals, and brands. It is a pipeline for connecting highly qualified and diverse talent to their dream jobs — without the red tape that often weeds them out.
Why focus on helping HCBU’s?
Among college graduates, the Black unemployment rate from this past November 2023 was 5.8% compared to just 3.3% for white college graduates in the same period. (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor)
A Starting Point
UX Audit Process
Before we conducted any user research we had a look at our current site and what issues may need addressing, we did this by conducting a heuristic evaluation. Our goal beyond taking an objective look at the current site was to validate whether our client's concerns were the primary issue.
Takeaways
There was quite a lot of UX writing that needed added context or to be rewritten.
There were also a few UI concerns such as moving elements, non-functional elements, and non-standard icons.
These problems objectively caused usability and intuitiveness concerns.
Research Process
Interviewing hiring managers
Based on the client’s brief we decided the best course of action was to interview people who actively held positions of hiring in companies that used contract and freelancers to fulfill business needs. Our goals were to learn more about their hiring process, how they used sites like CultureLancer to find candidates, and their thoughts on hiring students.
Takeaways
They found students to be eager to learn and teachable but lacked certain technical skills and professionalism.
They needed certain information to feel comfortable interviewing a candidate.
They need to browse reviews or recommendations from past projects.
Their main frustrations with these sites were the amount of time looking over candidates, scam accounts, and people overselling their qualifications.
Market Research Process
To better understand what is already in the market, we conducted a competitor and comparator analysis by signing up for employer accounts on Handshake, Fiverr, and Upwork.
Takeaways
A few things we found helpful
Having a comprehensive filtering system to sort through candidates quickly was very important.
Having a review or recommendation system was also a straightforward and effective way to vet potential candidates allowing the community to self-serve.
Being able to monitor active projects and communicate with the freelancers through the site.
Formulating a Synthesis
Personas
We synthesized our data and created two personas: Hillary, a hiring manager, and Stanley, a student.
Who is Hillary?
Hillary is our primary persona, she is passionate about her company as well as helping students gain real-world practical work experience before graduation. She employs student freelancers to reduce business costs and discover eager and trainable talent.
Who is Stanley?
Stanley is our secondary persona, he is a sophomore at Morehouse College. He takes his learning seriously and wants to apply it practically during his free time and weekends.
Hillary’s Journey
We created a journey map for Hillary and her experience with the current CultureLancer website, lets follow her through her journey.
The Problem
“Hillary needs a way to determine which students mesh well with the company's culture and goals because she wants to successfully bring on board an employee who blends seamlessly with the team.”
Finding a Solution
How might we display a student’s information in a scannable way so Hillary can evaluate many candidates efficiently?
How might we suggest relevant students to Hillary based on their profile interests?
How might we develop a system that enables Hillary to gather feedback from previous employers/teachers about a candidate's personality?
Formulating a Visual Concept
Design Ideation
Based on the research we synthesized we began our design process by ideating with a design sprint. Ultimately we took design elements from each team member and combined them into one wire flow.
Ideation Takeaways
Our primary objective during ideation was to simplify the dashboard and user flows, with the aim of making the site more intuitive and user-friendly.
It was important for us to keep in mind to use standard familiar icons and clear phrasing to increase intuitiveness.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Our Goal when creating the Mid-Fidelity prototype was to increase the overall usability of the dashboard, freelance browsing, and job posting flows.
Here are examples of the current employer dashboard and the initial mid-fidelity prototype we came up with.
How we achieved our goal
We've made significant improvements to the main dashboard by simplifying the UI and enhancing the clarity of UX writing. These changes will enhance the information architecture and provide a more coherent user experience.
We have introduced an easy-to-navigate, step-by-step job posting flow to replace the lengthy forms of the past and streamline the process.
Our new best-match system for specific job postings significantly reduces the time and effort required to sort through unqualified or irrelevant candidates. This means that you can focus on the most qualified and suitable applicants, making the hiring process more efficient, and more effective.
Usability Tests
We conducted 5 usability tests to validate whether our changes helped increase the usability of the site.
Takeaways
There were a few UX writing changes that we needed to revise or add context to.
Some layout changes were needed to further improve the information architecture of the job posting and talent browsing flows.
4 out of 5 users completed both the primary and secondary tasks we assigned them with little issue.
Branding
We based our design on the brand guide provided to us by our client. in addition to the red and yellow color palette, we decided to incorporate a secondary color of blue-gray to add more visual interest and have a more modern feel.
The Output
Final Reflections
This was my first time working with a client, and here were some of my biggest takeaways.
The client isn’t always right, you have to know how to stand up for your design choices and back them up with your research findings
Communication is paramount, giving your client updates is very important as it helps promote transparency and you won’t have to catch them up later on in the process.
Keep client revisions to a minimum, when working in a short timeframe there won’t be much time for multiple rounds of revisions.