Uniting Candidates w/ Companies Dedicated to
Diversity & Inclusion
Client: Plugged
Design: Creating an onboarding, landing and personal profile
Timeframe: 3 weeks
Role: UX Designer
Tools: Balsamiq | Axure | Optimal Workshop
Deliverables: competitive analysis | mindmap | card sorting | (27) screener surveys| (3) user interviews | sitemap | 2 proto personas | wireframe | Axure RP 9 clickable prototype
1 BACKGROUND
2 RESEARCH
3 ARCHITECTURE
4 PROTOTYPE/ MOCKUPS
5 CONCLUSION
1 BACKGROUND
Plugged is a concept mobile application for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). It’s designed for HBCU students to connect with recruiters and/or employers for jobs. The purpose of Plugged is to use its software and platform to connect students, recruiters and career service professionals to improve their diversity recruitment experience; as well as widening the scope of employing diverse candidates.
PROBLEM: the fact that many tech companies and recruiters are not actively connecting with students from HBCU.
SOLUTION: create a platform to connect elevation for diverse, HBCU focused students to recruiters.
PRODUCT FEATURES:
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mid to hi-fi prototypes showing interactions
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onboarding and registration
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profile management for the students
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job listing details
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dashboard landing page
2 RESEARCH
COMPETITIVE/ COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
For competitive and comparative analyses, I searched for common platforms like Plugged. A student portal to showcase their profile, job interests, inclusion of an area they can connect with recruiters.
- Competitive sites provided
helpful information available with minimal search and clicks on dashboard.
- For Comparative, one element I really wanted was a “Groups” page where students can connect with groups of their interests or backgrounds.
INTERVIEWS
& SURVEYS
In order to discover users and accessibility of applying for jobs, I conducted 2 surveys and user interviews. I sent out 2 sets of surveys because the first one didn't have much variety of ethnicity.
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Name, Age, Ethnicity*, Gender
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Student, Graduate, Currently Seeking, Recruiter, Other
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Have you ever utilized job platform? If yes, which ones and why?
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On a scale of 1–5, how well do you feel the job market industry does when it comes to recruiting a diverse background of applicants? Why do you think this is?
- Conducted screener survey questions by posting them on Reddit/HBCU threads as well as Facebook.
SURVEY SYNTHESIS
GOALS
Some Interview Questions I asked:
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What’s your experience with ATS? Applicant Tracking System?
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What’s your experience with discrimination due to your ethnicity?
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What do you think you need for filtering diverse background candidates?
Never had any experience or very little experience with ATS.
"Discrimination is current & alive."
- Interview Response
"In a dream world, if I were a recruiter, I'd look thoroughly through all of the applicants; Not use an ATS."
- Zoe
Their experiences of applying for jobs online were great. But it was the interview portion where they knew being of color was a problem.
All 3 requested that for better filtering, to add some aspect of ethnicity onto the ATS so that it can filter diverse applicants.
BUILDING EMPATHY
Synthesizing the data from the survey and interviews, I defined target group profiles and their journey. The personas rely on key insights from the research process and highlights the important areas.
People read my name, and off the bat know who I am, what kind of person, worker and my life. It's really not fair.
- Interview Response
3 INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
Based on the insights gained from the initial content of the competitive and comparative analyses, I defined a mindmap and performed card sorting. This helped me gauge what to put on the global navigation on the dashboard as well other potential guidance for the platform.
- For card sorting, most common categories were Jobs, Students, Personal, Recruiter.
MINDMAP
CARD SORTING
SITEMAP
- This sitemap was the synthesis of mind mapping, card sorting, user interviews and surveys.
I created a sitemap to see the navigation of the platform. This was taking into account the used personas, as well as the needing solutions to the problems of what the platform desires to be.
- Wanted to give the user access to the full capacity of the platform so everything is accessible from the dashboard with minimal clicks.
WIREFRAMES
To get started with the aesthetics of the platform, I began very early sketches of the site. I knew I wanted everything accessible from the main dashboard so the user/student doesn’t have to look for whatever it is that they need every time.
Early sketches for proof of concept.
Layout visuals to see each landing page and specifications.
Dashboard ideation to visualize what would be necessary for user.
Usability Test Synthesis
- Incorporate “I prefer not to answer” for the ‘Gender’ and ‘Ethnicity’ questions on the onboarding
- The testers liked the ability to set goals on the dashboard and saw it as a form of gamification for goals section
I used Balsamiq to create my low fidelity wireframes and rapid prototypes. With this, performed usability testing.
4 HIGH FIDELITY
PROTOTYPE
- Hi-fi prototype is of the Landing page, onboarding, dashboard and personal profile page.
If There Was More Time Available...
Some next steps I’d like incorporate for the future would be to:
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Build out the dashboard for the recruiter; to manage and connect with candidates
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Include more data on the landing page to express the importance of diversity in the job market
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Partnerships with University career centers, instead of being a platform targeted specifically towards individual recruiters/employers
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Expand further into what resources will be made available to both job seekers and those hiring
AWESOMENESS
After presenting our product to the client, my team was chosen to potentially working with the client to implementing our vision and seeing it come to life!
TO BE CONTINUED... hold tight!
5 CONCLUSION
This project was challenging in the sense that it had the most deliverables and steps to reaching the prototype. But through it all, I’ve learned so much about how there needs to be change so that there’s an opportunity for everyone; all candidates of diverse backgrounds. This platform allows users to express and portray who they are more so, than a piece of paper resume itself.