Industry Project | UClan Jobs

Try the prototype here-->

Mobile--> https://www.figma.com/proto/agQaJkOBccWgi1rPVqcG6e/Uclan-Jobs-portal?page-id=58%3A20&node-id=460-3245&node-type=FRAME&viewport=337%2C740%2C0.03&t=zXO5AqkjOcIZulgl-1&scaling=scale-down&content-scaling=fixed&starting-point-node-id=460%3A3245&share=1&show-proto-sidebar=1

Desktop--> https://www.figma.com/proto/agQaJkOBccWgi1rPVqcG6e/Uclan-Jobs-portal?page-id=0%3A1&node-id=158-430&node-type=FRAME&viewport=59%2C331%2C0.05&t=FSvBFMFIfxqxKmZN-1&scaling=scale-down&content-scaling=fixed&starting-point-node-id=158%3A430

A group project by Sanika Dhuri, Umair Jamadar, Agnieszka Mazur, Parshwa Panchwatkar, Vinit Bisht, Harry Jolly, and Mansvi Parmani.

Introduction

The University faces challenges in effectively showcasing and promoting job listings, leading to difficulties in both visibility and applicant quality. Current limitations in the job listing promotion strategy have resulted in instances where potential candidates may struggle to discover available opportunities.

To address these challenges, there is a pressing need for a strategic overhaul of the job promotion and application process. This includes enhancing the visibility of job listings across various channels and refining the application experience to attract high-quality candidates.

The goal is to create a seamless and engaging journey for potential applicants, ultimately improving the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the University's recruitment efforts.

By recognizing and addressing these issues, we aim to transform the university's approach to job promotion and recruitment, ensuring that exceptional opportunities are not only easily accessible but also attract candidates of the highest calibre.

Objectives

• Gain an understanding of user needs and requirements in regards to job searching platforms by gathering primary data through an online survey.

• Identify issues and pain points in the current UCLan jobs portal through a heuristic evaluation and eye tracking experiment.

• Ensure users remain at the centre of the design process through data driven personas and storyboards.

• Create numerous low-fidelity wireframes of improved UCLan jobs portal which will then be analysed through dot voting.

• Produce a high-fidelity design of the new and improved UCLan jobs portal for both mobile and web platforms.

Project Management

Throughout this project time management and task assignment has been a key priority.

Our team used Jira to manage existing and assign job new roles for each week.

Project Flow

Competitor Analysis

As part of our competitor analysis we evaluated the process of applying for jobs via multiple platforms. The earlier slides were created to showcase our documented steps during this process. Some sites required less steps which was indicated by the number of screenshots and some had increasingly more, this suggests that there would be more steps and more clicks to apply for the job.

Once this was done, we created the table on the right. We did this as it makes identifying matters easier and for an individual to be able to see those differences without having to do it themselves. Where possible, we included data on the popularity of each platform based on the percentage of people who choose to apply through it. This statistical information highlights how many users prefer certain platforms for their job applications (Fennell, 2024).

User Research

Survey

Our team decided to collect data through an online survey over other data collection methods due to the benefits they provide ranging from cost effectiveness to the ability to stay anonymous (DeFranzo, 2023), Microsoft forms was the chosen platform for this study as they provide live data dashboards throughout the survey’s lifespan.

We chose a survey for this project for the following reasons:

• Cost effectiveness - as this is a university projects the budget for this project was minimal, the only requirements for creating a survey is access to an account which are free to create.

• Accessibility - online surveys provide a simple experience for users to give their feedback, online surveys do not require constant moderation, therefore removing specific times where data needs to be collected, this meant the survey could be shared online and to users in any time zone.

• Efficiency - due to time constraints of this project gathering data rapidly was a priority, therefore an online survey was a clear choice as once the survey was completed it could be shared by each group member in various groups and social media.

• Anonymity - by providing the option to stay anonymous, participants may feel more comfortable to critique the current UCLan jobs portal gaining more critical responses

When conducting the online survey participants were provided a participation information sheet alongside an informed consent form, participants could only continue with the survey if they agreed they had read and accepted the terms

Themes of what users liked

• Transparency (job descriptions, salary, locations ) - 12 mentions

• Ease of use - 11 mentions  

• Customisation and filtering options - 8 mentions 

• Efficiency and time saving features (quick apply, upload CV) - 8 mentions

Themes of what users disliked

• Information availability (lack of details) - 11 mentions 

• Irrelevance (random job roles)- 8 mentions 

• Length of process - 5 mentions 

• Difficulty of use (site layout) - 4 mentions 

• Customisation (lack of filters) - 4 mentions 

Eye Tracking

Eye tracking was conducted to understand how people use the UCLan Jobs site. The participants were asked to perform 5 tasks to helped us understand user behaviour when job searching and report any usability issues to enhance and improve the future site. During the task we noted their thought process using the think aloud protocol as well as noting down their final feedback from the test.

Tobbii Eye Tracker Nano was used to perform the eye tracking. The data was later analysed using the Tobbii Pro Lab version 1.217.

The participants ranged from ages 22-51. 

• 4 participants preferred to find jobs from the Menu while a 4 participants searched for it . 1 participant navigated to the Footer to search for the same.

• The average time taken for all participants to locate the "Search Our Vacancies" button was 5 second. All participants clicked the button at the top of the page. 2 participants went to the 3rd section in search of the same button.

• The participants took an average of 4 seconds to navigate their way to the Filters.

• 5 participants clicked on the "Done" button in the filters while 4 didn't.

• While navigating to look for the specific job of " Facilities Manager", on the Jobs Vacancies page the recorded gaze patterns were Z pattern (4 Participants), L pattern (2 Participants) and Straight Line(1 Participant), while 1 participant went for the ”search” button to look for the job.

• An average time of 12.6666667 was spent on the Jobs Desiciption page and it was observed that the participants first looked at the right panel 
with the “job details” before looking at the left panel with other job related details. It was also observed that the participants read the top part the description carefully but when the time was to scroll the page, they stared skipping lines in reading.

• After reading through the job details, participants took 3-6 seconds to locate the "apply now" button.

Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluations are great for identifying usability, they are cost effective and do not require users as participants as they are carried out by experts in the field (Chatenet, 2024). Conducting a heuristic evaluation on the current UCLan jobs portal gave our team early identification of existing usability issues on the UCLan jobs portal.

Whilst conducting the evaluation, heuristics were broken into 5 categories being Neutral, Low, Medium, High, Critical scaling by seriousness. Overall 38 heuristics were identified. Some of the Heuristics found are as followed

• Neutral - back buttons can be added, text size too large

• Low - lack of consistency in search input boxes

• Medium - less contrast on hover states, irrelevant overlays

• High - search bars are required, lack of indication for navigation

• Critical - inconsistent layouts, pages need to be combined

Data Driven Personas

Using personas gave us a user-centric perspective, helping us understand and meet the needs of our users.

Our personas represent a range of users visiting the website, including support staff, professional services, and academic staff, each with distinct goals and expectations. We empathised with our users and made informed design decisions to meet their requirements. This approach allowed us to prioritise information and streamline the job search experience, making the portal more intuitive and efficient.

The process began with secondary research followed by our survey, which highlighted user challenges and behaviours when job searching. This insight informed scenarios and storyboards, helping us visualise user interactions and create a design solution that aligns with their expectations

Storyboarding

Storyboads are beneficial to this project for numerous reasons, Firstly, as a key focus of this redesign project is implementing a user focused approached, storyboards help designers can visualise users problems whilst also ensuring that solutions can directly meet users needs and requirements. Secondly, by creating storyboards it helps designers sympathise with potential users which highlights the importance for effective solutions.

Information Architecture

Visualising information architecture helps improve organisation ensuring clarity for all members of the team whilst also understanding the scope and size of the UCLan jobs redesign.

Another benefit of creating a visual information architecture is the ability to enhance navigation, by organising information logically and provide clear pathways it reduces cognitive load, which minimises effort required by users and designers to navigate their way through the platform therefore resulting in a positive user experience (Carello, 2023)

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Mobile

Creating low-fidelity wireframes is an essential part of the design process and should be completed before moving on to high-fidelity wireframes. The wireframes on the right present different design concepts for the job portal redesign, each created by a team member to explore a range of possibilities and determine the best approach. Our team consisted of 7 people, with all different views of opinion and creative flairs. Doing this task meant that we can review each others design and see how they differentiate from the current layout and to see which features streamline the job search journey.

Website

As well as creating the low fidelity designs for the mobile version, we also spent time scaling these layouts into a desktop version. Candidates often access the job portal through both laptop and mobile design whereby it was important for us to consider both aspects of layout. We then shifted over our design skills and ideas to create something viable for a desktop version. After finalising the wireframes, we collaboratively analysed all the designs to decide which elements to carry forward.

Dot Voting

We chose to conduct a dot voting as a decision-making and prioritisation technique.

This method consists of each member of the team placing green dots next to elements they feel would benefit the final product, alongside red dots to highlight features they feel are not beneficial.

Dot voting helped our team in two key ways:

• Firstly, it allowed us to agree on which wireframes to implement in the final product.

• Secondly, it served as a prioritisation tool, clarifying which features should be our main focus.

Future Work

Although this project has come to the end of the deadline, there is room for improvement and further processes should be carried out in the future with the focus on evaluating the new UCLan jobs design.

Moving forward three types of evaluation should be conducted, Usability testing, Further eye tracking and another round of heuristic evaluation should be carried out to gather data to confirm the improvement in the UCLan jobs portal redesign.