Research and design for a new product that helps recruiters research candidates and manage their work.
Project aim
Launching a new product that filled a gap in the market. Through research we discovered this was a low-admin product that aided in-depth research. It was aimed at small headhunting recruitment companies.
Outcomes
Solid user-driven design process
Design changes and new features are led by user research and feedback.
A scalable design system
Styles, patterns and components set up that can be extended for new features.
Successful feedback loops
Regular feedback received at all stages of the users journey to becoming a paid customer.
Trials being well used
95% of people who signed up, used the system.
Onboarding and help guides had an average completion rate of 93%.
My role
User experience design
User interface design
User research
Project phases
Discovery
Beta
Live
Key tasks
Discovery research
User needs analysis
Mapping user journeys
Prototype creation
User testing
Design system
Research repository
Key stages of the project
Discovery research
I ran in-depth interviews with around 50 people in the target group. These interviews focussed on understanding working processes and uncovering user needs and pain points. This helped define the product scope and direction for the Beta release.
Setting up a research repository
I used Dovetail to record all research and user feedback. This ensured insights weren't lost and made it easier to find users' comments and understand the context behind user needs.
Uncovering key user needs
The research was tagged by topics and grouped to make it easier to find patterns and see which topics users often mentioned. For each user need I created a presentation page, pulling out context, qutotes and video snippets.
Outlining a user profile
I created a profile which highlighted user behaviours and key attributes of the business they worked for. It listed what users were looking for from a new product and the gaps in their existing toolset. This helped keep focus and prioritise features.
Defining the product scope
Prioritising user needs and features
I presented the findings from research to the product group and ran workshops to prioritise which user needs we would focus on, taking into account the benefit to users and the development effort needed.
Balancing user needs and business goals
I worked with stakeholders across the business, including c-level, to understand business goals. I presented research on a regular basis to influence product direction and help us remain user-centred.
Mapping key user journeys
I mapped the process of how users find candidates, without tying it to a specific product. It uncovered a lot of questions users answer on that journey, which highlighted opportunities to ease pain points with the new product. This particularly highlighted repetitive tasks and places that could be automated.
Beta release: key features
The product was launched in beta, which was free to use for several months. This gave us the opportunity to gather user feedback, make improvements and build additional features before launching more widely.
Meeting users where they were
In research we saw a reluctance to switch from the dominant product on the market. To help increase adoption the product works alongside other products by having a browser extension as well as a webapp. The extension can be opened on any webpage where users can import, update or add details.
Focussed on reducing admin tasks
“We are a small business, it is too labour intensive to record a lot of information.”
Research showed users wanted a system that didn’t require large amounts of manual data entry and could easily be kept up-to-date. Surveys and interviews revealed the fields that users most often used and needed in the system. Every part of the system is streamlined to just include the necessary steps and keep it simple and easy to use. Primary data about candidates is held in a central database which auto-updates to reflect the persons online profile, this reduces the need for checking back on candidates and manually updating records. It also allows the product to notify users of changes so they can be proactive.
Using data to aid candidate research
The product has millions of records, containing data about a persons work history. Users can search or use 'See similar people' buttons to find potential candidates. The similar people functionality uses AI to find other records with similar attributes in order to cut down the time users spend searching. From the list of similar people users can select suitable people, add them straight to the project they are working on and immediately start adding details to the persons record.
Improving the design process
Creating a design system
A design system was created to ensure consistency across the products. Styles, patterns and components were designed in Sketch and uploaded to Zeroheight to hand over to developers. The design system is easily scalable when new components are needed. There are design principles to keep the product aligned to user needs, such as efficiency and leveraging the power of data.
Testing with users
When a user need was prioritised I went back to users who had mentioned it to gather more context. I returned to them to test static designs and prototypes to understand if it solved their problem. I also tested with users who had no previous contact with us to get fresh perspectives.
Mapping the service
I mapped the key journeys in the service as a detailed step by step view. This helped us understand how different tools and internal systems worked together. Seeing this alongside user actions allowed us to see if internal processes were impacting users and highlighted opportunity areas.
Release to live
Adding feedback loops
I set up various places to gather feedback from users after launch. Automated triggers requested feedback after key actions, such as trial end and convert to paid plan. Pop-up surveys were added within the app to receive feedback on a particular feature. There was also a way for users to give feedback at any time. The surveys were a mixture of satisfaction metrics and qualitative questions. Support queries were shared with us and we proactively contacted users for feedback. Gathering feedback in so many ways allowed us to get contact from a wide range of users and gain a better understanding of problem and opportunity areas.
Help guides and onboarding
A free trial of the product is offered without needing a demo or payment. Therefore the product needed to be easy to use without any support. I created help guides, which included an onboarding guides, walkthroughs allowing users to click and learn and a help section to search and find answers. This led to very low contact to the Support team.
Metrics and measuring success
After the product was launched, quantitative and qualitative data were used to understand what was working well and where improvements needed to be made. This included metrics, screen recording, analytics, user feedback, support enquiries and interviews. This mixture of data was mapped along journeys to see where there was a drop-off and to work out how to increase completion and engagement.
Iterating a live product
Adding features
After launch I continued to talk to users and review all the feedback we received. Similar topics were mentioned by users and these were prioritised as new features or improvements.
Increasing product scope
Once we had users using the product, and understood how they were using the product, we increased the funcitonality to include a features such as a search tool, task management and client reports.
Optimising the search experience
"It's amazing, it has found me many candidates that I can’t simply find on other sites."
From watching users carry out tasks on competitor sites and from surveys findings, it was discovered that only a handful of search filters are used the majority of the time. Therefore, the search screen is optimised for using these fields.
In interviews, users told us about challenging roles they had recruited for. In these situations they would spend a lot of time looking across multiple websites to find the right candidates. Powerful filtering options were added to the search screen for these circumstances. The product also helps user’s continue their journey after they have searched the platform by offering pre-written queries to run searches across the web.
Adding simple task management
"I need to be able to see what is happening with a candidate easily"
After receiving feedback from users of the system, it became apparent that they required a way to see what they needed to do on a day-to-day basis and in the near future. They needed a way to remind themselves to contact someone or chase something up. A simple task management system was set up to do this, which connected the candidate’s progress with the task that needed to be done, in order to provide context for the user. The task could be assigned to themself or a colleague and a due date could be set. This was available to view and update on the dashboard and everywhere they could view the candidate's information in the product.
A way to share candidates with clients
A key part of a recruiters process is sharing the candidates they have found with their client, so the client can review and decide who to interview. Often recruiters manually create this report by copying and pasting from a CRM. This provided an opportunity, to cut down the manual process and save recruiters time.
Feedback was received from users that this would be useful. I held in-depth interviews to understand the process around these reports and what would be needed in the product. I ran a prioritisation session with the team to decide on an MVP for this feature and then designed a prototype to test with users.
The new feature allowed recruiters to select candidates, notes and documents to share securely with their clients, all with just a few clicks. It used the data already stored in the system but also allowed the user to add extra details or tweak comments to make it appropriate for their client.
Other key features and journeys
This video shows more of the product, pulling out key features and journeys that were designed for the first release.
