On Prototyping, Job Seeking, and the Need for Save Buttons
My Interaction Design Capstone Project
Finding a new job sucks. You would think the internet age would make it easier, but if anything it’s become more complex, not to mention more competitive. So when I needed to choose a topic for my Interaction Design capstone project, I thought that perhaps I could design something to make the job seeking process just slightly less painful.
To begin, I interviewed three job seekers and asked them to walk me through the process of a recent job application. I was surprised by how different the challenges they faced were. A physiotherapist described the need to address a list of key attributes when applying for a job in a public hospital, and her extensive preparation for the rather scary-sounding panel interview. A Project Manager talked about the frustration of trying to include keywords from the ad in his resume so it wouldn’t be rejected by automated applicant systems. All of them struggled to organise all the various documents and information used.
Next, I developed a list of user needs and brainstormed possible solutions. It was relatively easy to generate a diverse list of ideas because of the numerous different challenges I’d observed. More difficult was narrowing down the list to select only two for prototyping. Additionally, in week 4 I found out that we were required to design a mobile app, and my users had indicated that they mostly used a desktop computer for their job seeking activities. After reflecting that in a real life situation like this you would talk to the client and propose a change to the project scope, I decided to design for my users and make a slight departure from the assignment requirements and design for desktop.
In order to evaluate the two design ideas, I created a paper prototype for each, and conducted in-person testing with them. A classmate also completed a heuristic evaluation and provided me with some useful feedback.
The results helped me to choose a single idea for the design — a tool to help users organise information related to each job they apply for. Here is a storyboard I created explaining the concept:
Prototyping and Iteration
The next stage was building an interactive prototype. This posed a challenge for me, as I’d never used any of the various software packages available. Following the advice of my classmates, I chose to use a combination of PowerPoint and InVision, because I only had limited time available for learning new tools. Building the prototype was far more time consuming than I expected, and I was frustrated by the limitations of InVision. My prototype included forms for data input and the ability to select a section of text to copy and paste which couldn’t be replicated, so I was forced to “Wizard-of-Oz” it.
I tested the prototype with two volunteers, and was disappointed to find that they struggled to complete two of the four tasks I had set — clearly more work was required! They both had particular difficulty with the step of selecting information to copy to the job file. One also became stuck because I’d cunningly made the non call-to-action buttons a less-prominent colour, and he thought this meant he couldn’t click on them. He also got upset because he couldn’t figure out how to save, so I concluded that I needed to better communicate that it saves automatically (like gmail).
I spent quite a bit of time brainstorming alternatives for the step of selecting information to copy. It was difficult to find a solution which didn’t require several different steps; however I eventually came up with a solution that I thought might work. I modified the prototype, and tested two different versions on the site usertesting.com — one with an improved version of the old selection tool, and the other with the new design. The testing was particularly interesting for me, as I’d been a tester on this site for some time, but this was the first chance I’d had to create tests myself. I observed that the four participants took some time to grasp the concept of the site, but once they did they became quite excited, especially the functionality to keep track of events such as job interviews and phone calls. There was a clear difference in their ability to understand and use the two alternative designs for selecting information, with the new design a clear winner. Most surprising was that three of the users noticed but didn’t trust my spiffy new “saving… saved” messages, and went looking for a save button!
For the next iteration, I focused on better communicating the concept of the site by creating a new home page. I also worked on improving the visual design — this is not one of my strengths, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of my tweaking. And yes, I added a save button…
You can see the final prototype here: https://invis.io/WJ7ZB7IXK#/179543222_Home
And the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njh8K0tO_OQ&feature=em-upload_owner
A few final thoughts
As I reflect back on the capstone, and the other courses I’ve taken in the last year, I realise that I’ve learnt a lot more than just designing interfaces and building prototypes. I’ve learnt that I can be incredibly self-motivated when I’m doing something I love. I discovered that even someone as artistically challenged as myself can draw star people and create animated videos. I’ve been continually surprised and fascinated by my interactions with users, and now truly appreciate the importance of doing quality user research and testing. I’ve started seeing design issues everywhere, finding inspiration in the most unlikely of places, and I think I’ve become more empathetic too.
A big thank you to everyone who participated in this project, my classmates for their feedback and inspiration, and above all to my wonderful partner Roger for his endless patience in taking on the roles of design critic, test participant, video extra, drawing coach, and proof reader, among others.
