This Micro-Flow of LinkedIn Needs to be Fixed- UX Case Study

Azhar Uddin

Published in

Bootcamp

6 min readNov 26, 2022

Note- This is personal project where I did Heuristic evaluation of Micro flow of LinkedIn.

Story behind this -👇

So, I was searching for UX jobs on LinkedIn and applying for jobs when I realised that I had unintentionally submitted my old resume. I remember creating a new resume on that day with the name “Azhar Resume UIUX.pdf,” but I’m not sure how I accidentally clicked on my old resume, which was already present on the LinkedIn resume submission page and had the coincidentally similar name “Azhar Resume UI UX.pdf,” and it downloaded on my phone before I realised it. And as everyone believes that the most recent file appears first in the File Manager’s recent area, I also believed the same thing and unintentionally clicked on the “Azhar Resume UI UX.pdf,” which was not my latest resume specifically I didn’t want to use the outdated resume.

I had no idea that I was applying with an old resume. I became aware of this scenario after a few days.

Then, all of a sudden, I received a message from Growthschool inviting me to participate in Anudeep Ayyagari’s UX Kickstarter Design Challenge. I had previously attended his outstanding UX workshop. Anudeep Sir then informed us that one of the requirements for this challenge was for me to assess the micro-flow of any app using the heuristics and all the principles covered in the earlier workshop. I was inspired and decided right away to work on the micro flow for submitting a LinkedIn resume.

So, here it is.👇👇

Evaluating the Micro-Flow🔍

After observing the flow I realized that there are two heuristics that are being violated-

1- Flexibility and efficiency to use: There can be mistake if similar named resume is selected, user have to differentiate between them, that is causing increased session length. Therefore, this is reducing the efficiency of this flow.

2-User control and freedom: If user uploads wrong document by mistake then there is no freedom that he can exit this situation. He have to re-upload the correct document but the previously uploaded document will stay there.

Problem found:

1- It’s time taking process for the user to differentiate the documents to chose his required document.

2- User can not exit the situation if he uploads any document by mistake

Ideation🧠

After finding the problem I tried to think of possible ideas to solve the problems and I came up with few ideas-

Idea 1: Putting old resume in a drop down box.

Idea 2: Adding delete option for removing unused resume.

Idea 3: Adding preview option.

After thinking and looking at these ideas I decided to go with the “Idea 2”.

Paper Wireframe📃

For the idea I decided to go with, I made the paper wireframes of it

And here is the Paper Prototype Link- 👈Click it

High Fidelity Prototype🖼️

After making and deciding the paper wireframe I finally decided to start with the High Fidelity design and Prototype so that I can test it with the users.

Change made: Added delete icon, and changed the written indication like “select” and “unselect” with the tick mark.

How it benefits the user: It gives user the freedom to delete the unused or wrong document he uploaded i.e. following “User control and freedom heuristic” which saves him from making wrong selection i.e. he will have only the resume he need and this will increases the efficiency of resume submission. Therefore, it is now following the “flexibility and efficiency heuristic” .

How it benefits the business:
It reduces the session length of resume submission for job. Therefore, user don’t have to spend more time for resume submission and he can now focus on his goal i.e. job searching. This will increase the customer satisfaction.

Link to High Fidelity Prototype- 👈Click it

But, but, but, “I am not the user” that means if I start thinking that this solution is working for me then surely, it will work for everyone else then I might be wrong, that’s why I need to test and validate this solution with real users.

Usability Testing👨

To test this solution I had to create a plan where I created-

Tasks for the users-

1-Go to resume submission page and select a resume you want to submit.
2- keep only resume you want to use.

Things I wanted to observe-

1- Is he able to identify the resume he needs.
2- Does he deletes the previous resume.
3- Understand if user is able to Identify his resume in one go.

Now it was the time to test it with real user, I went to a park and tested the solution with two users.

My Observations with User 1-

1- able to select the resume

2- Confused if he is deleting the correct resume

3- Tries to delete the unused resume.

My Observations with User 2-

1- Confused about the resume he needs to select

2- Want to keep multiple resume for different positions.

3- asks how to preview the resumes.

4- Unsure if he deleted the correct resume

What I understood- Both the user had difficulty identifying the resume correctly, and User 2 gave me an eye opening statement i.e. what if I want to keep multiple resume for different role.

I realized that I need to come up with better solution now.

Improving the solution🎨🖌️

Now that I’ve tested the previous solution I’ve understood what were the things that needs to be fixed.

Then I Re-iterated over my High fidelity UI and made some changes.

Changes made- Added a little bit of quick preview for the user to Identify the resume and instead of writing “selected” added the “selected state” button i.e. the Tick at the right topmost corner of the selected document.

So whenever user selects any document, the box will expand and show a quick preview of the document.

How it benefits the user-

1-Now if user is using more than one resume then he can simply select the resume and get a peek of it. And then he can easily identify resume that will save his time making his resume submission process more efficient. This is now following Flexibility and efficiency heuristic.

2- User can now easily identify the resume that is not needed by him and can delete it therefore, it is following the User Control and Freedom heuristic.

How it benefits the business-
1- It reduces session length of resume submission while giving the user freedom of keeping more than one resume, therefore, more likely the user will stick to LinkedIn for multiple job profile this will increase average retention of the user.
2- Helps business on the basis of usability metrics because now the submission page is working as it was supposed to work.

Note- this may not be the perfect solution as this needs to be validated, that’s what I am planning to do in future.