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Mobile App Design

Edge

I worked on an interdisciplinary team of students to design a job search application for students.

  • Role
  • UI/UX Designer
  • Contributors
  • Ying Chen, Maggie Lin, Erin Ryan
  • Year
  • 2017
  • Duration
  • 3 months

Problem

Stress of the job search

Job searching is a large stress factor for students. Often times, the task of looking and applying for career opportunities can seem daunting. How can we create a platform that eases the experience of job searching?

Solution

Lightweight job searching

Edge is a mobile application aimed at relaxing the job search process. The design uses lightweight and familiar interactions inspired by shopping and dating platforms.

Initial concerns

After introducing our idea of a mobile job search application, we gathered initial feedback and concerns from fellow students and professors.

Considerations based on peer feedback
Find a balanced number of filters.
How much can each side (applicants and recruiters) influence the app?
How will you differentiate your app from existing platforms?
Will there be a market for companies?

Literature reviews

Through literature reviews, we researched into the use of online job search applications.

Literature review findings
Literature reviews — key statistics and findings from online literature and study reviews.
Insights gathered from literature reviews
Our findings showed that majority of college graduates look for online job search opportunities and majority job seekers use mobile apps in their job search process

Issues with existing platforms

Knowing that a market existed for online and mobile job search applications, we continued to research into competitor platforms. Since our target audience was students, we sent a survey out across campus.

student survey findings
Student survey — results from surveying 61 students on campus on their experiences with job search platforms.
Insights gathered from our applicant survey
Our results indicated that issues with existing platforms centered around poor filtering and difficulty finding compatible positions.

Recruiters’ perspectives

After surveying students, we thought it would be good to gain insight from the recruiter side of job search applications. We reached out and interviewed a few recruiter connections.

Recruiter interview findings
Recruiter interview — results from interviewing two recruiters on their perspectives of the job search process and using job search platforms.
Insights gathered from our recruiter interviews
We found issues centered around receiving accurate and concise information from applicants.

App interactions

Since one of our original objectives was to create a lightweight application, we looked into existing platforms that incorporated casual interactions. We created journey maps for shopping sites, dating apps, and competitor job search platforms. Some interactions that inspired us included the Tinder swipe and the wishlist/cart function of shopping sites.

LinkedIn journey map
LinkedIn journey map
Handshake journey map
Handshake journey map
Romwe journey map
Romwe journey map
Tinder journey map
Tinder journey map

High Fidelity Prototype

Profile creation and filtering

Users are only required to input standard information and have full customization of search results.

Profile creation

Swipe, save, and apply

The interface incorporates quick and easy interactions for browsing job postings and viewing details.

App interactions

View clickable prototype