Reach
Team Study
Reach is a recruiting software aimed at accommodating hiring recruiters who are not familiar with the hiring process for a UX/UI role and the higher emphasis that goes into different stages such as portfolio reviews, design challenges, etc.
Overview
Problem
The current recruiting software market is filled with many Applicant Tracking and Hiring platforms. However, these software are not optimized to hire UX Designers.
Most don't do well at accommodating the higher emphasis that is put on portfolio websites nor do they consider the different stages and interviews such as Take Home Design Challenges, Portfolio Presentations, App Critiques and Whiteboard Exercises.
Furthermore, many companies especially young startups are still new to identifying good UX talent and evaluating their talents.
Solution
Generate suggestions of what roles the recruiter may be looking for by submitting the tasks a new hire would need to do at their company
Customizable job post templates for recruiter to choose from as a starting point
Easy to digest job portal for recruiter to edit and review necessary requirements of the job before posting it
Reach will automatically sort through the initial resumes, automatically end out take home assignments and reach out to candidates for interview scheduling - reducing hiring recuiters admin load
Project Scope
Focus on developing one user flow into a high fidelity stage for our prototype that would best solve an existing pain point of hiring recruiters in hiring for a UX/UI role.
Target Audience
Hiring recruiters and managers not familiar with traditional stages of the hiring process of a UX/UI role and do not have the time or mental capacity to learn from scratch as they have lots on their hands already.
Roles
Joseph Martin - UX Research, UX Design, UI Design, Product Design
Zhané Leavey - UX Research, UX Design, Content Strategy, UI Design
Kelly Nelson - UX Research, UX Design, Content Strategy, Product Design
Michelle LaPalme - UX Research, UX Design, Content Strategy
Duration
2 days
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Adobe Creative Suite, Google Workspace, Procreate
Discovery & Research
Competitive Analysis
Due to the short time frame, our team decided to conduct only secondary research on existing platforms.
The research phase started with a competitive analysis of some existing hiring platforms focused on locating the clearest user pain points that might exist for each one as well as aspects of each platform that worked well.
Our team split up and took a different platform to research before meeting back up to discuss findings as a whole and figure out key insights. Insights discussed were user pain points, target users, strengths and weaknesses.
User Persona
A user persona was constructed using the insights we gathered from our secondary research.
While conducting research our team kept an eye out for existing motivations, goals, and frustrations from real users posting on the internet about their experiences using these platforms.
User Journey
Once the user persona was established our team put ourselves in the shoes of a hiring recruiter to see what their journey would look like to see what potential pain points should be focused most on.
User Stories
Taking the insights gathered up until this point our team was able to decide on the pain points that we were going to focus on for the scope of the project and put together user stories that would convey those.
User Flow
Having set the user stories, our team switched focus to creating an optimal flow that our users could take through our product.
The flow takes the user through the process of posting a job by selecting a template generated for them based off initial screener questions thats get more information on the role they are hiring for.
Sketching Iterations
Branding & Identity
Once the sketches were completed and our team had a solid idea of what the screens were going to look like we moved on to creating an identity and logo for the product.
The name “Reach” was agreed upon after going over preliminary sketches made by a team member.
A style guide was also established to ensure design consistency when working on the high-fidelity mockups.
Logo Identity
Style Guide
High Fidelity Mockups
Next Steps
Having completed the first iteration of this project and producing an MVP, some of the next steps that our team could look at taking a few different routes to improve the overall project.
Dedicate more time on user research to get a clearer understanding of specific user pain points to generate better user stories.
Spend time looking up more relevant information to fill the mockup/prototype.
Refine user flow to solve overall problem a little clearer.
Thoughts & Conclusions
Given the time constraint of a protothon plus the fact that this type of experience was a first for our entire team, I think our team did a good job of producing a solid minimum viable product. The prototype involved a user flow that solves an existing pain point for a hiring recruiter or manager looking to hire a UX role without knowing much of the field/process. I also think our team did a great job in producing a design system and am happy with the overall UI of the project.
With that being said, I definitely think is room for improvement in a few areas. One of them being the user research and understanding the user a little better to set up clearer and more specific user stories. Another being to include some more relevant information to areas of the prototype in the screens of the dashboard and job portal.
Both of these areas could definitely be improved with some more time to conduct research. A big takeaway I took from this project was getting some first hand experience on just how important user research is and how it affects the entirety of the project.