Akanksha's Portfolio

Academic Schedule in

Part-time jobs

UX Research

UI Design

The innovative bridge connecting students with part-time jobs that fit their academics-first schedule and employers with rotating top talent. Say goodbye to endless search and hello to a world of opportunities around campus.

My Roles

UI Design, Wireframes, Design System creation, Interviews, Market Analysis, Animated video.

Time

2023, 3 Months

Goals

Part-time jobs ought to prioritize students' time availability and look beyond their limited experience, seamlessly connecting them to all employers, thereby centralizing a hiring process built on trust, reliance, and efficiency.

Solution

That's why we saw a need to create a platform that makes it easy for students to search for jobs based on their schedule, skills, interests, location and more. We aimed to create a holistic system with a sister platform for employers to post and monitor job openings and find the right candidates for their needs.

Data Empowered Hiring Processes

Employers can access diverse and essential statistical insights right on their homepage, streamlining and optimizing hiring processes.

Smart Shift Scheduler

Students precisely outline their availability, enabling them to discover shifts beyond regular schedule; empowering them to simultaneously navigate multiple opportunities.

Efficient Decision-Making

Guided by ratings from peers, matched tags, and prominently displayed wage and benefits, students efficiently save time with all critical information spotlighted prominently at the top.

Highlights

Peeling the Onion

It was essential for me to understand both user groups - students and employers. While our primary focus centered on job seekers, their roles often swapped between primary and secondary based on user flows.

On conducting user interviews with both students and employers, coupled with affinity mapping, I gained a insights into their preferences, needs, and challenges. The results underscored a necessity for centralized system that prioritizes personalization and customization over information.

Students

Job Board Preferences and Filtering

Prefer university job boards over individual platforms and separate processes

Students commonly submit multiple job applications in a single session

Desires in Work Availability

Weekend availability drives students to pursue extra shifts.

Students desire increased work days beyond their current schedules.

Seeking Direct Communication and Guidance

Interviewees express the need for guidance in the application process.

Some students opt for direct communication with hiring managers.

The lack of application status updates induces anxiety among applicants

Employers

Streamlining the Hiring Process

Employers express concerns about time-consuming hiring processes.

Difficulty tracking applications affects time for recruitment.

Lack of quick hires for a holiday or weekend shift and short term roles.

Optimizing Training Investments

Challenges in investing separate training times for short-term employees.

Streamlining a common training processes is identified as a potential improvement.

Restricting to University Affiliates

Employers seek ways to limit applications to trusted students and affiliates.

Tailoring based on university-exam periods, holidays rush hours, etc.

Summary of Affinity Mapping findings

Part-time roles have an inherent nature of high turnover rates, which represents both - opportunity and challenge.

the competitive landscape

Identifying eight global platforms, I delved into the competitive landscape to gain insights into mental models and market strategies. The analysis encompassed three direct, four indirect, and one replacement competitor.

Numerous platforms focus solely on listing jobs, neglecting the specific requirements of students.

The application process is often redundant and lacks any communication with employers, rendering these platforms ineffective beyond the initial job search phase.

Overall benchmarks

Features

navigation

User flow

Visual identity

Tone

100% Opacity = Best suited |

20% Opacity = Worst

This guided the feature mapping process conducted as a co-design activity with open voting. The objective was to introduce innovative features while maintaining a minimal learning curve.

Mapping needs and opportunities to features

Converging Lens

Upon summarizing the research, design directions were established to create a system attuned to the specific contexts of our two user groups.

Customized Filtering:

An essential aspect was to balance the filters and tags to ensure perfect fitting jobs reached the right candidates.

Proactive Guidance:

Establishing a communication channel ensures a trustable and faster hiring process for both user groups.

Personalization:

A student's availability may change every month, requiring a individualized, time-based personalization.

Upon summarizing the research, design directions were established to create a system attuned to the specific contexts of our two user groups.

Stages

Need

Getting Started

Application and Messaging

Tracking and Browsing

Actions

Clark wants to buy a 3D printer which is expensive, so he decides to work part time to earn some money.

His friends recommend him a new platform called JobON to find part time jobs and quick jobs

He downloads the app. He creates his account + adds his schedule + other preferenaces.

He filters the jobs he likes and saves them

He browses through the job reqs. and proceeds to apply

He notices he can contact the hiring manager and ask doubts

Once he applies, he then goes to tracking the status of the job process

He continues his job hunt and also realises he can do a quick job

He goes to quick job section and starts browsing

Thoughts

He wishes there’s an easy way to find jobs on and off campus

He is curious to try out the platform

He is intrigued by the fact that he can find jobs based on his schedule

Loves that there are so many ways to filter the jobs

Relaxed that he can see all the reqd. stuff at top

Happy that he doesn’t have to go around finding contact

Intrigued and fascinated with the feature

Confused at start as to what it could mean

Becomes curious and explores more

Emotions

Opportunity Explored

To create a platform for students to find part-time roles

Crafting a clear onboarding process to explain the platform and expectations

Creating a platform that gives preference to a student’s schedule

A lot of filters for advanced sorting

Write all job reqs. on top to make it easy

Make contacting and doubt solving easy

Know the status of your applications

Make it easy for the students to understand other features on the app

Look for more quick shifts outside of your current work

An Experience Map showcasing the opportunities we explored at each stage

How can students easily find short-term and part-time roles accommodating their class schedules through a to Uber-for-jobs approach?

Sculpting the Canvas

Next we sketched out our directions while constantly revisiting the problem statement. By defining the user-journeys through sketching and iterations, we were able to innovate and refine our ideas beyond the what others offer.

The focus was on reducing the number of clicks required to navigate from any child node to another, even if under a different parent.

We leveraged the onboarding flow for minimizing the learning curve.

Student User-Journey

Splash Screen

Set up Schedule

Set up profile

Homepage

Home

Your Location

Recent Searches

Search Messages

New message

Delete messages

Clear Searches