MyECS
Engineering Student Career Service Website Redesign
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Facilitate with engineering students with their job hunting process
OVERVIEW
"MyECS" is a career service website through the UW. Functionalities include job profile or resume creation, job selection, interviews scheduling, etc.
We wanted to work on this website because it has several issues relating to design and functionality. In addition, the user base consists of employers and the students/alumni group, so it was easy to find great interviewees that not only shared our ideas for fixing the service but also had great suggestions for new features.
MY TEAM
Jessica Heinzelmann
Richard Chen
Suzy Kong
Matty Caulfield
MY ROLE
UX Researcher / Designer
Project Manager
DATE
May 2017 - Aug 2017
MYTHODS
Contextual Interview
Work Models
Brainstorming
DESIGN PROCESS
IDEATION
We created the infinity diagram by dividing the system into 4 sections.
Then we used the post-it notes to indicate pros and cons.
CONTEXTUAL INTERVIEW
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Since MyECS has a large user base, we Interviewed engineering students by asking them to complete certain tasks then observed their process
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At each new screen, asked them what they thought of the page
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Had users log in, edit profile, search for jobs, and schedule interviews
PARTICIPANTS
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3 College students
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18 - 23 years old
QUESTIONS
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What is the hardest part of this task?
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What do you like about this feature?
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Why do you want to click in here?
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What are you expecting to happen when doing this task?
SCENARIOS
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Editing the user resume profile
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Finding and selecting job postings
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Looking for the interview datebook
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Fig. - Snapshots of 3 interviews from Contextual Inquiry videos
INTERVIEW VIDEOS
Fig. - Transcript Screenshot from one of our interviews
"Editing resume is so time-consuming since every single time I changed even just a little bit the whole page will be reloaded."
KEY FINDINGS
"Why the main menu on the home page is so crowded? The navigation bar also fails to navigate all elements by grouping them in certain categories."
"I don't like the filtering function on the job posting page. The result has lack of organization."
KEY USER GROUP
MAIN SCENARIOS
CORE PROBLEMS
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College students majoring in Engineering
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Resume Editing
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Job Searching
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Crowded menu
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Inconvenient Resume Edit
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Log in
WORK MODELS
Before we moved into solutions, we built five working models which give a hierarchical and semi-pictorial representation of the steps the user takes to achieve certain functions.
WHY CREATING WORK MODELS?
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Identify breakdowns in the system
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Develop more efficient ways to complete the tasks
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Prototypes can be evaluated based on models
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Models can be guidelines on improving prototype
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SOLUTIONS
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Create clear components on Main Menu page
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Edit resume by dividing it to sections
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Updated filter to allow for quicker job searching
PROTOTYPING
PREVIOUS DESIGN
NEW DESIGN
FOLLOW-UP
After our final designs were completed, we called to our original users to evaluate the changes we had made. This was done on a much more informal basis than the contextual interviews.
Overall, our users were very pleased with the new design. They liked the simplification and more aesthetically pleasing interface we presented them with.
REFLECTION
MyECS UW service clearly needs a revamp of multiple crucial features. Our interviews incredibly helped us to target features that need a significant improvement. Also, they gave us multiple design ideas to implement in order to resolve the issues.
During the contextual inquiry process, we surprisingly found out our interviewees were quite comfortable talking through the features that they dislike or like without much guidance from us.
The use of work models significantly facilitates the decision-making process.