AS IS ➔ TO BE
UI/UX RENEWAL PROJECT
A recruiting platform in the naval industry?
Do you remember the Suez Canal paralysis in March 2021? Marine accidents happen every year. Experts are concerned about safety insensitivity, pointing out that 90% of marine accidents lie to human negligence. In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that more than 90% of the causes of marine accidents are the absence of talent.
A marine engineer is a key human resource in the maritime industry. They spend most of their lives on the sea. Students or young people who dream of becoming marine engineers or are in the process of preparing to become marine engineers wonder. 'Am I on the right track? Am I doing what I'm good at and what makes me happy? Are there any other paths? What kind of work would suit me if I were to settle in track and field?’
Have you ever seen a marine-related platform that sought talent and companies in the maritime industry to solve these problems? Through this project, we will figure out the current situation of the naval industry and discover a platform and its wonderful journey to the solve problems.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
BACKGROUND
We met a young Korean entrepreneur who dreams of becoming the No. 1 marine-focused platform. A start-up company, SEASON, had been about three months since the launch of the existing platform and had faced various problems. When they first came across the platform as a technology-based software, they considered customers too easy to deal with. There were problems such as an expectation of their customers to come by themselves when they created the site, and they configured the user interface with a rather complex UX. SEASON originally wanted to be more sophisticated than their previous HTML version, and requested to design an interface with overall community rearrangement and to add AI capabilities.
ROLE
• UX Research & UI Design Team Lead
• Project Management
• Web/Mobile UI Design
• Collaboration and communication with the client's developer group
GOAL
Accordingly, this project examines user experiences, trends and needs based on two different user perspectives, marine companies and job seekers/applicants. We will see how the optimal user experience interface can be implemented for each user aspect.
Beyond job hunting, we will pursue building up the successful implementation of an AI functional interface that diagnoses the community and hidden capabilities and tendencies so that job seekers can continue a promising careers. In addition, we will design a user experience that allows companies to hire desired talent based on objective indicators.
TIMELINE
4 months
TEAM
UX Research Lead & UI Design - Joyce Heo
Product Owner - Michael Hahm
Researcher - Jenny Kim
DISCOVER
00
FIELD STUDY
How might we...?
How might we design the most useful and convenient platform for job applicants and talent searching marine companies?
MARKET RESEARCH
EXPLORE
01
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Scale & Quality
Cost of the services
SEASON
Competitior 1
Competitior 2
Competitior 3
We gathered and analyzed the evaluation criteria mainly used in comprehensive analysis, that is, how good the quality is and how much the service cost is.
Quality was also included in the service scale. This is because it is a natural phenomenon that the higher quality(the larger the service type and more features), the larger the business size.
- Competitor 1 is a large-scale job search/recruitment platform with a long history of more than 20 years since its opening. It is Korea's No. 1 online recruitment platform. It has a search function equipped with various filters, and events and communities are quite active. It also includes various paid personality test services for job seekers.
- Competitor 2 and 3, considered as SEASON's very close competitors, target marine/land-related job seekers and provide information on job openings. The difference between the two is that Competitor 2 has a community space such as a forum compared to Competitor 3. Considering that Competitor 2 has been in its 14th year so far (as of 2023), it can be expected that the quality of Competitor 2 is inevitably better than the quality of Competitor 3.
As a UX Research & UI design team, we focused on investigating and analyzing 'how we can improve SEASON's service quality and value by creating a better community environment and strengthening a search matching feature between companies and job seekers compared to competitors.
USER EXPERIENCE
RESEARCH
EXPLORE
02
Qualitative & Quantitative Research
STEP1 - Qualitative Research
In-Depth Telephone Interview (IDTI)
STEP2 - Quantitative Research
Online Survey
Method
Target
Segment
SEASON platform users and potential users aged 20 -59 years male/female and recruiters from marine companies
Number
of
Sample
Total samples: 20
-
Business Users; HR manager: 5
-
Job seekers & Job-seeking Users
-
aged 20-29 male/female: 5
-
aged 20-29 male/female platform users: 3
-
aged 30-39 male/female platform users: 4
-
aged 40-60 male/female platform users: 3
Total samples: 100
-
Business Users; HR manager: 20
-
Job seekers & Job-seeking Users
-
aged 20-29 male/female: 20
-
aged 20-29 male/female platform users: 25
-
aged 30-39 male/female platform users: 25
-
aged 40-60 male/female platform users: 10
Length
Within a total of 10-15 questions (1 hour)
Within a total of 30 questions (30minutes)
Developing guidelines, developing web surveys, and conducting, and discussing the concepts.
Completing the questionnaire, developing the online survey, conducting, data processing, statistics table creation, data analysis, and results generation
Scope
of
Service
STEP1 - Qualitative Research
The In-Depth Telephone Interview focused on the following 10 research items:
-
The use of satisfaction level on the SEASON platform
-
The use status on other competitor platforms
-
The need for specific features
-
Talent pool/job-seeking-related questions
-
The industry needs and issues
-
The use status and needs of paid services
-
Market Intelligence
-
Networking
-
The form of writing a resume
-
Other Information
▴ A content document that summarizes the responses of each topic and interview participant. This image is blurred to protect personal and confidential business information.
STEP2 - Quantitative Research
The online survey aims for the following 4 parts:
-
Understand the overall state of the user experience in the current maritime industry
-
Identifying the needs of the users for the new concept development in terms of Matching and Community features
-
Understand the acceptance level of the users on the existing service features such as Home, Recruitment, Talent Pool, and Resume.
-
Identify the focal point and effective directionality
The online questionnaire was divided into two categories: job-seeking individuals and corporate users. The questionnaire for individual customers consisted of a total of 32 questions in the order of Personal Information(3) → User Type(3) → Home(7) → Recruitment(11) → Resume(1) → Community(3) → Other(Customer Management/Satisfaction)(4). On the other hand, the questionnaire for the corporate users consisted of a total of 28 questions in the order of Personal Information(3) → User Type(3) → Home(2) → Recruitment; Corporate Announcement(4) → Talent Pool; Resume(10) → Community(2) → Other(Customer Management/Satisfaction)(4). Compared to the individual customers, the questionnaire for the corporate customers put a greater proportion of questions in the Resume section. This is because the representative needs of the companies lie in reliable information about the talent.
▴ Online questionnaire development document. This image is blurred to protect confidential business information.
▴ The results conducted from the online survey of the individual users. This image is blurred to protect confidential business information.
▴ The results conducted from the online survey of the corporate users. This image is blurred to protect confidential business information.
USER JOURNEY
MAPPING
EXPLORE
03
USER JOURNEY MAP
PHARSES
1
2
3
4
5
ACTIONS
EMOTIONS/TOUCHPOINTS
OPPORTUNITIES
Visit the platform.
First impression at HOME page.
See the overall contents. Scroll down. Search.
Sign in; make an account.
Fill in Resume/ Company information.
Interact with job seekers/recruiters.
Refine the search feature. There is a need for an interface design that provides more intuitive and easier usability.
A more organized and concrete interface is needed for each content. One content should not take up too much weight, making scrolling not too long so that the users don't feel bored.
It will introduce a simple membership registration method through SNS linkage like competitor 1 and competitor 2.
How about adding a feature that links information to resume automatically when logging in to users wanting to avoid hassle, such as having to enter information one by one?
Establish a customized community space where individuals and companies can freely communicate.
HUNTING
PAIN POINTS
EXPLORE
04
PAIN POINTS
1
Because of the search function was not specified, the users felt uncomfortable. It was found that the filter search feature was significantly lower quality than the competitor 1. In addition, there were quite a few opinions that the interface felt somewhat complicated because unnecessary information was not filtered.
2
In the qualitative & quantitative research, dissatisfaction level with the lack of information was the highest. Individual users had a clear need for detailed information about each company, such as the company's vision, differences from other companies, financial status, salary, type of work, ship type, rotation, route, domestic/overseas, and past announcements. In addition, matching and push notification for personalized job information were also required.
3
The hassle of entering basic personal information one by one. A simpler sign in system is needed through SNS-linked subscription.
4
Individual users felt tired because there were too many resume columns and having to click the "Register" button every time. It took considerable energy and time. Corporate users needed a feature that promotes their company and reading the personality information of job seekers.
5
Absence of networking community space. Individual users wanted to talk about their concerns about job searching and turnover, such as a free forum board and an inquiry board in order to get advices from experienced people. Corporate users needed a headhunting system that ables to communicate with job seekers.
EXPLORE
05
- HOME
: A menu bar, an integrated search engine, contents divided into 4 different categories, a sorting filter, a communicable community forum, and a footer (including terms and conditions, personal information processing policy, paid service usage guide, recruiter search usage rules, youth protection policy, customer inquiries, company information, etc.).
- SIGN IN
: An easy sign-in process with linking through KakaoTalk which is the most used SNS app in South Korea and an e-mail and mobile phone authentication system. A registering draft resume (for individual users)/company information (for corporate users) immediately after signing up and encourage them to set up push notifications.
- JOBS
: Fit with filterable search capabilities (such as domestic/foreign, ongoing/closed job announcements, and Recommendation Job Announcement/General Announcement). Add clipping, sharing, immediate application, and an apply feature linked on the company homepage.
- RESUME
: Easier resume saving and registration systems. Add a resume or attachment uploading feature.
- RECRUIT
: Filterable Job Seeker Searching Engine, Top-rated Job Seeker/General List View, Job Seeker Detailed Profile Page (with scraps, contact disclosure requests, interview suggestions, and note-taking features). Recruitment Management Page.
- JOB ANNOUNCEMENT
: Add a new job announcement registration page, an existing announcement recall function, a guided view for job announcement creation, corporate news registration, and a preview feature.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE (User Flow Mapping)
Individual Users (Job Seekers)
Business Users (Recruiters)
WIREFRAMING
EXPLORE
06
WIREFRAMES
Individual Users (Job Seekers)
▴ The wireframes for the individual users. This image is blurred to protect confidential business information.
Business Users (Recruiters)
▴ The wireframes for the company users. This image is blurred to protect confidential business information.
TESTING
LISTEN
07
SCOPE of SERVICE
Out of scope of contract services.
: It leaves something to be desired to the point that we could not go through any modifications after verifying its usability while conducting testing. As an outsourcing design team, the scope of the business contract was user experience research and design excluding testing, so testing was conducted internally within the client's company where the developement team resides.
POLISHING
DESIGN
IMPROVE
08
UI for Individual Users (Job Seekers)
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UI for Business Users (Recruiters)
AFTER RENEWAL
TRAFFIC
BEFORE RENEWAL
AFTER RENEWAL
The result of traffic analytics conducted through Semrush.com shows a remarkable traffic rise as it increased more than 3.1 times from traffic level 79 before renewal to traffic level 247 after renewal.
VISITS
▴ The result of the total visit analytics conducted by Similarweb.com
The number of visitors increased more than 4.4 times from 6,600 in December 2022 to 29,200 in March 2023. Considering the traffic growth rate, it can be seen that the improved service after renewal had a positive effect on the increase in the number of visitors, but it is difficult to declare that the renewal effect had a major impact on the increase in the number of visitors as February to March is a period of brisk recruitment of the year.