New Hampshire Employment Security Website Redesign
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Goal: The goal of this project is to enhance the accessibility and user experience of the New Hampshire government website, specifically targeting users who are seeking employment. By improving the website's design, navigation, and content, our aim is to provide a seamless and inclusive digital experience that empowers job seekers to easily find relevant information, resources, and opportunities.
Role: UX/UI Designer
Timeline: 3 weeks
Tools: Figma, Miro, Google Forms, Google Slides, Procreate
Design Strategy
Given the outdated design of the New Hampshire Employment Security website, it is natural for some to question whether the quality of the job opportunities it offers matches the website's appearance. It is important for the website to accurately reflect the reliability of the services it provides. Hence, an updated website would greatly facilitate individuals seeking employment-related information, making their search more efficient and effective.
USER RESEARCH
User surveys and interviews On the current website
User testing of the current New Hampshire Employment Security website involves gathering feedback and insights from individuals who interact with the website. The goal is to understand how users navigate and interact with the website, identify any usability issues or frustrations they encounter, and gather suggestions for improvements.
What the data tells us
AFFINITY MAP
From the data from the surveys and interviews, we can see that most of the users were unsatisfied with their experience.
We created an affinity map to arrange concepts according to emerging themes and trends pertaining to users. Afterward, we categorized them into three distinct groups: pain points, aesthetics, and wants.
USER PERSONA & USER JOURNEY MAP
The user persona serves as a valuable tool for designers and stakeholders, enabling them to personify the typical user by assigning them a name and a face. In this case, we created George Swanson.
After creating the user persona, the next step is to create a user journey based on thorough research. This approach helps us understand when and where users face their biggest problems and frustrations.
Georges's pain points:
- gets frustrated when applying for jobs due to the lengthy process
- is anxious about the instability of the economy
- disappointment when he does not get an interview.
SOLUTION
How might we..STATEMENT
In the Develop stage, we start by converting our users pain points into a how-might-we statement. This question is designed to encourage designers to explore potential solutions for the identified problems.
In this case, we made this:
How might we enhance the job application process on our website to reduce frustration and increase the chances of success for unemployed job seekers?
MOSCOW METHOD
By using the MOSCOW technique, we can prioritize and allocate resources effectively, ensuring that the most critical features are developed and delivered first. While also considering additional features based on available time, resources, and user needs.
Must-have: Simplify the job application process on our website by minimizing the number of steps required, reducing form complexity, and optimizing user flow to decrease frustration for unemployed job seekers.
Should-have: Incorporate features such as auto-saving progress, allowing applicants to resume incomplete applications, and providing clear instructions and guidance throughout the job application process to enhance the chances of success for unemployed job seekers.
Could-have: Implement an interactive feedback system to notify job seekers about the status of their applications, providing timely updates and ensuring transparency in the process to improve the overall experience for unemployed individuals.
Once we had prioritized the crucial features, we revisited our compiled information to ensure a seamless connection between our product and the target market. This step was key in ensuring that our product adequately caters to the needs of potential users.
WIREFRAME & PROTOTYPES
Lo-Fi Sketches
To swiftly iterate a potential app design, we utilized Procreate to generate low-fidelity sketches. This enables us to explore various design possibilities efficiently.
But before we started the sketches we wrote down the features we wanted to implement.
- (Simpler Design) By decreasing the overwhelming clutter of the original site we will implement a minimal design layout.
- (Drop Down Menus) This creates organized categories to help users easily find what they're looking for. Most importantly job information.
- (Account Icon) Adding a personal account icon allows user to quickly access their account info on any page.
MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
HI-Fidelity Prototype
After thoroughly analyzing the user feedback received from our mid-fidelity prototype, we primarily made minor adjustments to the placement of headings, drop-down menus, button labels, and a help button.
With these refinements in place, we proceeded to implement our mid-fidelity prototypes with color, text, and updated photos, to bring our final design to life.
Results
Users have said the website design has massively improved the accessibility of starting the job application process. This relieves the anxiety of looking for help and gathering info about jobs that are available in the New Hampshire area.
Next Steps
Before we can finalize the app we still need to improve on our design and conduct more user testing.
Listed below are features we will love to add in the future:
- Add more dates for virtual job fair dates.
- Implement videos how-to videos on improving resumes and interviews.
- Integrate an alerts system for near by job postings.
Thank you for sticking around and reading this case study. Have a great day!