Overview
During my internship, I was tasked with revisiting a central page (JDP) in Amazon's internal hiring platform (HIRE). While my project emphasized research and data presentation, the final prototype required the use of design principles and skills. The final deliverable merges an updated framework for a HIRE 2.0 redesign and specific design choices for alleviating user pain points. This project explores how JDP can fit into HIRE 2.0, and it sparks future conversations for how future iterations should be approached.
Project Details
My Role
UX Researcher/Designer
Timeline
12 Weeks
Deliverables
Hi-fi prototype, journey map, research executive summary
For privacy reasons, some of the information in design screenshots is redacted, and the finished prototype is not available here. Please contact me if you would like to know more about my contributions to this project.
Understand the Problem
HIRE users are searching for seamless recruiting experiences.
The Recruiting Engine team manages their applicants and candidates through an internal hiring platform called HIRE. My project focused on revamping a part of this platform- Job Details Page (JDP)- for an upcoming redesign. JDP is one of the most used pages in HIRE, offering information of a job across several hiring process domains and other functionalities related to the job.
Main Objective
Use research methods to understand JDP in its current form and develop new concept designs for it. This project will spark conversations on how we can provide the right experience for users in the HIRE 2.0 redesign.
Preliminary Research
Reading up on existing information.
There was previous data on:
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Use cases
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User personas
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Recruitment timeline and process
This was helpful for understanding HIRE as a whole, but I still needed to learn more about work flows and user experiences specific to JDP.
In-depth-interviews helped uncover salient insights and issues within JDP.
18 participants representing 6 different user types.
Participants
Virtual IDIs broken up into two parts:
1) Contextual
2) Experience
Methodology
Through affinity mapping, I was able to extract information about use cases, behavioral observations, pain points, and other miscellaneous items. There were 9 main pain points that arose from the generative research:
Wireframes & Lo-Fi Prototype
Designs took into considerations the four highest priority pain points as well as a new general framework for HIRE 2.0.
User Testing
Feedback from users validated design choices and highlighted opportunities for improvement.
I conducted user testing to uncover what had and had not worked in my original design.
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Participants: The participant breakdown was the same as it was in my first round of user research. However, I reduced the total number of participants by doing 6 groups of 2.
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Methodology: I conducted 12 one-on-one interviews through online video calls. Participants shared their screens with me. The interview itself was broken up into three parts:
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HIRE 2.0 Brief: explain the HIRE 2.0 concept so users could understand changes in structure and content
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Current JDP: understand how users use JDP and give them a refresher on its features
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Prototype Demo: expose users to the new design and obtain feedback
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Design Iterations
There were 3 main areas that needed further attention.
1
Key Attributes
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Users did not have an immediate view of the "Team" section.
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I rearranged the sections within the Key Attributes to make essential information easily visible. The "Team" section is especially important because it helps users quickly identify if they are working on the correct job requisition. I also condensed the information to reduce the amount of scrolling that was necessary.
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Before
After
2
Pipeline Summary
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Users wanted to see information that was moved out of the summary and onto a complete version of the Pipeline.
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I made the full Pipeline more easily accessible with the addition of links to specific pieces of information.
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Users were confused about what some of the information referred to.
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I restructured the layout and changed some of the wording to increase intuitiveness. Active and inactive stages were separated, and the stages were condensed to eliminate scrolling. Additionally, my team helped me ensure that new word choices were consistent with vocabulary used throughout Amazon.
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Before
After
3
History Filters
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Users have to search for information requested by their team members.
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I added the ability to filter by date range and sort by recruiter name to quickly find specific information. This would help users who often have to report requisition activity during a specific time frame and find actions that were taken by specific team members.
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Users often deal with requisitions that have thousands of entries in the history log.
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I changed the structure of the history log to a table format that is common throughout HIRE. This would hopefully make parts of each history log stand out for better visibility.
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Before
After
Final Design
Hi-Fi Prototype
The final design:
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Provides essential information at a glance
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Adds the features for faster information searching
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Adds links for faster connections to other parts of HIRE
If you would like to learn more about the final design, please feel free to reach out!
Final Thoughts
Next Steps
While this design addresses a variety of user pain points, there is still more to consider in the trajectory of the HIRE 2.0 redesign.
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Consider which types of users will have access to different features. Some user types only used very specific features of JDP in their day-to-day work. It might be beneficial to personalize JDP based on user type.
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Consider how JDP usage will change after the implementation of this design. Because some features were moved out of JDP, user traffic might not remain as high as it is now. Should more sections/features be moved out of JDP?
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Design new icons for JDP sections that align with Amazon's design system. This would help create a more cohesive feel while ensuring that new icons are intuitive for users.
Takeaways
This was a challenging project because I came in with no background knowledge of JDP, and it was hard to settle on a specific place to start. Even though it was a daunting project, it pushed me to learn from my team and peers.
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Take everything one step at a time. A problem might appear unapproachable, but all I need to do is break it down into smaller steps.
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Do NOT be afraid to ask questions! This project helped me understand that people rarely expect you know everything. Projects like these are a place learning and personal/mutual development. Your team can support you, and you can support your team.
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Do not prescribe solutions without having the evidence to back them up. Research is the foundation for valid design choices. It prevents designers from developing solutions that do not respect users' perspectives and emotions.