Direct Messaging in the

Mobile App
Role: UX Researcher | Visual Designer | Duration: 2 week sprint

Project Overview

Indeed is an employment platform that allows users worldwide to search for and apply to job listings.
In this project I introduced a direct messaging feature to the Indeed mobile app. My goal was that this feature would put users at the forefront on their job search by allowing them to reach out to employers directly through job listings and get the information they need.
UX Techniques Used
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User Interviews
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Affinity Mapping
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Persona Development
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User Flows
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Sketching and Wireframing
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Prototyping in Figma
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Usability Testing
Hypothesis
We believe that remote job seekers to want a way to contact recruiters and hiring managers so they can have more direct communication with potential employers and a better remote job search overall.
Affinity Mapping
I began my research by completing 7 user interviews. In these interviews I asked the participants about their online remote job searching experience. I found that many of the participants liked to feel like their application follow-up is personal, to network with recruiters and other job seekers, and the ability to use many features while searching.

Persona
Once I had an understanding of what potential users thought of remote job searching, I was able to create my target user persona
A creative young professional working in Social Media Management
Is frustrated by being ghosted by jobs she has applied to and having no way to reach out directly
Serene Walsh

Is looking to transition into remote work for flexibility and work life balance
Wants to be able to communicate with recruiters about specifics of positions before and after applying to them
Once I understood who my target user for was I began to articulate her problem
Problem Statement
Serene needs a more effective way to connect with the hiring team of a job she’s interested in because she wants to learn more about the flexibility and creative autonomy of the position.
When thinking of solutions, I considered the questions...
How Might We?
connect users to recruiters/hiring managers at companies they have applied (or want to apply to)?
ensure that the online application process feels more personal to the job seeker?
and came to the conclusion that a direct messaging feature would be the best solution.
Sketches
Once I was done with research and defining the problem I began to visualize what I thought the solution would look like. I created some basic sketches of the new direct messaging feature and a possible job tracking feature.


To get a beginning look at what the final product would look like digitally I created some mid-fi wireframes of my design. I also prototyped these wireframes to get a feel for what the flow would be

Usability Testing
After completing my mockup I began conducting usability tests with 3 participants. In an unmoderated remote observation I had them go through the direct messaging and status tracking tasks
Qualitative Data

Quantitative Data
Success Rates
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2 out 3 users completed both the Direct Messaging Task and Application Status Tracking Task
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1 out 3 users only completed the Direct Messaging Task
Completion times (3 minutes was the goal) :
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User 1: 3:46
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User 2: 1:39
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User 3: 3:44 (only 1 task completed)
After getting data and feedback from the mid-fi prototype usability tests I began designing the mock-up. Some key changes I made were
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More prominent placement of the Back and Home buttons
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Focus on just Direct Messaging Task
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Making status tracking plain text at the initial page, rather than its own clickable task
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Rethinking the navigation between pages to make a smoother transition.
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Add more frames to make it a more complete experience
Next Steps
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Another round of usability testing on the hi-fi mockup.
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Ideating additional subfeatures:
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A way to connect with other users who are in roles like the one you are applying for.
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A fully developed method of tracking application progress
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A way to effectively track the jobs users have applied to
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