Overview

My Role: UX/UI Designer

Duration: 2 months

Summary: Design a product that will strengthen the local library’s relationship with the community it serves by connecting job seekers or people seeking advanced training for their jobs with free information and resources at the library.

Deliverables: Research, contextual inquiry, persona, site map, task flow, wireframes, prototypes

Tools: Sketch, Invision, Xtensio 

Challenge

Our project is centered around digitally connecting the community to the libraries’ resources, which include workshops, events, networking opportunities, and book rentals. Our goal is to help the library further engage job seekers with career-building opportunities. We aim to build a product for the library that will help improve patrons’ skills, help find them employment, and be a resource to prepare young people for a new labor market.

Empathize

Research Plan

In creating our research questions, the overall goal was to learn more about library-goers, particularly those looking to enter the workforce, change job sectors, or are seeking advanced training in their careers. We wanted to delve into a deeper understanding of the relationship between community members, the library, and the resources offered for job seekers.

Questions:

• What platform do users use to find professional development help and why?

• How do libraries connect with their local communities?

• What are users currently using to engage with their local libraries?

• Why do users need an online app to help them engage with their local library?

• What makes users choose one platform over another?

• What prevents people from engaging with online communities?

• How do library staff currently support those seeking assistance?

• What would make a user engage with our product?

• What value would users get with our product?

• What do users want to see come from our product?

Research Objectives:

• Determine the type of digital platform that is best suited for this product

• Validate user motivations and needs as community members/library-goers

• Discover what features keep job seekers engaged on a digital platform

• Generate ideas for the library on how to build a community of job seekers through a great digital user experience

We used the following primary and secondary sources for data gathering and research.

Competitive Analysis:

• Insights:

  • Users should be able to easily search for skills training and events based on location and interests.

  • Keep the homepage simple, easy to navigate, and keep it user friendly for people with basic computer or phone skills. 

  • Incorporate a currents events news section providing updates on different job markets based on location.

  • Users prefer to have more than one available option on the apps they use: they want to be able to reserve study rooms, book classes, rent books, and book appointments in one place.

Subject Matter Expert (SME) Interviews: We interviewed three people who have volunteered or worked at a library.

• Insights:

  • People who take advantage of general library resources tend to need more in-depth assistance and want personalized training, particularly older adults.

  • All libraries hold classes/workshops on things such as resume building, language classes, interviewing tips but a lot of people don’t know this.

  • People often visit the library for job seeking-related purposes and use the computer labs to leverage the tech assistants.

  • People seeking assistance tend to get easily frustrated or lose motivation when they experience difficulties creating resumes or email accounts.

Contextual Inquiry: We observed three professionals as they used mobile apps and online applications to job search and/or search for professional development events.

• Insights:

  • Professionals feel job searching is stressful and should be done with as few steps as possible.

  • Professionals want resources tailored specifically to their profession, so they jump to another app or site designed for that.

  • Professionals would like a more relevant, up-to-date, and simple-to-use tool for job searching.

Define

We synthesized the information we had gathered so far to create a persona that will help us set a clear user need statement. Jennifer is searching for a job as a special events producer. She’s looking for a platform that will help improve her resume and connect her with other local professionals in her Greenpoint neighborhood.

Like many young professionals, Jennifer is unaware that her community library has the resources to help her land a job and facilitate networking with other young professionals.

Next, we aligned our vision as a team as to what our product would look like by creating a site map. A card sorting technique was employed to help us define the site’s information architecture.

Open Card Sorting:

• 6 participants; 3 minutes each to complete.

• Participants created a total of 10 categories, with a median of 4 categories each. 

• From reviewing the results, it looks like a common genre of categories were navigation and filtering options. In addition to that, each category contained at least 4 cards.

Design Decisions

Before starting the ideation process, we set the following user need statement for our project:

People who go to the library looking for help to start, advance, or change their careers want easy-to-access, relevant resources and guidance but often don’t know libraries in their communities offer these services.

We generated the following set of design principles that best reflect the values of the library:

• Offer growth

• Encourage engagement

• Increase reliability

• Bridge the community and library

Solutions

Treehouse is an online professional development community that aims to create a platform that is run by local libraries. The goal is to create an engaging and active community of like-minded users looking to enter the workforce, change job sectors, or are seeking advanced training in their careers.

Usability Testing: A total of six (6) participants were tested remotely using a mid-fidelity prototype. They viewed the prototype through an iPhone and evaluated the functionality and basic navigation. Users responded in a mostly positive manner during our debriefing questions.

Recommendations:

• Add an onboarding screen before the home page to educate users on what Treehouse does.

• Email users a detailed event confirmation.

• Reword “Advanced Options” to “Advanced Filters” for more clarity and traction.

• Make the app more visually appealing.

First Iteration - Mid-Fidelity Screens

We implemented the user recommendations and updated our mid-fidelity prototype.

Learnings

WHAT WE DID WELL:

• Treehouse is simple, easy to use, resourceful and serves the needs of the range of library patrons. 

• We added an onboarding screen provides clarity to users on the purpose of the Treehouse app. 

• The homepage puts the services offered by the app front and center.

• Users can save time by filtering searches for workshops by hours, locations, keywords, and languages. 

• Recommendations for other related materials and workshops to further engage users with the library and other job seekers on the app.

FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Include a messaging function and create community message boards within the app to network with other job seekers.

• Provide users with the ability to upload a resume or create a resume.

• Giver users the ability to book one on one appointments with library tech specialists.