| At a Glance

| The Problem

| Our Goal

After a thorough discussion with management and stakeholders, we decided that developing a mobile application for recruitment brings the most value, without compromising the benefits of current recruitment practices. This would also help the Recruitment Division achieve their goal of being perceived as modern, forward-thinking, and embracing the digital age.

This project's scope was to identify the content and user flow for a new mobile app, map the potential solutions based off that research, and design the interface.

| My Role

I set out to design an app that was intuitive and delightful to use. The platform was iOS, as the iPhone 6s was the workplace-issued mobile device.

I worked on this as the sole designer from December 2019, and stopped working on the project in July 2020 as the app started to be built. As I accepted another employment opportunity in the same month, I did not see through the development of this app.

| First Things First

Out of the 61% of participants who responded, 94% indicated they would like to have the ability to apply for internal jobs on their mobile devices - this confirmed there is was fact a user need.

| Understanding and Empathizing

| User Insights

| Persona Creation

| User Stories

| Posting Jobs

| User Flow

| Mobile App vs Mobile Website

The last question I needed to answer before sketching wireframes was whether a mobile app or a mobile-optimized website would best meet the needs of the users. An app was chosen for two reasons:

• notification system - many survey respondents indicated a desirable feature is the ability to receive job alerts, such as when a new position became available, or when the recruiter viewed their submitted application. This is a feature lacking on the current recruitment website, and it would work better on an app compared to a website;

• accessible without VPN - the current recruitment website is nested within the government’s private enterprise network, which means having a mobile app would overcome the need for VPN.

I connected with the Communications Division to ensure that designing a mobile app did not pose any security or privacy concerns, in which they gave the green-light (as long as the app contains only information related to recruitment, such as job titles, descriptions, and salaries).

| Sketches

| Constraints with UI

The Government of Ontario had a handbook on design guidelines in which all designers followed.

This meant that there were some constraints with how the user interface looks:

• colour - the colours had to be restricted to green, white, and black. I ensured the colours balanced each other out and the green was not too overwhelming;

• registration - since individuals needed a valid @ontario.ca email address to access the app, I thought having a registration button would be confusing. However, in order to make it clear that you need to be an employee to use the app, I added the domain name to the email field (and made sure to test this with users).

| High-Fidelity

| To Modify or Not to Modify

| Pain Point #1: Refresh, Refresh, Refresh

Previously, users spent a lot of time refreshing the website for new job postings. As a solution on the mobile app, I created a Notifications page to reduce the users' mental load of checking for updates.

| Pain Point #2: Should I Keep Waiting?

Some users felt discouraged when they haven't heard back from a job in a few months. I inquired with human resources on whether there is a way for candidates to receive status information on the jobs they applied to, but unfortunately they were not on board with the suggestion.

If approval is obtained one day, what I would do is to design the job description page so that it has a one-liner on top which would indicate the status; for example, whether interviews are in progress or if a successful candidate has been found.

| Pain Point #3: What Did I Submit?

Previously, most users indicated they would like to see the resume they submitted for applications and job descriptions so they can prepare better for interviews. As a solution on the mobile app, I created a page to show applied jobs so users don't have to store the info themselves:

| Pain Point #4: Viewing Postings On-the-Go

The final struggle most job seekers experienced was that they could only access postings on their work-issued laptop, hooked to internet and VPN. By designing a mobile app, this would allow candidates to apply to jobs whenever they are, adding a layer of flexibility that didn't exist previously.

| Final Designs

| Current Status

I have handed off the comprehensive prototype to the developer in July 2020, but did not see through the development as I accepted a job offer shortly afterwards. If I was still employed by the same organization, I would have conducted usability tests to continuously iterate the app.

I also planned on collecting statistics in order to evaluate metrics such as:

• session depth - the time it takes and how close users get to the target action (for example, applying to a job);

• active users - the number of people who use it every month, as a low number could signify that applying to jobs on the web is more preferable;

• churn rate - how many users abandon the app, as it could signify that the app crashes often or is buggy.

| Challenges and Lessons

An unexpected challenge I encountered was that I was trying too hard to make ONJobs look like the popular existing job search apps. There were times when I had an idea, but scraped it because the popular apps weren’t doing it (however, after the final prototype was delivered, I pursued some of the ideas further in my own time).

Although doing market research in the beginning helped me ensure I wasn’t missing any major components, I feel like one thing I could have done differently was to not view the other apps so many times throughout the design process, and allow myself to have more creative freedom.

| Up Next