Project Overview

The Dolphin App reimagined; a comprehensive and encouraging job search mobile app

Product Design
Mobile UI

Dolphin is a job-search mobile app for young people who desire an internship or job aligned with their preferred social cause. I came across this app in 2020 and I wanted to explore the subject of job searching, especially in mobile design. My initial goal for this project was to redesign Dolphin, but as I gathered more research and made discovered surprising insights, I created a reimagining of the Dolphin app instead. I call this new app Orca.

ROle

User Research
Wires
Prototyping

Tools

Figma
Adobe CC

Duration

5 weeks

The Challenge

Young professionals find the job search process frustrating. How can we create an effective and encouraging mobile job search experience for busy young professionals?

Current pages (Dolphin)

These are some key pages and the IA of Dolphin's current app. The UI is very unique and tries to appeal to a younger base. The main feature are daily "batches" of recommended jobs for the user. If a user is interested in an open position, Dolphin will send the application link by email. There is no way to apply to jobs directly through the app.

User REsearch: interviews

My first step was to conduct user research. Since the Dolphin app targets young people, I focused on the same demographic. In both the interview guide and the survey, I asked participants about their job searching process, the tools, and resources they favored, their most important factors in selecting a job.

Sample questions

Discussion Guide

  • Which job search platforms have you used? In your experience, which have been most successful for you?

  • Which social issues do you deem most important? Have you ever considered a career combating these social issues? Why or why not?

  • Can you show me how you typically find a role?

Survey (Google Form)

  • Which factors are most important for you for a job?

  • Have you searched for jobs/internships to combat your preferred social issues?

  • What do you think of this UI design? Please rate it from 1 to 10.

  • When looking for a job, how many jobs do you typically apply for a day? 

Discussion Guide
Survey (Google Form)

insights + Sythensis

“How can an internship application ask for 3 years of experience? Can't my applied filters remove these types of roles from my search results?”

Oliver
Junior studying design

“I don’t like Dolphin’s UI design. I want to feel like I’m taking steps toward my future career, not as if I’m texting my best friend. This (Dolphin) is not as intimidating as LinkedIn, which is an info-overload. I want something inviting so that I actually search and apply for jobs. Something in-between.”

Mykayla
Senior studying eletrical engineering

Above, you can view several insights and conclusions I have made base off of my user research. I placed my insights into a matrix, ranking them by importance and usefulness and made note of several surprising insights I discovered.

User Personas

Based on the three students I interviewed, I created 2 user personas. These personas were helpful to think of while I created a journey map of the digital job search process and my wireframes.

Journey Map

Next, I made this journey map of the user's desktop job search process based on the interviews. I made note of the user's expectations, feelings, and pain points for each step of the process. This journey map and the personas was useful in the development of my "How might we..." statements and wireframes.

How Might we STATEMENTS

  • How might we encourage users to apply to jobs more consistently (even on a daily basis)?

  • How might we bring more professionalism to Dolphin’s UI design?

New Direction

The evidence I gathered from my interviews reinforced the idea that young people were mainly motivated to find a job (any job) that aligned with their qualifications. This insight leads me to reframe my project from a redesign of Dolphin to a reimagining of in which I removed a few of Dolphin's unnecessary pages and added a new flow (such as the QuickApply feature). I decided that Orca will focus on jobs generally, including those that are socially-based.

Low Fidelity Wires

Orca’s job batch recommendations utilize a Tinder-like swiping interaction to save or skip jobs. I found that users liked being asked why they skipped a job, especially if they know that their response will be incorporated into an algorithm that will learn their likes/dislikes. I found that most users will overlook a job in the role they are looking for because (1) they don’t feel qualified for it or (2) they would rather work in a different location. Within my wireframes, I gave my users more options for stating their reasons for skipping an opportunity.

The main drawback of applying for jobs is the manual application process. Within Orca’s quick apply feature, I gave users as much opportunity to automize their applications as possible. For example, most of my participants stated that they tend to use the exact same cover letter for each application with minor edits specific for the role. Orca simplifies this process by utilizing a user's past cover letter as a template, but automatically inputs the new job title and company for each application.

One feature I added to the search page is letting the users know whether they are qualified for a job before they even look at it in more detail. Whether the user meets a job’s stated qualifications was the most important factor for them.  Lastly, I created a “My Jobs’ page with two main sections. It shows all the jobs the user has applied for with an indication of their application status and their saved roles.

UI design

While using Orca, I want my users to feel confident, supported, and comfortable. I minimized the number of colors and gradients used by Dolphin, avoided emojis, and used more professional language throughout the design (No “mehs”). I sought familiar icons shaped, utilized a friendly sans serif font (Karla) and tried to bring in as much white space to content-heavy screens.

High-Fidelity prototype

Daily Job batch + QuickApply

My Jobs + Search Pages

What I Learned...

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Let's connect!
grzesiakvictoria@gmail.com