Linkedin site enhancement
Researching on current usability and suggesting design enhancements in LinkedIn
the task
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Select a popular website which can do better at UX.
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Create user persona
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Heuristic Evaluation
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User Survey
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User Interviews
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Usability Test
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Identifying problems and proposing solutions
Team: 3 members: 1 UX Researcher 2 UI Designers
usability study
1. User Persona Creation
Did some digging on the kind of users who would be the most reliant on LinkedIn for their job search and skill showcase. Picked the persona closest to our own use case.
2. Heuristic Evaluation
Analysis of LinkedIn website and evaluation done based on the heuristic criteria of:
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Situational Awareness
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Support Mental Models
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Support User Goals
3. User Surveys
Surveyed almost 60 people to see what their major use cases of LinkedIn are, what their thoughts on the website look like, and what are some frustrations they have with this usage. Since most of our audience were students, their website usage was very heavy and we got some good analysis results.
4. User Interviews
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Based on the results of user surveys, we identified the areas to dive deeper on. We created a user interview flow chart that listed predefined user tasks to be performed, and let users take their time for simple tasks like creating a profile, adding a new skill or finding a particular data. Here is the usability script of one of the tasks we tested the users on.
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Noted results:
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Ease of performing the task assigned
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Time taken to perform the task
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Ease of finding the particular option on the page
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Getting on-click results as per expectations
5. Usability Test Analysis
Report of all users that performed the usability test and results to find frequent issues and biggest pain points to be worked on.
6. Summary of Issues
Based on the data from the multiple interviews, we identified the most common issues faced by users.
Too many Call to Action buttons for the same thing on the same page, not having clarity on what sections have what purpose and lack of intuitiveness on the site were some of the most common ones.
7. Proposed Solutions
We included a basic proposed redesigned version of the existing site with modifications using Photoshop. It included data entry being done in steps, to help users understand what the task flow is. Also introduced more graphical presentations and less data on the screen to make visuals more appealing and informative.
Challenges faced:
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Finding test users who have never used LinkedIn was difficult(we wanted some people with fresh perspective).
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Had to refer multiple websites to understand what kind of infographics work best in which scenario.
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First experience conducting user interviews was challenging
Key Takeaways:
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Infographics are better than text at quick understanding when there are many steps in a process.
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Usability tests are the best way to check the effectiveness of a design.
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Data should always be divided into clear sections and the number of clicks should be the minimum possible.