Date
January 2022 - March 2022
Role
UX Researcher, Designer
Tools
Figma, Procreate, Excel, Google Forms, Canva
Type
Group Project
Overview
During the height of the pandemic there was a reported 25% increase of anxiety and depression cases across the globe. Many individuals lost economic stability due to employment hardships giving rise to mental health related issues. It was reported by the New York Times survey that more than 1,300 counselors said that 9 out of 10 clients sought help during the pandemic due to a plethora of reasons many of which had to do with financial stress. 

LinkedIn is an application catered towards finding jobs and networking. This application is used by 830 million users globally and saw a surge in engagement during the pandemic. My team was passionate about finding ways to positively impact this app through a redesign. We focused on including features that were aimed to reduce the cognitive load on users and increase overall mental wellbeing to promote success. 
How might we foster a conducive environment for young working professionals to network and find job opportunities while preserving their overall mental state?
Research
Survey
We surveyed 34 LinkedIn users who were currently looking for jobs and internships to better understand both the potential positive and negative effects that LinkedIn may have had on their mental health. Questions we asked included: 
1. What do you primarily use LinkedIn for?
2. How does being on LinkedIn affect your motivation?
3. How do you feel (emotionally) after using LinkedIn?
4. Do you have any problems with the homepage in LinkedIn?
5. Do you feel like you accomplish your goal after you use LinkedIn? Why or why not?
Key Insights
Positives
Negatives
participants responded saying they felt neutral or worse about their experience with LinkedIn. 
Some participants expressed: 
“Sometimes it motivates me more, when I see my peers getting internships or jobs, other times it makes me feel less motivated as I start to question my self worth especially asking myself how someone else got the same job that I wanted”
“It’s nice to see your connections do well on there, but it is a social media platform and too much of it makes me lose sight of my own personal goals”
User Interview
We followed up with participants who were from three different stages in their life including a current undergraduate student, recent graduate, and a user with 5+ years of work experience. 
Key Insights
of participants expressed that they didn’t like the current structure of the homepage and found it difficult to navigate through irrelevant content. 
“I think it’s annoying that it shows every single thing anyone reacts to. I would prefer to see just my connections’ posts and maybe comments.” 
“Quite distracting to see news or other statuses update on there. Usually I need to fish out the information or news I actually followed.” 
identified difficulty in connecting with other professionals
“The reality is that people are very busy and it is often difficult speaking to people I don’t know and  there isn’t an incentive for people to follow through.” 
Design and Testing
UI Sketches: Reimagining the User Workflow

We reimagined the current user workflow to incorporate our findings to reduce anxiety during the process of creating a network and to have a more concentrated user customized homepage. 

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Usability Testing
Key Insights: Low-fidelity Prototypes
During testing, participants mentioned that they felt overwhelmed when looking at posts related to different topics and expressed interest in a categorization technique to help them better manage the homepage. 
Participants showcased the clear value of connecting with others based on more granular similarities during the walkthrough. The application could benefit from incorporating a mentor feature. 
Adjusting settings for homepage customization was a point of difficulty for the participants; the flow could be adjusted by adding multiple ports for customization. This includes options for people to personalize their feed through a banner prompt and through individual posts in addition to standard change found under settings. 
Iterative A/B Testing
Key Insights: High-fidelity Prototypes
To test our high-fidelity prototype we followed up by conducting 4 back to back interview sessions of people at various points in their career to provide feedback on our designs. After an immersive process, we were able to better develop our versions of the features. 
Mentoring/Networking Homepage
The main change that we made here from the before and after screens was how we wanted to promote this new feature to let users know how they can improve their network suggestions. The old design does not do a good job of promoting this because people would most likely scroll through it quickly and not even read the text. The newer design follows the UI of LinkedIn’s other promoted posts and gives people more options to improve their network including suggesting more mentors and people with similar experiences. The last button also would direct people to a “Manage network” setting.
Mentor Banner
The most significant difference between the two designs here is the #opentomentor banner on the profile pictures. We made the circle frame on Illustrator and transferred it to Figma as a way for people to advertise themselves as mentors. These frames already exist for people who are open to work and hiring, so we wanted to add another component to these frames. The frames were helpful for some of our participants in the user testing because they felt more encouraged to connect to potential mentors. However, one participant said that they were desensitized to these frames and thought that it wasn’t that helpful.
Mentor Offering Options
Final Prototype
Let's Connect!
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