Redesigning Kalibrr’s Mobile and Web Experience
Background
I’ve used Kalibrr once before when I was applying for jobs in 2016. My plan was to become a broadcast journalist, a news writer, or anything that’s related to media but whatever happened to that, the wind brought me to UX which I have been passionately pursuing lately.
My perception of design has become much more critical compared to how I was doing in 2016. From designing superficial-looking screens, crappy alignments, having bad font and color choices, ambiguous visualizations and many more, I’ve learned how important iteration is in crafting experiences and in refining your process as a designer.
The Study
I explored the screens of the platform to identify possible improvements. Here are some of the features I’ve tested out on iOS and Web where I provided suggestions to:
1. Search Screen Revamp
Focusing on the design components, my eyes had drawn me to the search bar which I find a bit small. Referencing Fitts’ Law, I extended the bar to 50px in height from its former 35px to make the affordance usable.
The current behavior when the user touches on the text field shows the user another text field where they can type a location as a filter, with a cancel button on the right side of the screen. The results page, when nothing has been inputted, will show some actions such as View all jobs, Work from home jobs, Work abroad, and Fresh grad jobs.
Derived from its web version, the screen will display Discover Jobs which will curate industry jobs for the user. The feature will make the user type less to check on the categorized, niche job pages that Kalibrr has curated.
2. Search Filters
To refine the search experience on iOS, the search filter will now be accessible beside the corner of the search bar. This will help the user become surfaced with the jobs that are tailor-fit to their preferences.
Once the user clicks the icon, a native scroll-up selector will appear. For the Location item, the user will be able to type specific places while the scroll will have regions displayed as options. When the filter has been saved, the results will show with the filter configurations appearing on top part of the screen. The user will have a choice to discard an item to widen the scope of the results.
3. Profile Updating and Job Recommendation Notifications
As of 2018, tech talents only stay for approximately 1.8 years in a company or job. The scope of the data might be too specific to an industry but could potentially be used to help users in general, as this is an opportunity to gain better projections using data.
As an improvement, the user will now be able to receive frequent notifications during certain times:
- Update your profile prompt (Every end of the month and quarter) — The user might want to update their profile every once in a while, most especially their skills for them to be better found/recommended to.
- Weekly job match recommendations (Beginning of third quarter) — According to Philippine Statistics Authority, the separation rate in Q2 2018 was its peak vs. Q3’s preliminary count. With that, the notification will trigger on the next quarter supposing the user would render 60+ days from their previous work.
4. Skill Tooltip Job Recommendations
For the web version, the profile which displays the user’s skills will have on-hover tooltips that will show job recommendations that require the skill where the mouse is pointed. On the other hand, job postings can include skill tags in order for them to be better found, making it a win-win situation for both the job seeker and recruiter.
The tooltip will display a microcopy, the number of job recommendations, and a hyperlink to the results page.
Final Thoughts
Through this study, I have proven how design must always be backed by data and not just from the designer’s personal preference. I find it hard to design by just supposing what people would think and do. And the process of iteration aid in improving products, processes, and systems. If there aren’t, the world isn’t as interesting as it is right now. Besides, the world is just as weird as we designers are. Weird in a good way, of course.
