Advance

A job counseling app for library patrons

The New York Public Library desires to provide a pathway to learning and job providers in an effort to expand the opportunities provided by digital technology to all its members.

How can we help the library design a digitally inclusive community?

What was the challenge?

Public libraries are cost-free assets for their communities, providing human, written, and digital resources for those they serve.
Unfortunately, many people who could benefit from library services aren’t fully taking advantage of what’s available to them, either because they aren’t aware or are anxious about participating in them.
My design team's mission with NYPL Advance was to provide a digital platform which would:
  1. Build awareness of a network of professional support and learning resources provided by the public library.
  2. Attempt to lessen the stigma of using public resources to help find a job or advance one's skills and career.
My team spoke to library staff at several locations around the Greater New York City Area, who gave us insight into the people who frequently utilize the library.
We confirmed our initial assumption that patrons who use the library resource centers generally lack access to computers, printers or the internet at home. Among this demographic, many are job seekers who lack skills related to technology ranging from using spreadsheets to being proficient with making a resume using a word processor.

"My team assessed the NYPL career webpage to see what was being offered and what we could build upon."

If the NYPL already had resources for job seekers that were not being sufficiently utilized, then what could we do to draw those people in?

To start our process of answering this question, my team took a look at competitors within the career enrichment space, particularly sites like LinkedIn and Lynda. We did this to gain some insight on why these sites were successful and how we could seek to emulate them.

From our competitive analysis, we drew the conclusion that these sites were successful due to certain key factors:

  1. Branding played a big part in both websites' success. Users were familiar with what they would get when using the product. This was especially true for LinkedIn, which is seen as the de-facto networking site for professionals.
  2. The fact that both sites had a good infrastructure in place allowed it to be easy to start for new users. It also guaranteed that there would be a wide range of companies to connect with, in the case of LinkedIn, and a wide range of subjects to learn, in the case of Lynda.
  3. The platforms provided a sense of direction to those who might just be starting out or looking to reenter the workforce. With LinkedIn, there were suggestions made based on user profile. With Lynda, lessons were packaged as courses, which streamlined users' ability to focus their attention on particular niches.

"Lynda.com was frequently cited by NYPL staff as an on-site resource that patrons could use to help advance their careers so we took a look at the site's layout for design inspiration."

What was the user perspective?

After doing our industry research and speaking to the experts, we needed to hear directly from the patrons about their thoughts on how the library could best serve their needs.
Our base criteria for interviewees were people looking to transition careers as they seemed like the ones who most likely use our product.
We were looking to gain the following insights from our interviews:
  1. Who would benefit the most from a design perspective?
  2. What are the needs of our primary user?
  3. What features can we include in our design to address these needs?
After going through a round of user interviews, my team discovered the following trends:
  1. A major recurring theme in many of our interviews was the pressure to keep up with technological changes or face becoming irrelevant in the workspace. This was often coupled with the requirement of an online presence through sites like LinkedIn.
  2. Librarians were seen as trusted authority figures rather than just public employees. Their expertise and ability to make referrals were appreciated. We found that it drew a parallel to the fact that many interviewees stated they lacked direction in their careers.
  3. Patrons love the sense of community that libraries offer and see it as an inclusive and non-commercialized space to gather with other people. They preferred it over to cafes as a place to study and relax because of the spacious atmosphere.
Summing up these insights, we created a problem statement to visualize the key traits of our users, their specific needs, and what could be provided as a solution. This problem statement would be a summary of the core problem that was to be solved by our minimum viable product.

Problem statement
"Digitally inexperienced job-seekers require a guided experience to become proficient in the current job application process and in turn become competitive workforce applicants."

We were able to create two user personas from our user insights. One persona was based on a recent college graduate and the other was an older worker looking for a career change.
My team and I strongly believed that the use case could be narrowed down further to provide the most efficient product.
Looking back at our interviews, we found that the library patrons who used the resources to look for work usually skew towards retirement age. This was because these older individuals were less comfortable using technology and preferred to be in an environment where they could ask for assistance if needed.

"Like our persona, James, most of our user survey respondents were older and challenged with the necessity of having to find job leads through the internet. How might we provide James a comfortable and intuitive method to gain digital skills so that he may find a job online?"

What was the design approach?

To best inform our prototype, we developed five design principles to supplement our product statement. Created with the user persona in mind, we would use these principles to guide the features of NYPL Advance.

Credible

People naturally trust those with expert knowledge to guide them. Users must be made aware of experts' credentials and should also genuinely believe that they are communicating with experts.

Familiar

The library is a place that most people grew up with. The product should be relatable to those of all backgrounds and ages. Users should feel like they are returning to a familiar place when using the product.

Delightful

The product needs to be engaging, and provide positive energy for the user. By taking on a personality of its own, it will bring a sense of joy, creativity, and pleasure for the user.

Hospitable

Inclusive to groups that are often left out. The feel of the product should be that of a public space and should never resemble an exclusive club. Designing products that are thoughtful and successful creates a warm and inviting space.

Empowering

Able to instill confidence in the user regardless of age. Users should not have to question their ability while interacting with the product. Instead, they should feel empowered, included and in control.
A hand-drawn concept was created imagining the various features that would be part of our prototype. We decided on an app as the initial product, given that smartphones are inherently designed to be more user-friendly than most computers.
We envisioned that NYPL Advance would be made up of three core components.
Firstly, there would be a job database where job posters and job seekers could connect, much like Indeed.com.
Users would be able to search jobs in various ways, such as filtering by skills or filtering by location.
Secondly, there would be a learning section, where users can learn the fundamentals of business tech.
Resources available both in-app and through in person scheduled workshops.
Thirdly, there would be an in-app resume creator so that users would be saved the trouble of going through multiple platforms to apply for a job.
A basic resume template in grid form, designed to be simple, and could be rearranged by dragging.

These features were held together by a core concept, the in-app advisor, who could be reached via live chat during any point of the experience.
Chat module to contact a live person and ask for help during any point in the experience.

We decided to user test the paper concepts with a focus group before moving on to the MVP.

Our paper prototype received positive feedback from the focus group. The suggestions we received mostly focused on visual optimization and we incorporated these moving forward in our mid-fidelity prototype of NYPL Advance.

"During the creation of our MVP, we constantly kept in mind why our user needed each feature and how we could best account for these needs."

What was our MVP's design?

In our latest prototype, we took the drawings and translated them into a clickable app using Sketch and Axure. This version would feature a more fleshed-out version of the learning module, which featured a user suggestion for quizzes to help retain information learned.

Content follows a directed structure to minimize confusion.

Interface is simple and utilizes ample spacing.

Prominent buttons for maximum usability.

Live chat assistant available to help.

What did we want to test?

After creating the MVP, we needed to go back to the users and test it out. In our testing plan, we framed several testing objectives:
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We set up a test with three major tasks which was designed to be tested with our users to see how our product performed.

Task 1

Complete a new resume using a template.

Task 2

Book a meeting with an advisor through the app.

Task 3

Access the learning module and complete a quiz.

What were the results?

The results for the test came in and were mixed. Our users stated that while they found the design to intuitive to understand and easy to use, they were not as sold on the helpfulness of NYPL Advance for actually finding a job. Additionally, two users had trouble completing every task, and this could be attributed to unclear directions during the test.

60%

Of users completed all tasks.

4.4/5

The average ease of use rating.

3.8/5

The average helpfulness rating.

Notable critiques from users were that quizzes seemed to have a disconnect from the rest of the app and that participants did not find the swipe interaction intuitive causing a high degree of confusion during on-boarding.

To combat issue #1, we thought of creating clickable links in quiz results so users can learn more about the answers and their relevance to job searching and advancement.

To combat issue #2, we thought of placing the word swipe on the page to make it more understandable for clear instructions on swiping.

Conclusion

Through this project, I learned to always keep an eye out for underlying problems that users have may not be obvious from the surface and require extra digging. There were many moments that took me out of my comfort zone, such as testing with an age group that I was not familiar with.

The biggest challenge was making an app for a demographic that professed being technologically illiterate. The core issue with our product was that our tested users were confused about the task flow as well as how the features tied into the idea of finding a job.

My team tried to create a design that simplified the user's journey using the product through spacious and simple visual design as well as live chat to help ease uncertain users. I now realize that I should have spent just as much effort on the onboarding process, getting users comfortable with the idea of using the app to aid their job search, and being more upfront with results rather than process.

Working on NYPL Advance was a welcome challenge. Though the results of the product did not meet expectations, I took this defeat as an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and reevaluate myself as a designer. In my future work, I plan to implement a stronger research and planning process that effectively uncovers nuanced user behavior.

Bebe Voyage
Green Space