Freelancermap | Masha Sivakova

Full case study

Redesign of the platform's structure and key features

Role:

UX/UI Designer

User Researcher

Duration:

2 weeks

Team:

Masha Sivakova

Borbala Nemes
Laura François

1. context

What is Freelancermap.com?

Freelancermap.com is a marketplace that connects freelancers to project providers seeking to employ professionals in tech and IT consulting. In this project we are focusing on the project providers' perpective. What makes Freelancermap.com special is its Watchlist feature, that allows recruiters saving and mass-messaging lists of chosen candidates for each role.

The problem

The client's initial concern is that project providers (recruiters) are struggling to find all relevant features and use them to the fullest potential. Specifically, the assumption is that due to the fact that users aren't familiar with the Watchlist feature and its potential, they are less likely to upgrade to premium accounts.

overview

Imagine: you're a recruiter looking to hire professionals for a temporary project at your company. You have a budget and a specific skillset in mind. To find a suitable candidate, you register on this large marketplace for freelancers and project providers and prepare to search, filter and finally to create a list of candidates you wish to contact.

However, as you log in you are struggling to reach your goal. Your homepage is a search bar that's designed for freelancers, but not for recruites. Next, if you decided to stay, you are looking for a section of the website that addresses your needs. You see three options, but aren't sure which one is right for you. Trying a different way you manage to find the dashboard, but are having a hard time finding the features that can help you with your task. - This is an account of one of the user journeys we observed during usability testing of Freelancermap.

To create a more satisfying experience for recruiters, in two week's time we created a re-designed MVP for the part of the platform that focuses on the project providers' side. The new MVP consists of:

personalized homepage
re-structured search feature
updated dashboard
Watchlist/Shortlist feature
freelancer's profile layout
fresh style guide

Prototype: from Dashboard, through a Shortlist to a shortlisted freelancer's profile

my contribution

As the team consisted of three UX/UI designers, we distributed the tasks based on the strength of each member. I took ownership of most processes related to research: planning and conducting user interviews, usability testing sessions as well as testing prototypes, with their subsequent result analysis. I was also heavily invested in re-structuring the information architecture of the platform and creating low-, mid- and high-fi prototypes.

2. gaining insights

research strategy

How we overcame lack of survey feedback

Since our initial goal (help project providers find and use all relevant fetures) was too broad and the time was limited, we developed a clear research plan that would help us focus on the rights things adressing business goals while keeping the user front and center. We needed to fix a presicely defined problem without wasting time on guessing.

To gain insights from actual users of the platform we formulated a survey that sadly didn’t receive sufficient amount of responses. To overcome this situation, we decided to use several methods. To learn about recruiters' needs and the terminology they use, we conducted interviews with professionals from the field. Usability testing of the platform revealed pain points, and competitor analysis provided insights on how to address challenges per feature.

what we learned from recruiters

Not Watchlist, but rather Shortlist!

In technical jargon, lists of the best candidates for a particular job are called 'Shortlists'. Apparently, 'Watchlist' was a consequence of the wrong translation of the German term (Merkliste)
When searching for freelancers, recruiters need information on skills as well as availability, location, and whether candidates can work on-site or remotely. It is also critical that the CV can be easily downloaded and/or the person's portfolio can be viewed
The most important feature that project providers need is a flexible and intuitive search feature with filters

assessing the current usability

Results of neglect

Freelancermap stakeholders were concerned that project providers using their platform would not be able to easily find all the features offered - and they were indeed right. The decision to focus on only one of two existing audiences led to numerous usability issues.

Users struggled to find areas and features intended for project providers, such as the freelancer search feature
Once found, the search feature for recruiters was unintuitive to use
The structure of the site with three main sections (Freelancers, Projects, Companies) was confusing
The naming and purpose of the Watchlist, Mass Inquiry and Search Agent features were unclear

what we learned by comparing 4 similar platforms

Key features

Finally, we felt that we had a clear idea of user needs and frustrations. With this in mind, we conducted competitor analysis to see how they address the same issues and how the features we focus on are designed. We examined four platforms: our platform's main competitor in Germany, as well as international websites: Malt, Oyster and Fiverr to see how they tackled similar problem spaces.

Dashboard: content varies greatly between the different platforms, but the focus remains on projects and candidate lists.

(Short)lists: offer limited functionality with no easy comparison between candidates and no possibility to message all of them at the same time.

Homepage/Target Audience: all competing platforms focused on either freelancers or recruiters as their primary target audience, which can lead to usability issues for the audience that is 'left out'.

Search feature: in most cases, it serves as a key feature. An exception is one-way communication from freelancers to recruiters with a dashboard that serves as the home page - which is not relevant in our case. The filters usually focus primarily on the freelancers' skills and location, while the other criteria are secondary.

what we learned about business objectives

Objectives and scope

The platform’s audience is divided into two groups: freelancers (professionals in tech and IT consulting) and project providers, 85% of which are recruiting companies
The main features we were to focus on were the project providers’ homepage and dashboard, as well as a feature called the Watchlist that allows to save candidates’ profiles in lists with the ability to message all or some profiles at once
By increasing the Watchlist’s usage, the company hopes to convince more users to upgrade their account

In synthesizing all of the above findings, we realized that the Search, Dashboard, and Watchlist features are the weakest points of the current design and need to be refined. To better illustrate the changes made to these core features we decided to slightly expand the project scope originally agreed upon with the stakeholder to include a search results page and freelancer profile page.

3. synthesis and implementation

Problem statement

Freelancermap’s tools for recruiters lack visibility and clarity. Therefore, recruiters miss an efficient way to find appropriate candidates for their projects.

Hypothesis

By designing a clear and focused dashboard that highlights and explains useful features available for recruiter's use, we can increase the clarity and usability of features built with recruiters in mind, with the main focus on the Watchlist feature.

information architecture

As we learned from user feedback, there are some structural issues that harm the usability of the platform. The purpose of the three main sections that constituted the platform (Freelancers, Projects and Companies) was unclear. As a recruiter, was the user supposed to click on the category they were searching for (Freelancers), go to Projects to post one or select Companies to indicate they represented one? The Watchlist feature that’s supposedly located on the Dashboard according to breadcrumbs, isn’t accessible from this page. Within the Dashboard, the Projects section isn’t prominent and hard to notice, although it is of greatest value for recruiters to have a clear overview of the ongoing projects they are hiring for. To improve the experience for recruiters, we made the following decisions:

Divide the website into two main parts: one for freelancers and one for recruiters, so all audiences can feel that they get the focus they deserve.
Create an icon for the Dashboard that would replace the Watchlist’s icon on the top bar. The Shortlist feature —renamed ‘Watchlist’ — as opposed to the existing layout, would be easily accessible from the Dashboard.
Re-structure the Dashboard to include projects, Shortlists, saved searches and new applications.

UI redesign

In addition to structural and functional changes, we now wanted to address the visual side of things. Our goal was to maintain the

what we learned from competitors' UI

To get a sense of direction, we conducted a visual analysis that compared Freelancermap and two of its competitors in the freelance market - Malt and Oyster.

We knew we had to take into account the fact that the audiences varied between the platforms with competitors addressing professionals mainly in the design and creative fields, and Freelancermap.com being a home to more corporate and technical workforce. Therefore, we kept an elegant balance between reliable tone and a fresh approach that would feel familiar for the user.

evolution of elements

One of the basic elements that comprise the Watchlist/Shortlist feature on Freelancermap is the individual candidate card. Only around 65% of the space was utilized for the freelancer's details: name, professional title, location and availability. Except for those, the remaining 35% were used for controls: select, edit and delete.

candidate card in its previous version

Based on interviews conducted with recruiters, in the re-designed version we wanted to include as much crucial information on each candidate's card as possible. Therefore, the controls had to be compact yet easy to find, and a candidate's skillset and hourly rate are to be visible at a glance. Location, availability, name and job title are remaining prominent.

3 lo-fi versions of a candidate card

After A/B testing the 3 lo-fi versions with four users, we chose to proceed with version #3. According to feedback, it managed to accommodate all necessary information elements and editing options in the most intuitive and aesthetically pleasing form.

version #3 in mid-fi

Compact control button, prominent hourly rate and extensive skillset information. Backed by the positive user feedback, our team felt confident that the refresed card design would help in making recruiters' job more efficient and pleasing.

hi-fi version of a candidate card

4. outcomes and conclusion

re-design

reflections

Work smarter, not harder

I invested a lot of efforts into proactively collecting and analyzing user feedback, which was very time-consuming in the context of this short project. Instead, I could rely more on already-existing data: analytics and different company departments, namely sales and customer support. Users were reluctant in answering the survey we posted, but they were already providing many insights in their communication with the platform.

Placeholder text in wireframes

Many freelancers on Freelancermap have more than one job title. Therefore, candidate cards presented above was designed to include two job titles per person. In the mid-fi wireframes we presented it as "Title 1, Title 2". In hinsight, however, these are much shorter than actual job titles professionals hold. For example: Senior Programmer, Software Architect. This creates a discrepancy between the intended goal and the actual design. Thus, there is a need to further re-design the candidate card element to accomodate the needed job title length.

future

Testing and iteration

With more time available, the next step would be testing the hi-fi prototype with users and iterating upon the design. The business goal is yet to be confirmed: future data analysis would show whether clearer dashboard and more intuitive use of the Shortlist feature would indeed translate into a higher conversion rate.

Broader audience, more use cases

The following step would be targeting a broader audience - the remaining 15% who aren't employees of recruiting companies - by creating an additional persona and supporting user flows to meet their needs.

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