My Role
Project Manager
Client Communications
Design Studio
Research
Sketches
Wireframes
Protoypes
Competitive Analysis
Overview
The mission of Find My Flock (FMF) is to support women in tech and help them advance into mid and senior level development positions. They do this by offering a personalized job search and only connect with developers that would make a good fit for the job. FMF also does a thorough interview interview with all of the companies they work with to ensure they foster learning and growth in people of all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, abilities, and sexual orientations. After job seekers are placed into positions, they are offered a free mentorship program to continue advancing their careers. FMF's goal is to get more women in tech, specifically into management roles.
Details
Team: 2 Person Team Project
Outcome: Research and Wireframes
Type: Redesign
Industry: Staffing
Timeframe: 3 Weeks
Research: 7 Users and 2 Career Coaches
Iterations: 3
Challenge
After meeting with Kate, the founder of Find My Flock, it was clear that she wanted a few things answered.
Discover if FMF's staffing agency is something that women want and will use
Learn if women want a mentorship program and how they'd want to use it
Create a design that better communicates what FMF does
Empathize
Findings
Users
Working with a Staffing Agency and Recruiters
From seven user interviews, I discovered unanimous disdain of staffing agencies. The top reasons were: "they don't understand what I do," "they don't speak the language," "they don't care about me," "the companies they work for aren't of quality," and "it's a waste of time."
Mentorship
All women interviewed valued mentorship and felt it was a significant component of advancing their careers. However, they all wanted different types of mentorship. The thematic responses to this question were that they wanted different types of mentor relationships including: one-off questions, ongoing support, longterm career guidance, and moral support, especially when negotiating pay and career advancement with men.
Career Coaches
The career coaches that my partner interviewed had some really great insights of how people become successful. She heard back that a lot of people, "get in their own way" and a good career coach will help them overcome self limiting beliefs. She also heard that people need to have a good connection with their mentors to build trust and understanding.
Competitive Analysis
I completed the competitive analysis after my user interviews, because I wanted to have an understanding of what our users wanted before I looked at what others offered. I found that while other staffing agencies had pretty websites and a lot of features, they were not offering job seekers what we found to be of most importance - guidance, trust,
one-on-one help, the ability to understand the languages that developers know. This proved that Find My Flock address fundamental issues women in tech face.
Research
Users
We decided to start with the research. We wanted to interview developers who had been through the FMF program and those who hadn't. So, I interviewed four Flock members and three non Flock members.
My goal for the research was based on how women found jobs, their experience using recruiters, and things that had been challenging for them in the past.
Career Coaches
My partner interviewed two career coaches to with the goal of understanding how people are successful at securing employment.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis of four other staffing agencies to see where FMF stands out and what features they could offer to make them easier to use for their clients.
Define
After interviewing users and career coaches and completing a competitive analysis, it was clear that Find My Flock is solving a problem that women developers have. The next goal was defining how to solve the problem of the users and the business goals.
Problem One - Communication
Find My Flock does not currently do a good job communicating who they are and what they do.
Solution One - Design for Better Communication
Redesign Find My Flock's website, establish trust with the users through the use of testimonies of women who have been successfully placed in jobs by FMF, blogs from Kate and mentors, and defining what the goals of FMF are. We also want to use techniques to trigger the action of joining FMF.
Problem Two - Service Improvement
While Find My Flock does offer what women are looking for, there are a few procedural things they could do to be leaps and bounds ahead of other staffing agencies.
Solution Two - More information from companies FMF partners with
Based on our research, we suggested that FMF uses a template for interviewing companies to get the information women want such as: women in leadership, if companies offer maternity leave, if they encourage growth opportunities, if they have comprehensive health benefits, and if they offer the opportunity to learn new skills on the job. Through design we can take this information an display it on the job postings page.
Ideate
Design Studio With Client
I conducted a design studio where Kate and my teammate ideated what the solutions to our problems could look like. Once we had a good handle of what those things were, my teammate and I started iterating on those sketches.
Sketching
My partner and I used our ideations from the design studio and sketched the ideas out further. We used time boxing to generate ideas quickly and then came together and chose what we liked for each sketch before went to wireframes.
Prototype, Iterate, & Test
From what we learned from our research, the most important pages to design were the homepage and the job posting pages.
Homepage
After we completed our first wireframe, we presented it to our client. She really liked it, but was not comfortable in having a big message from "the founder," so we removed that section.
Iteration One
After my partner did the first round of testing, she found out that people were understanding what Find My Flock was, but were still a little confused, so we added What We're All About at the top.
Because of the word "personalized" on the banner, users thought it was a service they had to pay for.
Iteration Two
We added a What We're All About section, but users thought it was redundant to the What Makes Flock Different.
When we presented to Kate, she wanted to take Companies We Partner With out, because one of the ways she makes money is by having these connections. However, we heard back from our users they liked seeing that section because it built trust, which was one of our key goals. We were able to work with Kate to wordsmith the section to "Companies We've Placed The Flock In."
Iteration Three
From what we learned from our second test, we decided to add a feature that when you clicked on the buttons below "What Makes Flock Different" it screened over the image with more information. Users understood how to use it and felt like they understood what Find My Flock is all about.
We also worked with FMF to come up with new banner copy that would encompass what they're all about without using the word personalized. After the copy change, users could articulate what FMF is.
Job Postings Page
The jobs page is important to our users to communicate what the companies offer, because they felt uncomfortable asking if they offered these benefits. Based on our research, we are recommending that FMF confirms the following informations with each partner: if they offer maternity leave, if there are growth opportunities within the company, if they encourage or allow learning on the job, if they include comprehensive health benefits, and if they have women in leadership roles.
Iteration One
After my partner did the first round of testing, she found that people liked and understood the jobs posting page, and like the badges that were created for each partner.
They were confused by the copy under about our partnerships.
Iteration Two
For iteration two of this page, we we worked with Kate on how to better communicate their message. We found out that after the changes, people could understand the jobs page and felt encouraged to apply for the jobs they wanted.
Next Steps
I was really excited about all thing things we helped discover for Find My Flock. During our meetings with Kate, I came to realize that while she really wants to keep her business "hands on," she needs a way to automate communications with potential Flock members, hiring partners, and a way to keep track of communications between mentors and mentees. If I were to continue working with Flock, I'd like to help Kate figure out a way to manage the back end of the business, so she can keep her focus on job placement and helping women to advance their careers.