Suma Kolanooru - Portfolio

Redesign Job opportunities section.

Somos21 is a not-for-profit organisation which is a platform for connections between Australian and Latin American professionals. They organise regular events to facilitate networking and run a job portal..

Our Objective

The majority of their users logged into the platform once and then never returned. Built using HiveBrite, an online community platform, they had not done any usability testing and wanted to understand why engagement was so low.

They wanted to know why this was the case and how to encourage users to log in more often.

They also wanted to find out more about their members’ needs, goals and pain points so that the organisation could better support them.

The Team/My role

Our team consisted of three UX Designers. We were needed to conduct various types of research to identify the customer group and the problem we needed to solve.

• I participated in interviewing 2 people who came from Latin America and settled in Australia.

• And I also analysed current website usage data and Facebook data to uncover the trends and insights..

• Writing the context for the persona and journey mapping of Jose.

• Ideation, current state testing and prototype testing with 4 users.

• And finally presenting to the client.

How might we improve the platform so that users visit and engage more often ?

Our Process

Research

We interviewed Latin Americans who moved to Australia, and we also did some research on other alternatives which helped Latin Americans settle in Australia. We then analyzed data from the platform’s user database and Facebook Analytics.

Existing Opportunities

We discovered a variety of existing opportunities, including:

- Student scholarships in to help pay for studies in Australia.

- Recruiters attracting Latin professionals who work in industries with skill shortages.

- Facebook groups which organise social and cultural events.

- Facebook groups and group chats advertising industry-specific job vacancies.

Interview Findings

We spoke to 9 Latin Americans who moved to Australia to find out what motivated them to relocate, what challenges they faced, and what helped them.

“I moved to Australia in search of a better quality of life”

“It’s been difficult financially”

“It is helpful to know someone who is from here to guide you, ideally Australian"

We also interviewed 2 volunteers from the organization to understand their role better.

Platform data

Somos21’s platform contained a variety of information on its 1067 users’ demographics, including country of origin, Australian working rights, and professional industry.

I mined the data from an current website usage data excel sheet to uncover trends and insights.

Facebook Analytics

We also accessed information from the company’s Melbourne-based Facebook page to see which types of content were getting the most engagement.

In the last 12 months, 450 users had viewed the organisation’s posts on job vacancies and 5% had clicked on them. 3884 had viewed their events, and 10% had expressed interest in them.

Insights

Focusing our insights and themes to produce one key deliverable.

Making Connections

Many of the Latin Americans we interviewed expressed a desire to integrate with the local culture and language, however they struggled to form close relationships with Australians. The majority of them relied on building rapport within communities to help set themselves up.

Keeping Connected

Somos21’s volunteers were typically Australians who had spent time in Latin America and wished to stay a part of the Latin community by giving back.

"I wanted the Latin American experience in Melbourne."

"Things are moving a lot better than they used to."

“The work is remote and I struggle with self-motivation."

Personas

Reviewing our research data and clustering our insights, we identified 4 personas who came into contact with the organization.

Jose, Miguel and Andrea are Latin Americans who have moved to Australia, each in different industries and with different working rights, while Sarah is a Somos21 volunteer from Australia.

By forming these personas, we were able to identify which Somos21 members could most benefit from changes to the platform and focus on alleviating their pain points.

Journey Maps

Focusing on Jose's Journey

We decided to map out Jose’s journey to find where we could add the greatest value to him.

We chose to focus on Jose as he had the greatest number of needs which matched what Somos21’s events and platform aimed to help with: we assumed he would have the greatest commercial benefit.

LOWEST POINT

Jose meets with an employer but is told they can’t sponsor him.

GREATEST OPPORTUNITY

How might we help Jose talk to businesses who are able to sponsor him?

Pivoting from Jose

After creating a journey map, we presented it to the client. Clients were a little unsure about the persona, because they had helped the majority of people who had student visa.

We are left with a dilemma that are we going in right direction ?

This made us to recut the data.

Recutting the data

We took a deeper dive into the platform data and found that most of the Latin American members in Australia were either on student visas, or were citizens or permanent residents.

We correlated the visa statistics with the visas our personas held to identify which persona represented the greatest portion of users:

That left us with a question:

Who represented the majority of Somos21’s users?

Miguel's journey and Opportunities

We pivoted to focus on Miguel’s journey, as he represented the largest segment of users which we had collected research insights on.

We mapped out his journey from arriving in Australia through to looking for part-time work and used this to identify Miguel’s most difficult step.

LOWEST POINT

Unable to find work in his industry, Miguel finds a less skilled part-time job to pay for his studies.

GREATEST OPPORTUNITY

How might we help Miguel find work in his industry?

Ideation

How might we help Miguel find work in his industry?

We focused on this statement as this was where the client felt the organization could help Miguel the most.

We conducted 2 rounds of “Crazy Eights”: the group sketched their ideas on paper before presenting them, then voted on their favorite ideas in Miro. In the second round, they merged the best ideas from the first round into a solution before presenting and voting again.

WINNING SOLUTION

Provide Miguel with free access to the jobs portal

This was the winning solution. We were to remove the need for a paid membership to access Somos21’s jobs board and investigate how the jobs board could be improved to better cater for Miguel’s needs.

Ideation

User Testing

Current state Testing

We sourced testers who fit Miguel’s persona and conducted current state testing with them. Using their insights, we were able to identify Miguel’s pain points on the platform and how it could be improved to help him find relevant work.

First Impressions on Homepage

"I don't understand what they are offering."

“I’d prefer to see a photo of my city instead of people having fun.”

Only 1 out of 4 testers had a positive impression

Verifying account

"How long does it take to get a verification email? I don't think I will get it.”

2 out of 3 testers became frustrated with the delay time of getting an email.

First Impressions on Job Board

“Why jobs from Peru are here? I want jobs in Melbourne.”

3 out of 4 testers were expecting jobs in their location.

Prototypes

Journey of wireframing to mockups.

Prototype Testing

First Impressions on Homepage

“Very professional. It looks so neat”

3 out of 3 testers had a positive impression

Verifying account

“Fortunately, it's very easy to find”

6 out of 6 testers could access job opportunities on site.

First Impressions on Job Board

“It's perfect, I like it so much”

5 out of 6 testers had a positive impression on job board.

Final walk through

Prototype walkthrough

Next steps

The client is in discussions with their developers to modify the platform as per the prototype.

They have also dropped their membership model and are looking to generate revenue via corporate sponsorships. This way they can achieve financial independence without putting strain on their most vulnerable member group.

“The amount of work you’ve done in such a short space of time, the depth, the look of it everything is just amazing. This gives us direction and is really good information to have right now."

- Kate Bennett

CEO of SOMOS

CONTACT

+61466093787

suma.kolanooru@gmail.com

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