Beyond Localization
Timeline
Oct. 20232- Dec. 2023
Roles
UX Designer
Responsibility
End to end UI/UX design
Company
Indeed
Overview
01 | Background
Indeed, prioritized Japan as a key market but relied on a shared global codebase. The outdated design, lacking UI/UX optimization for Japanese users, left job seekers confused and uncertain about how to start their search.
02 | Challenges
This project had quite a few technical dependencies with other teams & products, we also needed to deal with many prioritizations to make sure we can deliver MVP on time.
03 | Outcome & Impact
We launched the MVP that increased our overall metrics significantly, especially it increased the revenue by 12%. We also received a lot of positive feedback from users.
Process
Research
User Research
We conducted user research during the project's early phase to pinpoint core issues and understand job seekers' perceptions of our product. Here's what we discovered:
We collaborated with a vendor to conduct user interviews and synthesized the insights to create a Jobseeker Journey Map. This tool helped our team gain a deeper understanding of the problems faced by users.
Job boards in Japan are vibrant and informative, offering job seekers various easy ways to start their search.
Problem
1. Keyword-based search is unfamiliar to Japanese job seekers
The Indeed site has been keyword-based from its inception, aiding job seekers in finding relevant results when they know precisely what they are looking for. However, Japanese users prefer a browsing and filtering experience over keyword searches, and many struggle with deciding what to enter in the keyword boxes.
2. Information is unstructured and insufficient
The information we displayed on the job card was unstructured and lack of visual hierarchy. It caused a lot of cognitive load to users and it was not scannable. They couldn't easily skim through the jobs and find out the one that interests them.
3. Lack of essential elements
There were tons of essential elements in our site were missing. For example, photos and job-related filters are crucial for the job seeker, but they were not available on our site. Additionally, the overall look and feel of our site were not familiar to Japanese job seekers in comparison to other local job sites.
Ideations
I led a Design Jam with my supervisor, PM, Developer to talk about the goals, hypotheses, and constraints that helped to align everybody on the same page about what we want to achieve.
At the end of the design jam, we came up with a bunch of concrete ideas/wireframes that can help me go straight to the feasible design solution. Here's two solutions as below:
01
Improving the UI/visual design and show more structured information will help job seekers easier find jobs that fit them.
02
Introducing the tapping experience will help job seekers better express themselves, narrow down their search results easier, eventually they will see more relevant jobs and apply more.
Goal
Launch the new search experience(MVP) that meets Japanese job seekers' expectations.
Outcome
Before
After
By conducting A/B testing on each new feature, our team ensured measurable improvements for both users and the business, which we then integrated into our core MVP. The redesigned search experience drove significant growth in key metrics, boosted user engagement, and garnered glowing feedback on the App Store.
Feature A- The tapping experience for location search
Users can click on the location picker to trigger the location pane, we created a linear flow to drill down their preferred location from region to district.
Feature B-Filtering experience
Filters are highly requested by our users and are a standard feature on local job boards. The keyword search method, requiring inputs for "where" and "what," is unfamiliar to Japanese job seekers, who often struggle to articulate their search criteria through keywords.
Feature C-A scannable job description
Job descriptions are crucial for Japanese job seekers, who carefully evaluate them to determine their fit for a position. At Indeed, the aggregation of listings from multiple sources led to unstructured job descriptions, posing a challenge in maintaining uniformity and consistency.
Takeaway
1. Leveraging Diverse Expertise Amid Uncertainty
The project showcased the necessity of harnessing team expertise to navigate planning uncertainties and strategic decisions, emphasizing collaborative problem-solving in the face of challenges.
2. Risk-Taking Versus User-Centric Innovation
It highlighted the balance between embracing risks with innovative changes and the imperative of aligning these changes with user feedback to ensure they meet the actual needs of the target audience.
3. Importance of Prioritization and Alignment
The experience underlined the critical role of prioritization and team alignment on common goals to efficiently address challenges and foster a unified approach towards impactful product development.
Next Steps
1. Feature Breakdown
Dive deeper into user-preferred features such as the location picker and structured job cards. Explain how these design choices directly address Japanese job seekers’ needs, making the content feel more relatable and impactful.
2. Future Development Ideas
Briefly mention upcoming enhancements, such as more personalized filters, to show the project’s growth potential and your forward-thinking approach.