Objective

To comprehensively understand the challenges and needs of students searching for part-time, flexible employment opportunities and the corresponding difficulties faced by businesses, particularly in the food and beverage sector, when trying to rapidly hire staff. 

Goal

The goal is to uncover insights that can drive the design of an intuitive, efficient, and effective platform or solution that bridges the gap between these two groups, ensuring that students can find work that fits their ever-changing schedules, and businesses can efficiently fill staffing vacancies on short notice.

Schedule and Logistics

Arvid - an English major at UIO University, is struggling to balance academics and find a suitable part-time job. He took on a couple roles in local cafes when he arrived, but ended up leaving because they demanded full availability which didn’t work with his heavy course load.

Without income, covering living costs has been difficult. Arvid feels discouraged searching for roles fitting his class schedule. Moreover, most openings demand full availability - nights, weekends, holidays. He dreams of finding a solution that empowers him to balance his academic pursuits with financial security effortlessly.

Arvid's frustration grows as he spends precious time sifting through irrelevant postings, wishing for a more tailored search option that considers his fluctuating class schedule and study commitments.

Luckily, a classmate tells Arvid about a new platform , designed to help individuals like him find flexible jobs fitting their schedules and lifestyles seamlessly. Feeling hopeful, he downloads the app and sets up his profile, emphasizing his skills and availability.

Using the platforms advanced filters, Arvid easily narrows down job openings during his free time. He finds a marketing assistant role at a nonprofit that perfectly fits his schedule. Arvid feels excited to apply, relieved to finally find an app catering to students like himself needing schedule flexibility.

As Anne settles into her routine at home, it becomes increasingly clear that her current part-time role isn't aligning with her needs. Feeling undervalued and often out of the loop, she realizes she wants a job where she's not just a remote participant but an integral team member. The absence of flexibility in her current role together with her home responsibilities, makes the decision evident: she needs a new job.

Feeling newly inspired, Anne starts exploring job sites for flexible roles. Her approach is systematic; she filters roles based on her qualifications, ensuring they match her expertise, and then further shortlists them based on flexibility and part-time availability. While she finds numerous opportunities, many don't seem genuinely flexible, which is paramount for her.

After days of searching, Anne stumbles upon a job listing that seems promising. A company looking for a marketing expert emphasizes a culture that respects work-life balance. Intrigued, Anne check ups the company and examines their website, reads employee testimonials, and even checks out their LinkedIn profiles to get a feel of the company's atmosphere.

Recognizing that her skills and aspirations align well with the job, Anne spends considerable time crafting her application. She writes a cover letter, intertwining her professional achievements with her philosophy on work-life balance. Hoping to strike a chord with the employer, she emphasizes her passion for marketing and her belief that productivity isn't tied to traditional working hours but to a supportive, understanding work environment.

After hitting the 'submit' button, Anne's days are filled with a mix of hope and anxiety. She constantly checks her email, awaiting a response. To ease her anxiety, she prepares for a potential interview—reviewing her skills, achievements, and formulating answers to possible questions about her need for flexibility.

After almost 2 weeks, as Anne's in the middle of her home chores, her phone buzzes with a new email notification. It's from the company, inviting her for an interview. Elation fills her as she realizes her effort might be paying off. As she marks the interview date on her calendar, she feels a step closer to her dream job—one that understands and respects her dual roles as a professional and a parent.

Martin, the business owner of a busy restaurant franchise, is on his way to visit one of his busiest restaurant on a Saturday evening to check in with his team. The atmosphere is a little chaotic and Martin seems worried about the lack of staff that he sees.

He goes into the back office where his manager, Sara approaches him with urgency and says “Martin, we're short two chefs and a server tonight. Alex called in sick, and Monika has a family emergency.". Martin gives out a sight as the problem sound all too familiar and says “Didn’t we just onboard two new chefs last month?” . Sara nods and says, “We did, but they left. They found the pace too challenging, and one got an offer elsewhere."

Martin's restaurant, famous for its high standards, needs skilled workers to maintain quality.However, the challenge of finding and retaining such talent persists. He's always believed in the potential of technology to aid growth, and this belief now drives his decision to turn to a new platform for help.

Later in his office, he finds a new platform after a Google search, which offers easy job listings with skill matching. He's intrigued by the user-friendly interface and the promising features it provides. With just a few clicks, he posts job listings, outlining specific skills he needs. The platform's skill matching algorithm immediately starts suggesting potential candidates who match the requirements.

Over the following weeks, Martin notices a significant change. The platform not only provides him with a stream of qualified candidates but also allows him to engage with them directly. Through the platform, potential hires are given insights into the restaurant's operations, ensuring they understand the expectations.

With the aid of the platform, Martin finds himself better equipped to tackle the staffing challenges head-on. The process of sourcing and retaining skilled workers becomes streamlined, and Martin's belief in technology's potential to foster growth is reaffirmed. His restaurants now run more efficiently, and unexpected staff shortages are becoming a thing of the past.

As we knew what our core functionalities were, we wanted to map them out further and see their relationship within each category. We therefore created this relationship hierarchy. This then took us to the creation of an IA diagram.

We continued defining our concept by making simple task flows, showing each step a user might take. This helps clear up our ideas and makes sure the user has a smooth journey. By planning out these steps, we can better guess what a user might want or do, making sure our design is easy and helpful.

We established technical requirements based on our initial concepts and desired features. These guidelines, covering interface specifications, technicality, functionalities, conceptual, and experience as well as software choices, became our roadmap. 

As the project evolved, so did our requirements. New ideas and iterative decisions continuously shaped and updated this crucial document, ensuring our design choices harmonized with our technical direction.

We initiated our design process by individually sketching on various frames that inspired us. Sketching is pivotal because it acts as a visual brainstorming tool, allowing us to rapidly explore and iterate design concepts. It not only provides an immediate visual representation of our thoughts but also collaboration, enabling us to combine, refine, and evolve our initial ideas into more cohesive solutions.

Initially, we designed an interactive wireflow linking essential low-fidelity screens, simulating crucial user pathways. This allowed us to gauge the user journey firsthand and gather feedback.

Subsequently, we orchestrated swift usability tests within our team, completing various tasks and pinpointing areas needing refinement.

This joint endeavor offered critical insights into the information architecture, navigation, layout, and interactions. It not only unified our team's design vision but also facilitated early identification and rectification of potential challenges, pre-empting formal user testing.

We continued the design process by constructing several wireflows, drawing inspiration from our preliminary task flows. This approach ensured that our mid-fidelity wireframes remained coherent and offered seamless user pathways. By transitioning from abstract task flows to more tangible wireflows, we were not only able to visualize individual interactions but also grasp the holistic user journey. 

This comprehensive view provided invaluable insights into potential user experiences, allowing us to anticipate and address challenges even before they emerged in the actual app usage.

We progressed in our design journey by developing mid-fidelity wireframes, setting the stage for our upcoming Usability Testing. 

The reason we opted to test closer to the mid-fidelity stage is rooted in our objectives: we aimed to evaluate both the user flows and the overarching concept. 

We believed that mid-fidelity, with its detailed yet not overly intricate design, would provide a clearer picture for our testers, ensuring that feedback would be both meaningful and actionable in refining the overall user experience.

In our pursuit to comprehensively understand the data derived from the mid-fidelity usability testing, we employed the Affinity Mapping technique. This method allowed us to systematically categorize and synthesize the vast amounts of information we gathered. 

The data from the tests were collected in a spreadsheet and synthesized using affinity mapping. All observations were noted down on sticky notes before being categorised into Pain Points, Successes, User Suggestions and Insights. They were then given sub-categories before being re-grouped into Key Insights and Recommendations. 

Following our comprehensive usability testing with mid-fidelity wireframes, we transitioned to high-fidelity designs, meticulously incorporating the invaluable feedback obtained. Rather than just elevating the visual detail, we took deliberate steps to ensure every design iteration enhanced user experience, with special attention to color accuracy and alignment with user preferences.

We took all the collected data from the High Fidelity Prototype Testing and made sticky notes in Miro. This enabled us to sort the notes and regroup them to find Key Insights and Recommendations. 

The data from the tests were collected in a spreadsheet and synthesized using affinity mapping. All observations were noted down on sticky notes before being categorised into Pain Points, Successes, User Suggestions and Insights. They were then given sub-categories before being re-grouped into Key Insights and Recommendations.