REMOTE CREW
IDEA:A desktop app that connects all the remote workers,helps them get a job and also builds a community to make them feel less lonely.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:Almost 2 and a half years after the pandemic started,more and more employees are working remotely and we have to face some new needs:the difficulty to launch a job from your home and isolation’s sentimental impacts.
GOAL:The goal is to build a desktop app and a website where employees can launch a job but they can also discuss various topics and share their feelings about work with each other to simulate in some way the conditions of a going to office job.
MY ROLE:Entire research, product design and validation through user testing.
METHODOLOGY:At my workflow, I use Design Thinking methodology to find solutions for the user problem. Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.
THE STUDY:The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted labor markets globally during 2020. The short-term consequences were sudden and often severe: Millions of people were furloughed or lost jobs, and others rapidly adjusted to working from home as offices closed.As a result people-especially the ones who live on their own- had to isolate in their daily routine even if the quarantine days are over.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS:Before I started the project,I had to do some competitive analysis to gain some insights about how the other competitors try to solve this problem,so I can give a direction to my thoughts, and for this research I reviewed the following websites:
Angelist is the world’s largest startup community. It has a huge number of remote jobs – full-time, part-time and contract. A number of early stage startups list roles like Co-founder and CTO, with a visible percent equity share and salary. It is clearly a favorite in the list of best job sites for remote work.
Top Features:
- You can speak directly to founders and hiring managers.
- Third party recruiters are restricted to hire from the platform.
We work remotely works with some of the top remote companies such as Invision & GitHub to fulfill their remote positions. You will find a huge number of company profiles and remote jobs posted on the website. You can receive updates of new remote job listings for specific categories via their email newsletter.
Top Features:
- A remote job listing has a colored flag beside the company name, if it is posted by a top remote company.
- A large slack community.
Jobspresso is a job board with the majority of tech remote job listings. The jobs are curated by internal trained staff and companies need to pay to have their jobs listed on the website. It does not have the feature to bookmark/ save jobs though.
Top Features:
- A weekly newsletter to receive updates on new remote jobs.
- Active on posting new jobs on Twitter and Facebook.
Remote circle is an easy-to-use remote job board wherein you can filter jobs based on category (sales, design, programming etc.), type (Permanent, contract and part-time), keywords and company name. Similar to Workew, you can bookmark the remote jobs you like (requires you to sign up though).
Top Feature:
- A weekly newsletter to receive updates on new remote jobs and also advice on finding remote jobs.
RESEARCH:As I wanted to examine the problem from the inside, I conducted a survey in order to gather some quantitative data from a sample of 50 people that I found in a Facebook group for remote working employees who have worked remotely and in office to have a comparison of both their experiences.
According to the results of the survey after the coronavirus crisis only the 36% had a job that couldn’t be done from home and a 37% would like at least the half of their work to be done from home,If they had the choice.This percentage grows to 40% in the ages 30-50,where only the 12% of them would like to work solely from office.Most of the employees are feeling as productive working remote as working from the office.
Although most of the employees have adapted themselves in the new reality,some of them are fighting with the psychological impacts the pandemic has cause.Feelings of loneliness and isolation are commonly seen in working from home
UNDERSTANDING THE POTENTIAL USERS FOR DESKTOP APP/WEBSITE
Before I build my product it is very important to know users’ demands and the design must be aimed at their needs so it can fit their expectations.
BRAINSTORMING:Now that I know who my potential users are,it is the time for the most exciting part of the process;Brainstorming.This is the time I will let my ideas run free.I am using an affinity map to ideate on the right problems and brainstorm the product’s features in the right way.
RESEARCH OVERVIEW:After the user research I conducted I received feedback from the users that I turned into user personas.One persona,Cooper is a person who works remote but he is struggling with his social life especially after the pandemic and he is frustrated with the lack of networking.Sebina,the second persona is not pleased with her existing remote job and she wishes to land another one.She is finding it very difficult to search and compare jobs, ad also she wishes to work remote for the next upcoming years even when the pandemic is over.
So I am going to design a website where users have to be accepted to sign up regarding to some criteria [tech employee,verified ID,tech related degree or professional title etc] The purpose on this is to build a trustful community with verified ID’s on people who love to connect each other in the field of technology.Users will be able to search and compare jobs,and filter with category,location and timezone.
Important pain points discovered from research:
Users need an app to socialize and connect each other to fight the negative feelings of loneliness and isolation
Users need an app to search,compare and favorite jobs using the suitable filters to land their dream job from home
WIREFRAMES:
First I made some wireframes by hand,and then I transferred them into digital form using Figma.
USABILITY STUDY
TYPE:Unmoderated usability study
LOCATION:Thessaloniki,Greece, remote (each participant went through the usability study in their own home)
PARTICIPANTS:Six participants,each completing the study individually.3 males 2 females and 1 non binary individual and the age range was 16-35.
LENGTH:Each session was 5-10 minutes based on a list of prompts
RESULTS:Considering all the information of the participants,they could easilly navigate and complete tasks.
final polished designs
WHAT I LEARNED:
While designing the WE WORK REMOTE website I learned a lot about website design and all the thought-process that goes into it to ensure that it solves users problems as well as makes the experience something they enjoy. The process is a bit different when creating an app so I was grateful to learn new skills and new insight into UX and UI.
As time goes on and users continue to give feedback as well as you look at the website design more, future improvements will surface and become clearer, and the product will continue to get better.
Moving forward, I would like to conduct another round of usability testing to validate whether there are no pain points in my design, and if yes,to fix them.