Dragonfly
Keep your job hunt organized
Overview
Dragonfly is the responsive web app that helps job seekers keep their applications organized and easily accessible. My team had set eight weeks to build our MVP from discovery to launch. I served as our lead Product Designer and worked alongside two Software Engineers and one Product Manager. I lead the team in defining the problem and solution, conduct user research and usability studies, and iterate on lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes.
The Problem
According to Zippia, “It takes 21 to 80 job applications to get one job offer, on average.” As many of us know, job hunting can be a numbers game. But with so many applications, how does one keep track of all the roles they are applying for? This is exactly the problem that our team sought out to solve. After surveying over 60 different job seekers, I learned that over 78% of users are using some form of organizational tool to keep track of the positions they’ve applied to. What surprised me was the lack of similarity between users’ approach to tracking. We saw a wide array of approaches from screenshots, to fully developed excel sheets.
Goals
After completing a competitive audit, I began to realize that there are very few services out there that are trying to specifically tackle job application tracking. Through our research, I saw an opportunity to create a platform that was simple, completely free, and let users easily keep track of their applications. This was the inception of Dragonfly.
User
Remember what roles they've applied to and what the job descriptions entail
Efficiency
Seamlessly add new job applications without the hassle of having to copy and paste a lot of info
Product
Allow users to easily customize how they organize their job applications
Research
I surveyed over 60 people who have either landed a job or were looking for one. I then ran several user interviews to gain perspective on what the real problems were with job application tracking. I chose to interview users who had either had a system for tracking their job applications, or who had sent out a high number of applications.
The process would be easier if…
“If sites had an easier way to track all the jobs I’ve applied to and kept the job descriptions handy” “...Information is auto-filled...” “[If I could] keep track of what jobs need to be followed up on or when I last reached out to or spoke to someone at the company” “[There were] reminders to apply”
After sketching out some different ideas and exploring feature feasibility with our engineers, I was able to craft a lo-fi prototype for testing. To address the issue of automation, my initial idea was to create a chrome extension that would allow users to add job postings to Dragonfly’s cards automatically. While this feature garnered a lot of excitement in the usability studies, we ultimately had to move the extension to our backlog for time sake. However, we were able to solve this in a different way...
The dashboard was my answer to simplicity. Each user expressed some different way of organizational preference; it was important that Dragonfly allowed users to customize how they view their job apps.
To deal with visual clutter, I didn't just want more lists with lots of text. I was inspired by the simple design of business cards. I thought this would be a simple and modern approach to organizing job data. Thus our "cards" were created.
Low Fidelity Usability Study
From our lo-fi usability study, I was pleased to see that users were on board with the product solution. I learned that users desired even more ways to customize their dashboard view and also wanted additional options to organize their cards. While they loved the extension, our team needed to figure out how to address automation in a different feature, given our short timeframe and the technical abilities of the devs.
I was incredibly grateful for such a collaborative team. What felt like a creative block was easily addressed by one of our software engineers. He was able to figure out a way to use LinkedIn job posting links to auto-populate cards for users. This way users only need to copy and paste one text field instead of several.
High Fidelity Usability Study
The research plan for our first hi-fi usability study was to see how users navigated the card creation using the LinkedIn link, how they felt about the card view customization, and to see how they interacted with the newly created “Board View” which was our own version of a kanban board.
Board View version 1
Adding cards to the Board View
While users loved the UI and were able to navigate the card creation and customization easily, there was a huge drop-off when it came to Board View organization. The majority of users needed help adding cards to the Board View and many didn't instinctively understand what the view was.
By allowing users to stay on the same page and easily add cards to their sections via an overlay, job seekers can visually see everything they need to complete the task without getting lost in the process. Additionally I removed the option for color customization because users demonstrated confusion as to why they would need to have the sections colored if the cards were already colored in the first place. After running one last usability study, I was able to observe a 100% increase in user retention and a significant decrease of time on task when they were using the Board View.
Design System
Dragonfly is designed in a dark mode. My initial approach was to have both a light and dark theme for the site. However, with only eight weeks to design, handoff, and launch, I opted to only create a dark mode design. This ensured that those with different vision abilities were able to use Dragonfly without accessibility challenges. I wanted the overall aesthetic of the site to feel empowering to the user. They were the ones in control of their job hunt and Dragonfly should feel like an elite tool to help them land their desired roles. In case you are wondering "Why the name, Dragonfly?"; Dragonflies are one of the most efficient hunters in nature with a 97% capture success. As we help our user throughout their job hunt, we aim to increase their success rate too.
Prioritized Features
Dashboard - Card View
Card View is the user's library of job applications. Each card contains info about the role including, name, company, location, application status, job description, and other organizational features. The goal with card view was to provide users with a visual representation of all of the jobs that they are interested in. Users can customize the grid by adjusting the columns from 1 to 4. This view also allows users to sort, filter, and search for specific jobs in their library. From my time with the users, I found that the majority just wanted options when it came to how they viewed the cards. Small features like this really proved itself exceptional with the user base
LinkedIn Integration
Once a user has found a role they like, they can either create a card manually, or input an application link from LinkedIn to have the card auto populate the job details. While my heart was really set on a chrome extension to do this for the user, we had to pivot in how we approached efficiency for the user. In the end, it was evident that the user cared less about how the automation works but just wanted it to work.
Dashboard - Board View
The Board View allows users to create customized sections for different ways of tracking their job apps. Once the user creates the section, they can populate it with pre-existing cards. While this feature took the most iteration on my behalf, it's probably the feature that I'm most proud of. I loved seeing the excitement and anticipation for this feature when we presented it to our potential user base.
The Results
I was grateful to have worked with an amazing team on this project. Collaboration was truly the victor in creating this product. The project itself was by no means a small task with the time frame given, and yet we were able to launch Dragonfly as an MVP. Our team is currently in discussion about how we plan to move forward with Dragonfly. Overall the reception from users has been positive and many have expressed excitement in using the product for their own job tracking. Additionally, we have had engineers reach out to us in hopes of contributing towards the development of Dragonfly. We have a couple features still in the backlog, including: a Chrome extension, reminders, and even file storage for cover letters and resumes. If you want to learn more about the development of the product and the overall process, you can read about it here
My Learnings
This project really taught me about listening and observing. Working with a cross-functional team showed me that while I'm the designer, the best solution can come from anyone and I have to invest in the best answer in the room. I learned that during user interviews and usability studies, I have to think more about what the user does rather than just what the user says. I also learned that users want to see your product be a success because (if designed well) it does solve their problems. The majority of our tested users stated that they would use Dragonfly and earnestly wanted to know when it would be released. This knowledge helped me keep me on track when it came to descoping and prioritizing features. It helped me see the amazing potential of an MVP in a practical sense. Lastly I learned that designers need to be compassionate more so than empathetic. While empathy helps us understand the problem better, it is compassion that drives the results. I wrote a Medium blog post about that if you to want read more!