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Shiny Platform

Hiring Platform / Redesign / Product Designer / 3 Months
Project Contents
M E
N U
01
OVERVIEW
02
UX RESEARCH
03
USER JOURNEY
04
INFO ARCHITECTURE
05
WIREFRAMES
06
DESIGNS
07
USABILITY TEST

Project Overview

Brief
Shiny's fractional talent marketplace is where startups can hire c-suite executives “fractionally.” Shiny vets their executives before matching employers based on a brief job description. This was all done manually until the beta platform was launched in 2021 to automate the hiring process. After launch, Shiny noticed that their user retention and revenue was decreasing.
Project Goals
I was tasked with troubleshooting the UX of the platform, updating the UI by implementing a design system, creating and prioritizing features that will help make the platform more engaging within 3 months.

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PROTOTYPE
Problem
Lost engagement meant lost revenue. Nothing was stopping both fractional executives and founders from using the platform to get each other’s contact information and handling business OFF the platform. Similar to other gig platforms, Shiny relies on execs to use the invoicing feature to earn revenue.
Why is this happening?

‍01 During match, email is sent with all contact info

02 Users had trouble understanding next steps on the platform

03 Email was more straightforward than using the platform

04 Users handled all hiring off platform and through email or Linkedin

Solution
Keep the entire matching and hiring user journey on the platform to minimize intermediaries. Improve the feedback and communication on the platform so users understand next steps.
How to solve it?

01 Ensure users are connecting payment methods

02 Add detailed profiles for executives

03 Implement messaging feature to reduce intermediary communication

04 Add a referral leaderboard to increase engagement and increase targeted user acquisition channels

05 Create onboarding flow with tooltips with UserPilot

User Research

Methods

01 Design Spec

02 User Interviews / Contextual Inquiry

03 Heuristic Evaluation

04 Insight Report

Reason
I spent 2 months conducting research for the platform redesign. I reviewed the Design Spec which outlined assumptions to test. I first ran a Heuristic Evaluation to quickly identify current issues to generate user interview questions. I conducted a Contextual Inquiry and 1:1 In-Depth User Interviews to both identify user friction on the platform and user pain points in their job hunt respectively.

User Research Gallery

01 Design Spec
02 User Interviews
03 Heuristic Evaluation
04 Insight Report
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User Research

Insights

01 Lost engagement → lost revenue

02 Lack of feedback response for the platform flow

03 Platform lacked proper onboarding flow

‍04 There are no KPIs to monitor the health of the platform

Persona & User Journey

How does this influence design decisions?

01 We created two user personas: Employers and Execs

02 Having personas help design the best user experience as well as communicate the user journey

03 Shiny did not do a task analysis of the platform or business

04 The task analysis of matching to hiring also allowed for several opportunities to measure specific KPI's that can be implemented for data analytics

05 KPIs help monitor the health of the platform and validate or invalidate design decisions

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Persona & User Journey Gallery

01 Exec Persona
02 Employer Persona
03 Platform Flow
04 KPI List (sample)

Info Architecture

Methods

‍01 Users were confused with copy during interviews

02 Creating consistent terminology is also good heuristic design

03 Determine where the actions of users overlap during transactions

04 Elaborate on what content/information is necessary to display for all users

Reason
Redesigning a platform is like remodeling a house: rather than building from scratch, I needed to work with existing content. First, I needed to break down the Shiny matching and hiring process with a Task Analysis. Then I needed to understand how the user would take those steps in a User Journey with clearly defined Personas. After knowing what steps, when they occur, and who was taking them; I was able to think about what should be visible on the front-end while being mindful of retrofitting of the back-end which would affect hundreds of existing users and open Job Posts.
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Beta Platform Gallery

01 Dashboard
02 Job Post
03 Exec Profile

Wireframe

Inspiration / Improvements

00 The wireframe process was separated into 5 flows: Onboarding, Dashboard, Job Post/Pitches, Profile, and Messaging.

01 Onboarding focused on making sure Employers and Executives input their payment/payout so that Shiny can make money via invoicing

02 Dashboard focused on the matching to hiring process: making sure the Employers create detailed job posts and Executives create responses to job posts via pitches

03 Job Post/Pitches focused on communication between the Employers and Executives before an introduction

04 Profile focused on displaying both users' information to each other, establishing a relationship before getting introduced

05 Messaging focused on keeping introductions on the platform, it was done via email before which caused users to all abandon the platform for hiring and sending invoices

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Wireframes Gallery

01 Onboarding
02 Dashboard
03 Job Post/Pitches
04 Exec Profile
05 Messaging

Final Designs Gallery

01 Onboarding
02 Dashboard
03 Job Post/Pitches
04 Exec Profile
05 Messaging

Design System

Inspiration / Improvements

The design system was inspired by the mood board that I designed to create the Shiny brand and website from the colors to the typography.

We decided to make the platform look more visually appealing and consistent with the brand by creating customized components using Google Material Designs component library on Figma.

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Shiny Website

Usability Testing

Methods

01 Information architecture, content strategy, wireframing, and final designs took approximately 1 month to complete

02 We practiced Lean UX principles and gathered accurate real-time feedback from users

03 I was in constant communication with the CEO and CTO where their expertise could anticipate any issues with design and flows

04 I did some testing with colleagues, a usability test was not formally designed for this iteration

Reason
Although usability testing of the prototype would have been ideal for hand off, we were unable to spend time on this due to working and delivering quickly within Lean UX principles. The first phase of implementation included: UI changes, Job Post, Pitch, and Messaging features. I explained that Onboarding was more crucial; however, this was moved to a later phase since development said it would be very difficult to implement within the deadline.

Usability Testing

Results

01 The redesigns of the Job Post and Pitch feature was the most successful and was prioritized as the first feature to be implemented for launch

02 Development needed time to create tags for the KPI analytics, collecting quantitative feedback was not possible for this iteration

03 Qualitative feedback has been overall very positive with direct and indirect verbal and written feedback from users and stakeholders

04 We are still developing all the other features and with each release we will know more about how users interact with the platform, where we are successful and where we need improvements

Closing Remarks
Redesigning Shiny was no simple feat! As the sole designer on this project, it took me 3 months to complete research and design. Development took over a month to code with just 4 developers. We were given 3 months to work on this project. After hand-off of final designs, I worked as a product manager to help the CTO roadmap feature implementation. Overall, I believe this project was successful as it gave Shiny room to scale and help Shiny organize features into future sprints for months ahead. Immediate user feedback was positive and helped us iterate quickly. The experience was challenging but very rewarding. I learned the importance of communicating design and building a strong foundation in my designs through research and information architecture. I appreciate all the dedication and hard work that the Shiny team put in to make the launch smooth and successful.
Next Steps

01 Receive user feedback from the ops team, positive and negative! 

02 Review feedback and strategize with weekly product meetings to continually improve product

03 Brace ourselves for funding rounds! 

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