LinkedIn UX Redesign: A Case Study
The Challenge
I am a regular user of LinkedIn. I use their service to keep my hand on the pulse of the user-experience design industry. However, as a UX-designer, I can see some flaws in the LinkedIn platform.
So, for a challenge, I decided to delve deeper into the design of their website by finding problems and proposing innovative solutions.
As a visual professional, I wanted to experiment with design style. The purpose of this project is to showcase my analytical & design skills, upgrade my portfolio, and have some fun along the way. I have chosen to focus on specific problems for job seekers, rather than a full redesign of already working solutions.
Research
Job Searching
Problems with LinkedIn’s job search functionality have been well documented over the years. There are many articles and threads that detail the issues that users have encountered with finding and saving potential jobs.
“If only I could save the jobs quicker.”
“LinkedIn should provide better filters for jobs.”
“Why do these jobs which I have already applied for keep coming up in my search results?”
“LinkedIn should provide salary details. I would love that feature!”
“I don’t even know if I am accepted or rejected. I hate this!”
“Job recommendation problem — they show up randomly.”
Above quotes taken from LinkedIn Reimagined — Vamsi Batchu
Clutter
LinkedIn has also received criticism for its ‘noisiness’. Many users find there to be a lot of clutter, unnecessary emails and an overbearing number of reminders to use the platform.
“A common complaint is the ‘noisiness’ of LinkedIn both in terms of unsolicited emails and connection requests and unhelpful reminders to follow up on these from the service itself. Do users really want to compliment every one of their 1,000 contacts every time they change job?” — John E Dunn, Techworld
Too Public
“Most employees will be linked to colleagues, including line managers, because it’s hard not to be. The problem is that certain updates to a profile will by default be brought to the attention of these connections.” — John E Dunn, Techworld
The main issue that Dunn has identified above is that it doesn’t take much investigation (if any) for your current employer to see that you are looking for a new workplace.
Spam
LinkedIn has been heavily criticized due to a lack of spam filters on their site. Users are particularly vulnerable on LinkedIn compared to other social media platforms due to the large volume of personal information being shared with the public.
“Spam — they need to make something that helps users remain protected from spam”
Other
For my research, I also used articles from Kinsta & Business of Apps to understand user needs. These articles provided statistics that were useful in developing and justifying my findings.
Findings
Following my research, there were three clear UX design problems I could see with the LinkedIn platform.
1. Search is difficult to use and it is not flexible.
2. Users don’t want to see the newsfeed on the main page. They care more about finding jobs.
3. It is difficult to use the recommendations function. And these recommendations do not match user-needs.
Case Study
Many of my friends are active users of LinkedIn, so I have used their personality patterns to create a fictitious persona named Kyle. This will help us understand how to provide a better user experience for people searching for a job.
Kyle, 28
Job Seeker — IT
Kyle is a professional who uses LinkedIn for job searching. He does not use it on a daily basis. He actively uses LinkedIn during the period of changing his workplace.
Personality/Habits:
- Extravert who loves to communicate with other people
- Highly analytical: will evaluate all options before choosing the best one
- Considers himself a professional who is always looking to improve and upskill
- Ambitious
Kyle is a millennial who doesn’t like to stay in one workplace for a long period of time. He enjoys trying different career paths and as a college degree in IT.
Kyle is an active user of social media. He uses mobile apps to talk with friends but prefers to use his laptop when searching for a job. Using his laptop makes it easier to manage his CV and browse company websites.
Validation & Insights
To confirm my findings and learn more about real issues, I have interviewed several LinkedIn users. I collected responses from colleagues using Google Forms. The questions asked were:
- How often do you use LinkedIn?
- Are there any difficulties or inconveniences when using LinkedIn?
- What do you like about using LinkedIn?
- What information do you typically see in your feed? Is it useful?
- Describe the perfect feed for you.
- Describe your usual LinkedIn job search process.
- Do you use LinkedIn job recommendations? Why?
- Tell us how you normally use your search, from which page?
- Do you know how to customize your search to use filters? If yes, how?
Following these responses, I was able to make the following insights:
1. People are not interested in the feed. It is not often used because it does not contain relevant/important information.
2. People love to use connections. This is the most popular feature.
3. Search is used by typing job name, country and (sometimes) the checkbox for showing remote work.
4. Recommendations are not relevant which means they are ignored by users. Users are more interested in seeing which skills are needed to find more jobs.
5. Users find the search difficult to use. Some essential functions such as “saved searches”, are very hard to find.
Task Model & User Requirements
I set three different LinkedIn tasks for Kyle’s persona to help understand the actions of potential users.
- Kyle wants to find a new job as a UX Designer
Kyle uses the search to input parameters
- Inputs desired position and similar positions with different keywords: UX Strategy Designer, UX Designer, UX/UI Designer, User Experience Designer, Product Designer.
- Additional keywords: Senior
- City
- Salary
- Remote work yes/no
- Saves the search to continue the next day
Kyle gets a list of results and recommended jobs
- Is Kyle suitable for this job?
- Name of job
- Company
- Company rating
- Place
- Seniority
- Salary
- Job functions
- Days/weeks ago the position was added
Kyle wants to find a new job as a UX Designer
Kyle wants to save this company and go back to results
Kyle chooses another company and applies for the position
2. Kyle enters LinkedIn to check for job updates
Kyle opens messages he has received
Kyle sees recommended jobs for him
- Name of job
- Company
- Company rating
- Place
- Seniority
- Job functions
- Expected Salary
- Days/weeks ago the position was added
Kyle sees skills he can add to help find more jobs
Kyle sees suggested ‘connections’ to add to his network
Kyle navigates to other pages
- Jobs
- Messages
- Feed
- Network
- Statistics
- Personal Space
- Groups/Events
- Search
- Reminders
3. Kyle wants to find connections useful for job searching
Kyle go to connections button
Kyle receive a full list of recommended connections
- Name
- Company
- Photo
- Why they were recommended for him
- Number of mutual connections
- Connect button
Kyle checks the profile of a person to know more
Kyle writes a message
This task list can then be easily converted into requirements.
Company Requirements
- More products for premium users
- Business services
- Place for banners
- Special advantages for premium users
Low Fidelity Prototypes
As a person with unlimited development resources, I decided to change the layout of LinkedIn. Currently, the website is not adaptive so I have provided an adaptive 12-column grid.
High Fidelity Prototypes
The clean, open and spacious design I have used here reduces noise and makes the platform more user-friendly. This creates a simple and clutter-free experience for LinkedIn users.
Behance
Please check the link to find presentation of this case.
Conclusion
Redesigning the LinkedIn platform was a challenging and enjoyable experience. It was clear from my research, case studies and surveys, that LinkedIn users desired a more job-applicant friendly layout.
This notion was portrayed in my prototypes as I created easier ways for users to see job positions, apply for jobs, save job searches and reduce other noise.
Maybe LinkedIn will consider some of these changes in the future?
So, LinkedIn Team, if you’re reading this — my name is Anna Manjuna and I’d love to work with you!
