THE company
GigNow is a talent marketplace that matches contract workers with gigs at iconic organizations around the world. It’s a platform that enables large organizations to manage their contingent labor forces.
Problem Summary
GigNow has thousands of gigs available for candidates, but they need to be easy to find and easy to apply to. I joined GigNow about 2 years after their inception, and the initial search experience was due for an upgrade. It performed the basic functions of gig search, but it didn’t make the process easy or efficient for the user. It was a bit dated and needed modernization. Luckily, I’d just come from Indeed, so I was well versed in search and the needs of users.
THE PROJECT
Users needed a modernized and streamlined way to find and apply to gigs. The initial experience required users to open the gig description in a new tab, which is clumsy, cumbersome, and confusing. The gig descriptions were lacking key information that would allow users to quickly discern if they were interested in a gig, and forcing them to click into another window was likely leading to fewer gigs being viewed and ultimately applied to. I set out to improve the scannability of gig descriptions, make it easier to look at several gigs, improve the filtering capabilities so users could fine-tune their results, and make it fast and simple to apply to a new gig. I also needed to add a brand new homepage to guide users through the search instead of just dropping them on a search results page that listed all gigs everywhere. I wanted this to feel like a real job search site instead of just a data dump.
The experience we needed to improve on
SOLUTION SUMMARY
Met with PM to understand all the metrics, requirements, business goals, etc.
Researched other solutions
Identified requirements
Understood the capabilities of current experience
Met with dev to understand tech capabilities
Pulled all of my other smaller projects together since they would affect this design
I had already overhauled the gig description, added filters, and streamlined the search results, so I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted all the pieces to fit together. I started in Sketch by experimenting with different column layouts since we couldn’t expand our site width for this project and I was concerned with what a slightly slim width we had to work with and how results would look within that space.
Once I’d decided on a two-column layout, I experimented with widths
I started breaking up the pieces of my previous projects and fitting them into their new space
Worked through multiple iterations on the gig details box
Designed the homepage to guide users through the search experience
Built an interactive prototype to demonstrate the scroll
Met with dev for a design review
Updated with their feedback
Met with dev and product to break down stories
Met with dev and product to groom stories
Met with dev and product to point stories
Worked directly with devs throughout the development process to answer questions, clarify behavior, address edge cases, etc.
Met with dev for a show and tell, which is a product review of the work completed
Conducted QA testing alongside the QA team, reported visual and behavior bugs, worked with devs to ensure everything was built as intended and expected by users
Worked with PM over the next several weeks to understand the metrics of the feature (300% initial increase in applications, increase in the number of gigs viewed, increase of time on site)
