Scoutible
Gamifying the Job Seeking Experience
Role
Product Designer
Timeline:
3 weeks
Team
Methods
User Research, User Journeys, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Prototyping, Competitive/Comparitive Analyses
What is Scoutible?
Scoutible is a startup aiming to revolutionize the hiring process by using mobile games to assess soft skills and match candidates with roles that align with their strengths. Their research-backed app helps users discover their unique abilities, build a “Strengths Resume,” and improve the hiring experience for both candidates and employers by showcasing potential beyond traditional experience.
The Challenge
Scoutible’s beta launch revealed low engagement with the Strengths Resume, highlighting the need for user behavior insights.
The Solution
Focusing on the end of the user flow, where users receive their soft skills results and Strengths Resume, we made recommendations to improve the flow, enhance information hierarchy, and ensure continuity in gamification throughout the entire experience.
Ensuring user’s identified soft skills (“Star Qualities”) are relatable
Star Qualities Results Page
Adjusting the language to describe identified Star Qualities to help users better understand and relate to their identified soft skills. With improved relatability, users can be encouraged to access the Strengths Resume to learn more.
Revising the end of the flow to promote engagement
Strengths Resume
I redesigned the Strengths Resume to create a more engaging user experience, allowing users to add/subtract identified Star Qualities and input their own skills and work experience. By revising the copy and optimizing the mobile layout, the design better conveys that this resume is an interactive, dynamic document for job seekers to actively engage with.
What did Scoutible find?
Scoutible shared existing user research with our team, which identified their target audience as females aged 20-35. While previous studies provided insights into engagement rates and demographics, they sought my team’s help in uncovering a deeper understanding of specific user personas and behaviors to inform the next iterations of their product.
TARGET USERS
Who are we designing for?
We developed 2 target user groups to clarify user needs and guide solutions toward the professionals Scoutible aims to attract.
Aspiring Professional
Graduated from university with a major in communications and is now looking for job opportunities
Seeking a Sales Development Representative role, but she isn’t having much luck.
Open to work at any company where she feels she fits in with its culture and her co-workers.
Efficient Professional
Self-disciplined and likes to stick to her daily routine of work, exercise, and family time.
During her downtime, she plays popular mobile phone games, but she strays away from astrology and trendy personality tests
Been self-studying computer science & coding and is looking to change in to a tech career
SURVEYS
Understanding User Behaviors
We surveyed 55 participants to explore their job-seeking experiences and attitudes toward mobile games and personality tests, helping us identify opportunities to better engage potential users.
75%
of jobseekers felt one of the most frustrating parts of their job searches was: “employers can’t see my personality strengths”
90%
of jobseekers doubt the accuracy of personality tests
60%
of jobseekers consider soft skills crucial when applying for jobs, but find it difficult to pinpoint what theirs are
MODERATED TESTING
Are users connecting their results to the Strengths Resume and finding it useful in their job search?
Moderated testing with three female participants (21–25) revealed mixed reactions at the journey’s end, highlighting the results page as a key improvement area.
COMPETITVE ANALYSES
What's on the market?
Analyzing competitors provided valuable insights into existing offerings on the market. This research enhanced our understanding of effective approaches for identifying soft skills and successfully engaging users.
Scoutible has an opportunity to create a uniquely motivating experience by combining playful discovery, clear career insights, and actionable growth, bridging the strengths of competitor approaches.
Pinpointing the Suspected Problem Space
Journey maps created via user testing results highlighted key improvement areas, with the Results and Strengths Resume stages showing the highest user dissatisfaction.
Targeting User's Pain Points
We synthesized our findings to draw some conclusions about user patterns and used that insight to strategize our approach to developing a solution.
Users need to be properly incentivized throughout their entire experience
We suspect Scoutible likely lost engagement due to a gap between the effort required and the perceived benefits of its novel game-based assessment
Users find confidence in accuracy and relatability
For Scoutible to deliver value, users must leave the experience feeling empowered, reaffirming known qualities and discovering new insights.
Preliminary Sketches
I sketched out some basic design ideas of potential app improvements—taking into account key insights from the research before developing higher fidelity wireframes in Sketch.
Core Flows
Game Results Page: Incentivizing Users
Refined the language for Star Qualities and highlighted the top three soft skills to boost user relatability and engagement. To encourage continued interaction with the Strengths Resume, we added a progress bar, extending the gamified experience.
Strengths Resume: Increasing Personalization
I kept the Strengths Resume within the app to maintain user engagement, while enhancing personalization by allowing users to highlight Star Qualities, add skills, and showcase key experiences. I also integrated the progress bar into the avatar for a more seamless gamified experience and optimized the mobile layout with collapsible sections to improve usability on smaller screens.
Client Handoff
My team and I presented our research, wireframes, and UX/UI recommendations to Scoutible’s CEO and CTO. They appreciated the actionable insights, especially given the short project timeline, and planned to use our findings to guide the product’s next phase.
Next Steps
Usability testing on design recommendations
More iterations of UX design solutions to ensure engagement throughout the whole experience
Further user research on both the Aspiring Professional & the Efficient Professional in order to confirm our assumptions
Reflections
Challenges
COVID- 19 COVID-19 restrictions required our team to transition to fully remote collaboration. While tools like Miro supported communication and affinity mapping, tasks such as synthesis and user testing took longer and lost the immediacy of in-person interaction. Limited access to participants and the inability to observe subtle user behaviors also impacted our research depth.
Delays on consumer-facing app release The allocated research time, within the tight 3-week design timeline, was pushed back and greatly reduced our time for design and testing.
Achievements
My team and I adapt to a completely virtual work style quickly to produce high-quality design solutions for Scoutible.
Changed plan of action to accommodate app release delays in order to generate valuable insights on target users and design recommendations by the deadline.
Scoutible released their app 3 days before our design deadline; my team and I switched back to the original direction to produce the design deliverables and strategies we had previously planned for.
Delivered all design deliverables requested by client: user personas, user flow w/ low- to mid-fidelity wireframes, UXR repaort w/ qualitative & quantitative insights on Scoutible's target audiences.
