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UASSESS
An AI-powered dynamic assessment tool that makes hiring effortless and informed, streamlining the process with advanced analytics and personalized candidate insights.
Project Overview
A. Summary
As Steve Jobs famously remarked, "It's pointless to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."
In today's fast-paced landscape, businesses strive to excel quickly, knowing that even the smallest decisions by their team members can steer the company to new heights. But how can we ensure we're making the right hires? According to a study by the Economics Times, only 5% of recruited individuals prove to be the right fit for their roles in the thriving IT sector. Resumes can be embellished, reference letters overly positive, and past experience may not fully reveal a candidate's behavioral traits, communication skills, leadership potential, or ability to handle stress.
This is where pre-hiring assessment tools come into play. By utilizing technical and psychometric analyses, hiring managers and recruiters can better gauge a candidate's suitability for their company's culture. These tools provide a more nuanced understanding of candidates' capabilities, enabling organizations to make informed decisions that align with their values and goals.
B. Team Comp
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Stakeholder: Collaborated closely with the Co-Founder of the Institute of Product Leadership to bring his vision to life through a prototype.
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Design Mentor: Worked alongside Carol, my design mentor, who provided invaluable guidance to keep me on track throughout the process
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Product Manager: Suraj Negi, as the Product Manager, steered the product's development in alignment with business objectives.
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Junior UX Designer: Collaborated with Darshan on enhancing the applicant User Flow and crafting custom icons.
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Engineering Leader: Partnered with Subhash to ensure alignment with the engineering team and streamline processes.
C. My Role
As the sole designer on the team, I had the opportunity to demonstrate my proficiency in various areas including User Research, Product Design, storyboarding, wireframing, and prototyping. I utilized a range of tools such as Figma, Notion, Google Suite, Miro, and Maze
D. Project Imapct
This project paved the path for securing the first seed investment for the product, which has evolved into a fully functional application known as Zapilio, with updated branding. Currently, the platform has been embraced by several top technology companies in India, including Bosch, Microsoft, McAfee, Arrowhead, and Cisco, among others. The product has significantly reduced the time to hire by 88% with its assessment tests. Additionally, it has been actively integrated with SkillZap (formerly known as Mikrolearn) to address the skill gap within corporate teams.
E. Project Prototype
Through extensive research and design iterations, we created a B2B web-based assessment platform for hiring managers:
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Effortless navigation and adaptability
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Automated test generation based on job descriptions
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Simplified competency mapping for all applicants
High-Fidelity Prototype
High-Fidelity Prototype
PROBLEM
A. Problem Statement
To design an assessment tool for Hiring Managers/Recruiters, we aim to evaluate job applicants comprehensively, encompassing technical skills, general aptitude, behavioral skills, emotional intelligence (EQ), 360-degree personality assessments, psychometric analysis, communication skills, and leadership abilities. This tool should facilitate a holistic evaluation process, ensuring candidates are not only technically proficient but also possess the soft skills necessary for success in the role. Similarly, it should allow candidates to showcase their diverse abilities, enabling a balanced assessment from both perspectives.
B. Background
In today's fast-paced world, businesses rely on their hires to make crucial decisions that can propel the company forward. However, finding the right fit is challenging. Traditional methods like resumes and references may not reveal a candidate's true qualities. That's where pre-hiring assessment tools come in. By using technical and psychometric analysis, these tools help hiring managers identify candidates who align with their company's culture and objectives.
C. Business Objectives
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Enhance hiring efficiency: Streamline the hiring process to save time and resources for HR teams, hiring managers, and talent acquisition managers.
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Reduce hiring risks: Minimize disruptions and costs associated with wrong hires by implementing comprehensive assessment methods.
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Improve talent selection: Identify candidates with the right mix of technical skills, behavioral traits, EQ, and leadership abilities.
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Foster team success: Identify and cultivate the missing 'R' factor within teams to strengthen team dynamics and performance.
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Support organizational growth: Contribute to the long-term success and growth of the organization by ensuring the right talent is onboarded for future endeavors
D. Target Users
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Human Resources teams
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Hiring Managers
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Talent Acquisition Managers
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Small organizations
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Large corporations
User Research
A. Research Methods
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We utilized various research techniques to uncover insights and pain points. These included a Research Survey with 30 participants, 1-1 Research Interview with 6 participants, a Competitive Analysis, a SWOT Analysis, a User Journey Map, and an Empathy Map. By synthesizing all research materials, we created an Affinity Map to gather valuable insights.
User Research Survey
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never used assessment tool
70.6%
70.6% of the Users who participated in the research survey said that they have never used the assessment tool for hiring.
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Easy and efficient
Difficult
User Research Interviews
“Maybe we would use an assessment tool if we could ask them video-based assessment by telling me about one challenge they faced while working on their project and how they faced it or which skills they use to solve it. As with this, we would be able to see how passionate an applicant is”
"Assessment tests should be dynamic in behavior meaning, assessment tests should be like SAT exam where after a point it should adjust to your skills and try to find your exact skill proficiency"
Customer Reviews
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iMocha
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“Sometimes unable to download the report through e-mail notification even when there is an option too, have to go to the portal and download it in that case”
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“faulty question bank with incorrect grammar and English”.
Mettl
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“There is also a scope of improvement in the user interface to make it more user-friendly".
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"Link & report download options at the front end need to be more user-friendly for any to access to review the reports".
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"Sometimes reports get complicated to understand"
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Xobin
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“We don't see any flaws as such. But we felt, if the complete questions are displayed next to the answer window, it would be easier for the evaluator for a quick analysis”.
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“UI, Xobin can work much on Impressive UI”.
Competitive & SWOT Analysis
B. User Persona
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C. User Journey Map & Empathy Map
D. Insights and Pain Points
Customer Needs:
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Fasten hiring process
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Efficiently filter and shortlist applicants
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Access skills required for specific roles
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Make informed hiring decisions
Product Features:
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User-centric design with intuitive UI
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Easy navigation
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Customizable assessment difficulty
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Effortless custom assessments
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Preview and edit questions/skills
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Custom question option
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Integration with ATS
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Multiple testing formats
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Assess various skills
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Detailed assessment reports
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Downloadable reports and email notifications
Design Solution
A. Design Process
In a 4-week Sprint, following the Double Diamond Design Process, we conducted an extensive discovery process to gain insights into our customers' needs and pain points. We defined hypotheses to scope down the focus, developed prototypes, and crafted a branding package for the ideal solution. Extensive usability testing was conducted before presenting it to VC. Crafting user stories and prioritizing features were crucial in developing our MVP version for HR login.
B. Brainstorming and Exploration
In crafting a user-friendly experience for HR teams and recruiters, our aim was simplicity, clarity, and intuitive navigation. Research revealed a common challenge among recruiters: existing assessment tools were overly complex and hard to navigate. Our focus thus centered on simplifying the tool's navigation for ease of use.
Sketch showing Navigation for Recruiter Flow
Sketch for Assessment Customization (adding skiils to an assessment test)
Sketch showing Navigation for Recruiter Flow
C. Design Rationale
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Design Rationale Inspired by Gmail
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Happy Path Emphasis: Mimicking Gmail's smooth user journey, our platform ensures HR professionals seamlessly navigate assessment creation.
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Customization Focus: Like Gmail's personalized settings, our platform prioritizes easy customization of assessment sets.
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Main Challenge - "Set" Screen: Designing the assessment "Set" screen posed a challenge; iterative refinement and stakeholder discussions addressed this.
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Streamlined Editing: Our platform echoes Gmail's intuitive editing features, ensuring a seamless user experience.
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In essence, our design, influenced by Gmail's user-centric approach, prioritizes simplicity and customization for HR professionals.
Recruiter User Flow
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Information Architecture
Solution & Prototyping
A. Final Design Solution
After identifying our users and understanding their pain points, we proceeded to define our solution. Utilizing user stories from our User Persona, we outlined MVPs for the initial soft release.High Priority User Flows (MVP):
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User Story: As a user, I want to assess job applicants so that I can make informed decisions before shortlisting and hiring benchmark applicants.
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User Story: As a user, I want to customize assessments to evaluate job applicants so that I can assess them based on the specific skill sets required for a role.
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User Story: As a user, I want to get an applicant assessment report so that I can compare the reports of multiple applicants before selecting them.
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User Story: As a user, I want to set the difficulty level of assessments so that I can identify the most competent applicants effectively.
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User Story: As a user, I want to utilize various testing formats such as video profiling, behavioral tests, and 360 personality tests so that I can efficiently shortlist job applicants before conducting face-to-face interviews.
B. Prototypes and Mockups
To design for corporate recruiters, we analyzed several interaction patterns for intuitive navigation. After researching various navigation patterns, we found the navigation pattern used in Workday's job application format particularly effective. This pattern provides users with a clear idea of the next stage of the job application process. Leveraging this navigation mental model, we applied it to the recruiter user flow for creating assessments for job applicants, as recruiters are already familiar with this flow. We developed a low-fidelity wireframe based on this concept and conducted our first round of usability testing to assess the viability of our early prototype.
C. Product Branding
We chose a color scheme featuring deep blue for trust, vibrant green for adaptability, and warm orange for a touch of fun. This palette was paired with the Roboto default font for Android, known for its elegance and friendly curves, to create an inviting and visually appealing design.
We chose a color scheme featuring deep blue for trust, vibrant green for adaptability, and warm orange for a touch of fun. This palette was paired with the Roboto default font for Android, known for its elegance and friendly curves, to create an inviting and visually appealing design.
D. Product Outcome
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D. Usability Testing and Iterations
Key Findings #1, #2, #3
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a simple task of using a search bar was just ignored
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Users do perceive the logo as the home button
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Too many options can clutter the space and confuse the users
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Key Finding #4​
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The “Load More” button was ignored
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Key Finding #5
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It is not intuitive if you divide actions on a screen between left and right columns
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Key Finding #6
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Learning the importance of Footer and how it can help become the navigational tool of the Web application, I redesigned the Footer
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User Accessibility
After analyzing the results of the Figma Color Contrast Checker plugin, I made adjustments to a few colors in my final High Fidelity wireframes to improve accessibility. In particular, I decided to modify the shade of the blue color to address user accessibility issues with minimal changes. This adjustment not only included updating the color for the primary and secondary buttons but also involved revising the color scheme for the branding.
Outcome
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Effortless to navigate and adapt
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Easy to decide on competency mapping of all the job applicants who get assessed
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Effortless auto-generation of dynamic assessment tests based on skills and personality type in the job description.
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Results & Impacts
A. Metrics & Insights
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Applicant hiring time reduced by 88% based on received metrics.
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Approximately 15 corporate companies have accepted the current model of the Assessment tool.
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More companies are actively getting onboarded.
B. Learnings & Takeaways
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Emphasize simplicity in design to enhance user experience.
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Utilize principles of proximity, unity, and scale in UI design for better organization and clarity.
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Align UI elements with users' mental models to facilitate intuitive interaction.
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Implement interactive components to engage users and improve usability.
C. Future Opportunities
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Iterate on the visual design of the "Set" screen in Assessments to enhance intuitiveness and user-friendliness, focusing on optimizing negative space.
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Conduct a heuristic evaluation of the web application to identify areas for improvement in usability and user experience.
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Develop a mobile version of the assessment tool to ensure accessibility and functionality across different devices.
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Work on developing the Business-to-Business (B2B) version of the application to cater to corporate clients' needs and requirements.
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Explore adding Business-to-Consumer (B2C) features to the application to expand its reach and appeal to individual users.
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