Spark !
Spark! is an incubator and experiential learning lab for computer science and engineering projects. It aims to help students realize their potential and passion by providing access to resources, knowledge, and expert networks to support their innovation and applied learning journeys. As a Designer, I worked on interactive features for future recruiting seasons.
Disciplines
Interaction Design
Tools
Adobe XD
Miro
Timeframe
June - Aug 2022
Collaborators
Andrea Lopez
Yi You
Ryan Yap
the problem
While administrators use Spark!'s the central application portal to recruit student staffs, There are two main issues that impede the efficiency of the evaluation process.
JUMP TO see solution
Inefficent reviewing process

In the recruiting process, the administrators evaluate students both on their profiles, which contains personal skills, and application responses. Therefore, having two forms side by side is crucial for administers precisely selecting staff candidates. For the latest version of the application portal they had to open two windows in the split view, log in twice, locate the applicants twice, to start the reviewing process.

Inability of locating applicants precisely based on their interested positions

Previously in the situation that administrators hire students for certain positions, they sort out the application through program filter, then click the applicant's name and pull out the application form to identify the interested position of the applicant.

Finalizing  our solution's goal
After analyzing the user flow of the website and interviewing our clients, I decided that the solution needed to meet the following the goal:

Shorten the upfront time for viewing data

Every time the administrators resume in the viewing process, there are superfluous steps that need to be manually set up in order to locate certain applicants.
Iterating a more efficient user flow and optimizing the interaction of the portal is the top priority and ultimate solution.

Designing our solution
01 | ideation
With the insights in mind, I proposed adding a position filter for categorizing applications based on applicant's interested positions to avoid extra actions of clicking into the application details.
Adapting administer's previous practice, we reach a consensus to embed the dual view of simultaneously browsing applicant's profile and application responses into the main page.
09 | hifi-prototype
After finalizing the features based on cliencts' feedbacks, I started working on various versions of position filter feature and dual view feature.
finally...
Spark! Central Application Portal has a new dual view feature and an application filter feature for administrators to efficiently match student candidates to the right opportunity and further support their innovation journeys.

Filtering of Searches for Systematic Reviews

Finally, the recruitment process begins right when administrators can quickly locate a pool of applicants they have in their minds.

Semester, Program Position, and Application Status Filters provide administrators various ways of categorizing applications before they look at individual candidates in detail.

Holistic View of Candidates

Administrators can evaluate candidates' personal skill sets and program responses simultaneously.

To prioritize the importance of the application form and simplify the reviewing process, they are opened up on the homepage, and the profile page slide in from the right as supporting material.
Final thoughts
Working at Spark! in summer was an incredible experience. Throughout my first UX internship experienceI grew as a designer under the support of all the people surrounding me - my manager, developers on the team, mentor, client, designer peers.
Pitching perfectly
Over half of the work time was in meetings pitching my process and listening from a broad range of stakeholders. Although I am primarily responsible for ensuring all aspects of the digital product are intuitive, useful, and aesthetically pleasing, the entire product team consciously shares the ownership of UX. In addition to brainstorming, designing,I need to pitch perfectly to make sure that everyone on the team has a clear understanding to engage with the product.
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‍Test with more administrators
‍Because my client is one of the main users as well, I only user tested during client interviews, and to my friends.  It would have been insightful if I tested with more staff members on the recruiting team.

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