PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Challenge
A integrated desktop version on the OnBoard interface that can help boards (admins, specifically) connect with potential new board members that can diversify the board. Current board admins are only recruiting within their own circles which limits their candidate diversity.
Questions that guided our design process:
How can we help OnBoard experiences standout from competitors?
What are the best ways to connect people?
How do we use our findings to develop a new connected and explorable OnBoard feature?
Opportunity
Board recruitment can be optimized board by leveraging various features like candidate matching, interactive dashboards, and networking tools to expand outreach beyond existing networks. It enhances decision-making with real-time diversity tracking, collaborative selection features, and a more connected talent discovery experience.
Process
Research & Planning
Conducted research with board administrators to understand their recruitment challenges, focusing on diversity gaps and network limitations. Identified key pain points, such as reliance on existing circles, lack of visibility for diverse candidates, and inefficiencies in outreach.
Design & Prototyping
Developed wireframes and interactive prototypes that helped enhance candidate matching, interactive dashboards, and networking tools. Conducted usability testing with board members to refine features that enhanced discoverability, facilitate connections, and streamline decision-making.
Development & Implementation
Utilized agile methodologies to build the desktop app, prioritizing features like diversity tracking, collaborative selection tools, and an explorable talent network. Ensured integration with existing OnBoard tools for a seamless experience.
Testing & Optimization
Conducted user testing with board administrators and potential candidates. Gathered feedback through testing to optimize candidate discovery, engagement workflows, and usability. Refined the app further by presenting it to the project sponsor.
Understanding the Space
Board administrators struggle to diversify recruitment due to reliance on existing networks and limited access to broader talent pools. Traditional methods, like personal referrals, lack efficiency and inclusivity. Existing solutions focus on static directories rather than interactive, data-driven matching.
This presents an opportunity for a integrated section on the current OnBoard interface that leverages candidate matching, real-time diversity tracking, and networking tools to connect organizations with diverse, qualified board candidates, streamlining and enhancing the recruitment process.
Understanding the User
Board administrators are a group of individuals either appointed or elected to provide organizational leadership and oversight for the rest of the board. Generally, boards may have a role they are looking to fill in. Board administrators aim to look for potential candidates who:
Understand the company’s needs
What is expected from them
Are able to commit their time
Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis was conducted to research other board-matching software services that shared the same goals, objectives, and customer base for this OnBoard marketplace and found ways to make it stand out.
Takeaways:
Analyzed what competitive services are doing that works in their favor and what doesn’t
A lot of services aim to emphasize on creating diversity, but also fail to do it effectively
Data visualization is an important aspect to display information efficiently without making it too overwhelming
Filtering tools are really helpful, especially for board administrators to narrow down their hunt for new board members by specifying the skills, experience, qualification and other aspects they are looking for.
Understanding the User
Board administrators are a group of individuals either appointed or elected to provide organizational leadership and oversight for the rest of the board. Generally, boards may have a role they are looking to fill in. Board administrators aim to look for potential candidates who:
Understand the company’s needs
What is expected from them
Are able to commit their time
INTERVIEWS
Asking the User
We interviewed current board admins of OnBoard and various other companies to learn about their recruiting process. We conducted these interviews with the following goals in mind:
Identify pain points in the current process of selecting member candidates
Learn what makes one candidate stand out over another
Learn how a Board Administrator evaluates how well-rounded their board is
“The CEO of the nonprofit is really, really focused on trying to diversify the board … But the problem is like the people that are on the board now, all of our networks are pretty much the same people.”
“You're looking for some evidence and what they've done before. Board ready is not just someone who wants to be on a board, it's going to be sort of demonstrated they can operate at that level.”
“I think the complaint has been it's been often too much ‘the Friends of CEO’s’.You really need to actually get people that you don't know, people that don't live in things to make a better board.”
IDEATING
Journey Map
We took what we learned from our research and competitive analysis to create a tentative journey map to get a better understanding of board administrators and their goals throughout the process of recruiting new board members.
PROTOTYPING
Sketching Out
We designed the low-fidelity version of our app on Whimsical with an emphasis on simplicity and the overall functionality of the app. The goal in creating the lo-fis was to identify and test what features, placements, and interfaces we wanted for our platform before moving on to designing the hi-fis.
testing
Scenario Testing
We reached out to 5 OnBoard employees to conduct virtual user testing with the Figma mock-ups.
System Usability Scale (SUS): Providing a “quick and dirty”, reliable tool for measuring usability.
Scenario testing: It is based on testing our newly designed features with users and getting feedback to help provide direction for the next design improvements.
Task 1: Create and set up a new recruiting project
Task 2: Search through the candidate list and pick someone to set up an interview with.
Task 3: Add your notes about Drew Tag to the project
Observation + Interview + Survey
Through the data of SUS scale, we drew the conclusion that:
The experience of our new features isn't very complicated for 80% of respondents, only about 20% of them say it's a little complicated, 20% of those say it's not complicated overall, and some of the sub-features are a little complicated, like the workflow is a little clunky, and it's a little bad for new non-Onboard users, But for the most part, the experience is user-friendly and intuitive.
