LinkedIn Redesign

Roles: UX Research, UX Design, UI Design

Project Type: Individual Project

Tools Used: LinkedIn, Figma, Google Forms

One day while casually scrolling through LinkedIn I came across a post that I resonated with so deeply that if I could display it on a billboard I would.

content cred: Mitch Jessop on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7003848086594740224/

I decided to take matters into my own hands and redesign the LinkedIn "My Item" feature.

As an avid LinkedIn user myself I frequently saw posts from frustrated users on the platform that were struggling to access their saved items. I too experienced frustration accessing my saved resources months into using the platform and decided to focus on learning more about the users' journey while using the current layout of the platform.

The hidden feature during mobile use

On the mobile application saved items are stored under the "Resources Tab" on the profile page. Not only does this process consist of 5 actions, but the placement of the feature is also concealed and hidden within a feature that has unfamiliar wording.

Lack of familiarity with feature placement & confusing wording

-Unfamiliar wording conceals the location of saved posts. Saved items are commonly labeled as "saved" not as "my".

-The items feature is currently located in an unfamiliar location. In comparison to most websites with similar features, this feature is usually located in the profile section and the hamburger menu on mobile applications. On both the web and mobile applications of LinkedIn this is not the case.

I conducted a screener survey to determine who would be best fit to participate in the initial study. I was looking to interview LinkedIn users that were more likely to regularly need access to the item feature.

-How often do you use LinkedIn?

-What is your main objective when using LinkedIn?

-On a scale of 1 to 10 how important is the save feature to your LinkedIn experience?

Guidelines for determining qualified users are listed as follows:

-The users use LinkedIn somewhat often, often, or very often

-The users main objective when using LinkedIn was to utilize the LinkedIn Learning platform, learn from LinkedIn creators, or find a job.

-The users rated the importance of the LinkedIn save feature to their LinkedIn experience between a 5 and 10.

I asked the users that were determined to be the best fit for the study to complete the task of accessing their saved posts, saved jobs, and LinkedIn Learning while I observed their behavior. I monitored task completion rate and took note of any comments made during the process by the user.

-How would you rate the task of revisiting your saved posts & jobs?

-How did you feel while navigating to your saved items?

40% of users interviewed declared that the save feature is extremely important to their LinkedIn experience, while another 40% rated the importance as a 7 or 8 out of 10. In total 80% of users interviewed find the save feature to be important to their LinkedIn experience.

60% of users interviewed rated their experience with revisiting their saved posts and jobs as being very difficult while the other 40% still reported difficulty relocating their saved posts and jobs.

Following the review of the results from my research and user feedback I began to brainstorm how I can address the needs of our users.

Considering the results from the research conducted and the needs that were established I chose 3 focus points for this redesign.

-Renaming the feature to "Saved Items" instead of "My Items" to enhance familiarity when users are locating the feature.

-Adding an additional pathway to the "Save Items" feature on the web application of LinkedIn by adding a "Saved Items" button within the profile dropdown that many of our users are familiar with on other websites.

-Shortening the pathway to the "Saved Items" feature on the mobile application of LinkedIn by beginning the pathway within the profile menu thus preventing the user from having to search for this feature.

A second survey was conducted to determine icons that would be used in the mockups of the redesign of this feature.

Users were asked to choose the icon that seemed the most aligned to the word or phrase provided in order to aid in determining the icons that would be the most recognizable for them.

The percentage of users that voted for the icon they felt best represented the word/phrase presented are listed below the icons photo.

For this redesign I decided not to utilize prototyping, however, if I were to conduct usability testing following prototyping and after launching this project these are a few KPI's I would use to determine the success of this redesign.

-Task Success Rate

-Time on Task

-Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)