Kenyan Job Portal | UI/UX Design

The Kenyan Government Jobs Portal, ensuring easy access to jobs for Kenyan youth as well as seamless Talent search & HR management for Employers and Agents.

The Kenyan National Employment Authority (NEA) required a modern look and feel for their Jobs Portal, in order to encourage Kenyan job seekers and employers to utilize the portal. The present system had extensive UI and UX issues, from jarring colors to an unpleasant interface, high cognitive load and confusing navigation. These contributed to a largely frustrating experience, leading to high user drop off rates overall.

As a result, Kenyan job seekers would use other platforms to seek out both local and foreign jobs, the latter leading to several youth falling prey to scams as unverified agencies promised greener pastures abroad.

The system redesign had to ensure the following key things:

• Clean and straightforward UI, with pleasing visuals and intuitive navigation.

• Seamless verification of agencies, to ensure users only interact with verified agents.

• Seamless talent matching between job seekers and employers.

To address these challenges, the product development team and I initiated comprehensive user research, conducting interviews with job seekers, employers, and recruitment agents. This phase was essential for uncovering the pain points across all three platforms—the job seeker portal, the agents platform, and the employers platform. We held multiple workshops with representatives from the National Employment Authority (NEA) to gather insights into their specific frustrations with the current system.

These discussions provided invaluable context and highlighted several key areas for improvement:

Simplified registration process

Intuitive navigation

Ability to build a CV on the platform and customize personal profiles

Easy job application and progress tracking

Access to career guidance counselors for support

Simple reporting mechanism for employees facing issues abroad

Streamlined purchasing and renewal process for NEA licenses

Efficient agency verification

Enhanced matching of candidates to job openings

Capability to file employee returns easily

Ability to post job advertisements on the portal

Access to job seeker profiles for candidate shortlisting

Tools to invite candidates for interviews and manage scheduling, including interview notes

Tracking capabilities for the hiring process, from shortlisting to final hires

Additionally, I conducted benchmarking against popular job seeker applications and platforms familiar to Kenyan users. This analysis helped identify best practices and design elements that resonate well with the target audience.

With a clear understanding of user needs across the three platforms, I moved into the ideation phase, brainstorming solutions that would address the identified issues. I prioritized creating clean, modern UIs for each platform, utilizing a calming yet engaging color palette to reduce cognitive load and enhance visual appeal. To facilitate stakeholder input, I developed low to mid-fidelity prototypes, which were shared during review meetings with key stakeholders. Their feedback was instrumental in refining designs before moving on to more detailed high-fidelity prototypes. This iterative process ensured that the designs aligned with user expectations and business goals.

After finalizing the mid-fidelity designs and incorporating feedback from stakeholders, we entered the high-fidelity prototyping phase. To kick off this stage, I created a comprehensive design system for the application, establishing consistent UI components and guidelines to ensure a cohesive look and feel across all platforms. I then focused on creating detailed, interactive prototypes that closely mirrored the final user interface. These prototypes included refined visuals, typography, and color schemes that adhered to the established design system.

I collaborated with the development team to ensure that the prototypes not only looked polished but also functioned smoothly, mimicking the desired user experience of the live platform.

Once the designs were finalized, I collaborated closely with developers to ensure successful implementation was met across all three platforms. Further workshops were held to present the implemented progress to stakeholders and receive input. User testing was performed iteratively, enabling the team to tackle issues in manageable phases.

Explore the prototype here: Open prototype