HerKey
overview
HerKey (formerly known as JobsForHer) began a redesign of its entire application with the vision of becoming the biggest community platform for women in India.
The goal of this particular project was to identify any usability issues with HerKey's old platform and determine the critical features to prioritize for the next iteration of the product.
background
HerKey is a Bangalore-based career platform with the focus of empowering women. Learn more what HerKey does.
I collaborated with HerKey alongside my team at Flooid to redesign their platform, taking the lead on UX and UI for several core areas of the application.
I've experienced significant growth during my time at Flooid, particularly through my work on the HerKey redesign. Below are some of the key achievements from this project:
Successfully led a design project. In my first experience leading a design team, I effectively managed stakeholder expectations of HerKey. I also developed project timelines and contributed to feature planning for the platform.
Improved usability across the platform. No usability tests were conducted by HerKey for the old platform- JobsForHer(JFH). We investigated the usability issues by evaluating heuristic principles for the old platform and refined the usability.
Developed an engagement funnel strategy. Beyond addressing experience issues, one of my main objectives was to boost engagement with newly launched features. Both 'Feed' and 'Sessions' saw a significant surge in user interaction.
Establishing a design system. This has helped to maintain consistency in the look and feel across different parts of the platform. This has helped the Engineering and Product teams to understand how and why we choose to implement certain components over others.
the process
Our process at Flooid was based on the Double Diamond Theory. We aimed to incorporate the key phases of Discovery, Definition, Ideation and Implementation for HerKey.
the problem
Before I was onboarded to this project, Flooid had conducted 20+ primary user interviews about JFH and took notes. The interviews questions varied from personal, pain points, awareness, aspirations and goals.
My research encompassed:
Understanding the user goals and needs
Uncovering pain points with the existing user journey
Determining the success of the tasks measured
Competitor benchmarking
Understanding business goals and needs
gathering insights
After reviewing all the research, my team and I conducted an initial affinity mapping exercise to synthesize the key pain points. We then grouped these insights into recurring themes and aligned them with relevant platform features.
We facilitated a workshop with the HerKey team to prioritize key features. Using a data-driven approach, we ranked the features based on their correlation with both user impact and business objectives. I created a project timeline for the design team that effectively prioritized usability issues based on urgency, while also providing valuable input to guide the product roadmap for the upcoming quarter.
With over 90% of JFH users on mobile, a mobile-first approach was the clear design priority.
scoping down the work
Based on the user interviews conducted with 20 users on JobsForHer, we found the following key issues:
95% of users perceived JFH as a career platform for women, despite its broader range of features like company listings, events and learning.
56% of users were unable to build professional connections on the platform, highlighting a lack of effective networking tools.
40% of women using the platform were actively seeking learning opportunities and mentorship—needs that were not fully addressed by the existing features.
16% of users reported issues related to visual clarity and other accessibility concerns during their interaction with the platform.
Among other issues we also identified that users would like to create and share content regarding their experiences, learnings and achievements.
wireframing the solution
Based on the above problems identified, I worked towards addressing these pains by coming up with potential solutions:
Shift primary focus from job search to other features
Promote learning and networking through drop-in audio rooms called "Sessions"
Improve onboarding for better personalized platform experience
Establishing clearer visual hierarchy and clarity throughout the platform
Fix interaction issues
Optimize content creation with quick start templates
We hosted several workshops focused on refining the content flow of the feed page, with the goal of enhancing the overall content creation process.
I mocked up some wireframes* to gather feedback from Product, Engineering, and a few internal users on a happy-path for each feature. This included establishing a standardized visual hierarchy and layout for the entire platform.
*Starting with medium-fidelity wireframes was common practice at Flooid—it helped keep the designers creatively sharp and engaged early on.
developing the designs
Timeline changes forced the project to go live before it could be validated by actual users.
We created high fidelity mockups in Figma and then handed over the dev file to allow the engineers to inspect the file and export the HTML and CSS code.
I worked very closely with the Front End team to spec out any missing interactions that were not covered in the high fidelity mockups. I conducted a UX review of each front-end ticket that was implemented to ensure it was aligned with the designs before it went live.
validating the designs
I conducted usability testing sessions once the website went live with HerKey's primary users to validate whether the new designs would solve their problems. I wrote a script including a few scenarios asking the user to create a new Session and share some content.
During the session, I observed how they interacted with the website and set up a Session. The usability session revealed that it was easy to set up a new Session. The clarity of the visuals was positively acknowledged by users. But there were still a few issues with sharing content to the feed. One of them being "Get Started" templates didn't help the users. They preferred writing their own content.
results & takeaways
Since the implementation of the new rebuild of the JobsForHer, the platform saw 40% increase in platform engagement (mainly Sessions) and 8% increase in user adoption. The platform’s seamless navigation and clear visual flow have drawn positive reactions from users. The platform's focus now has moved away from a career platform to a community based platform for women.
Some key takeaways from this project are:
Create a strategic plan to launch an MVP. This helps deal with out-of-scope requests that could potentially derail the project and helps deliver a quality product in time.
User testing doesn't end after development. Design is a constant iteration of improving the experience for the end user. Always find ways to collect and listen to your user's feedback.
Involve engineering upfront. This helps to reduce any rework later on as an understanding of the technical limitations upfront will help to inform your design strategy.
