BioPortal

BioPortal connects employers to Georgia Tech biology students seeking internships

Timeline:

30 Weeks
Fall 2018
Spring 2019

Role:

UX Engineer
UX Researcher
Ux Designer

Project overview

BioPortal is a web app that connects Georgia Tech biology students with verified employers, allowing employers to create job postings for students to apply with a simple resume upload.

Background

The instructor of a biology internship course facilitates the job application process by connecting employers and students via email, which is quite demanding.

Problem

How do you optimize the job application process without using email?

User Research

We interviewed our client to understand how she connected Students with Employers. Using this information, we developed a journey map:

We used this journey map to determine that BioPortal would eliminate steps 1 through 9, automating over half of the job application process and removing a significant burden to our client.

This journey map visualizes the job application process done solely through email, proving unnecessarily complicated with excessive steps that the administrator facilitates entirely.

Surveys

After outlining the steps in the job application process, we surveyed previous students and employers to evaluate the current process and to identify features to improve their experience.

We developed insights from both user types:

Students

  • The job application process is simple: students only email a resume and cover letter.

  • Students would like to receive feedback on their applications from employers to improve in the future.

  • Students want to know the job applicant pool size to understand their chances of getting hired.

Employers

  • The job application process is simple: they only need to email a job ad.

  • Employers are interested in an automatic sorting and filtering feature to help optimize finding candidates quickly.

  • Employers want the system to match candidates based on the skills to simplify the hiring process.

Evaluation

After conducting user research, we developed paper prototypes of our application for students and employers and conducted heuristic evaluations to improve our initial design.

Key findings

  • Ensure that each feature is accessible and visible to the user

  • Add an ‘Upload Resume’ button that is recognizable throughout the application

  • Add Help and FAQ documentation to help the user troubleshoot

UX Design

We used our findings from the heuristic evaluation to determine our final design.

UI DeSign

We developed the web application using React.js and Material UI for our final product.

Supplemental Materials

We presented BioPortal to stakeholders, and I designed supplemental materials for our presentation with an explanation of our application and contact information.