Rezot

Discovery

Our discovery phase began with market research to understand the industry's recruitment landscape, followed by a thorough UX audit. We also conducted user interviews and usability tests with job seekers and hiring managers, which gave us valuable insights into their specific pain points. By combining these approaches, we were able to identify key challenges in the user journey, laying the groundwork for targeted recommendations.

Industry research insights

1. Non-viable recruitment methods: In the hospitality sector, employers often rely on informal recruitment channels such as word-of-mouth or hiring friends and family. While these methods can be fast, they often result in unqualified hires and high turnover.
2. High seasonal demand: The hospitality industry experiences significant spikes in recruitment needs during high seasons. Employers need to fill positions quickly, which puts pressure on the recruitment process to be efficient.
3. Turnover and its costs: The hospitality sector faces a high employee turnover rate, reaching up to 44%. This leads to significant costs associated with recruitment and training. These market insights underscored the need of efficient staffing solutions for business continuity. Rezot should offer a streamlined recruitment process that could help both employers and job seekers in this fast-paced environment.

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These market insights underscored the need of efficient staffing solutions for business continuity. Rezot should offer a streamlined recruitment process that could help both employers and job seekers in this fast-paced environment.

Key audit findings

Following the market audit, we conducted a comprehensive UX audit of the Rezot app. The audit was structured around Bastien and Scapin’s usability criteria, focusing on interface issues that were contributing to the app's low sign-up and retention rates.

The audit covered two primary user journeys:

• Job seeker journey: From signing up to finding and applying for a job.
• Hiring manager journey: From signing up to posting a job offer.

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The audit revealed several critical issues, including:

1. Complex onboarding process: The onboarding process required users to fill out a lengthy form with excessive details, which overwhelmed job seekers and hiring managers alike. This issue violated the minimal actions of workload  principle and can contribute to the high drop-off rates.
2. Cumbersome job posting process: The process of posting jobs has no explicit indication for creating a job offer. The absence of clear labeling violates the principles of immediate feedback under the user guidance criterion, significance of codes, affordance, and also accessibility. This issue may lead to retention problems.
3. Inefficient job application workflow: The job application process is hindered by an excessive number of filters, which increase cognitive load and complicate tasks, violating the principles of minimal action and flexibility. Additionally, the contact button is not intuitively visible, reflecting inadequate consideration for user experience and making critical actions less accessible. Lastly, inconsistent button colors between CTAs and non-clickable elements disrupt the interface's consistency, making it harder for users to identify actionable components.
4. Lack of feedback: After performing actions such as applying for jobs or posting listings, users received minimal or no feedback. This could lead to confusion, as users might be unsure whether their actions were successful. This violated the immediate feedback principle under the user guidance criterion.

User interviews & usability tests

To complement our market research and audit, we conducted in-depth user interviews to gather qualitative insights from real users. Each session lasted 40 minutes, conducted both remotely and in-person over two days. The participants were recruited using proto-personas based on key user demographics.

We recruited:

• 5 participants who were small or medium-sized business owners.
• 4 participants with prior experience in the restaurant industry, including students.

The tests were based on two realistic user journeys, reflecting key usage scenarios: the job seeker journey and the hiring manager journey.

The test format included:

• 5 minutes: setup and introduction.
• 5 minutes: profile verification and initial questions to deepen our understanding of participant habits and validate proto-personas.
• 25 minutes: app interaction, where users completed key tasks aligned with the above user journeys. Likert scale questions were used during tasks to capture real-time user sentiment.
• 5 minutes: debriefing and final questionnaire to gather overall impressions, suggestions for improvement, and responses to the UMUX questionnaire.

Key interview findings

1. Onboarding process: Users found the onboarding process to be too time-consuming, leading to frustration.
2. Job posting process: Posting a job offer was found to be "too reliant on user inference", with navigation issues and missing elements in the form.
3. Communication issues: Users struggled to find an easy way to contact potential employers.
4. Business owners' feedback: While the app was seen as suitable for urgent recruitment needs, it was perceived as inadequate for strategic hiring.

This research highlighted critical pain points that informed our design recommendations for improving the overall user experience.

Conclusion

The findings from user research highlighted several critical pain points that impacted the usability and engagement of the Rezot app. The audit revealed violations of key usability principles, such as minimal action, adaptability, and consistency. Notable issues included excessive form requirements during onboarding, unclear navigation for job posting, and inconsistent interface design.

Complementing this, user interviews confirmed frustrations with the lengthy onboarding process, lack of feedback after completing actions, and difficulties in contacting potential employers. Business owners also emphasized that while the app met urgent recruitment needs, it failed to support strategic hiring.

These insights collectively emphasize the need for targeted improvements to streamline workflows and better align the platform with user expectations.

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Solution

Based on our research and findings, we proposed the following recommendations to improve the Rezot platform:

• Enhance communication with establishments: Introduce a "contact" button alongside the "apply" button, allowing job seekers to send direct messages. This feature reduces user hesitancy by simplifying communication and improving engagement between job seekers and establishments.
• Enable flexible profile completion: Allow users to complete their profile later, ensuring a quicker registration process and increasing sign-ups by providing users more time to add important details.
• Improve visibility of job posting options: Revise the placement and design of the "post job offer" button to make it more accessible and noticeable. While this button already exists, its current implementation is inefficient and needs clearer positioning and labeling to guide hiring managers effectively.
• Clarify the job posting form: Rework the job posting form fields and placeholders to include all necessary details and provide clearer instructions. This will ensure that hiring managers understand the expected inputs, reducing confusion and improving the accuracy of submitted job offers.
• Add a feature to save search filters: Introduce a "save filters" button to allow users to store their search preferences for future use, enhancing the search experience for job seekers.

Our main recommandations focus on reducing friction during onboarding, improving communication flows, and simplifying interactions for both job seekers and hiring managers. By implementing these improvements, Rezot can foster smoother sign-up processes, better engagement, and increased retention rates.

What I've learned

This project was an incredible opportunity to sharpen my UX skills under tight deadlines. With only four days to complete the project, we had to do concessions. That’s why we prioritized UX workshops over mockups to deliver actionable recommendations. However, if we had more time, I would have approached certain aspects differently to enhance the process and outcomes.

For example, I realized the value of preparing a database of potential interviewees ahead of time. Conducting street interviews consumed a significant amount of time as it was challenging to find the right participants willing to engage. A pre-established contact list would have allowed me to allocate more time to analyzing insights and refining recommendations.

I would also have incorporated additional workshops, such as co-creation sessions with stakeholders, to explore innovative solutions collaboratively. Additionally, I would have created low-fidelity prototypes earlier in the process to test initial design concepts and gather quick feedback for iteration.

The Rezot case study demonstrates the importance of a user-centric approach in solving critical usability challenges that hindered the app's ability to convert downloads into active engagement.  I am eager to apply these learnings to future projects.