LINKEDIN CONTACT MANAGEMENT Proposed new features for the LinkedIn Mobile App by Linda Joy Javier Abanses Valentina Kogan Karl Scott

A project for UXDi Winter 2014 "at General Assembly, NYC

LinkedIn LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network, with 280 million users worldwide in 200 countries!

Their mission is to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful. !!

The Brief Mobile use is increasing, but LinkedIn wants to continue to push its growth. Specifically, they want to add contact management features to the app.

!Objectives !Help users determine:

• Who to contact

• When to contact them

• How effective their outreach is

• Create a minimum viable product to serve those needs

!

DISCOVERY Business Goals and User Research

Business Model •  Over half of LinkedIn’s revenue comes from

paid recruitment tools.

•  But most LinkedIn users aren’t actively job hunting

•  Most are “Explorers” or “Tiptoers”: Employed but open to good opportunities

Talent Solutions

Advertising

Paid Subscriptions

Business Goals Keep the talent pool engaged, to serve their recruiter clients Push mobile use

Brand Goals Top Professionals Vital Service Smart Helpful

Current Contact Management • New desktop features

• New “LinkedIn Contacts” app creates a “to do” for each connections job change, work anniversary, and birthday

• Reminders, Notes & Tags

They’re already offering a fair bit of contact management… So, how will we make it better?

User Research Method!We used Quantcast, SEC Filings and LinkedIn’s own blog to uncover as much as possible about LinkedIn users

Findings!• Demographics: affluent, 25-55, college graduates, and male

• They have a lot of contacts (over 50% have more than 300 contacts)

• About half spend 2+ hours a week on LinkedIn, the rest spend 0-2 hours

Source: SocialMediaToday.com

The Talent Pool

Source: LinkedIn Talent Blog

According to LinkedIn, 44% of working professionals are “Explorers” – not looking for a job but open to good opportunities

A further 15% are “Tiptoers” – considering a job change but only reaching out to close connections

Surveys & Interviews Method!We surveyed 40 users on their LinkedIn behaviors and professional goals, and interviewed 6 in-depth.

Findings!• Main grievance: too much going on! • But all find value in LinkedIn

• Don’t want to disconnect from annoying/irrelevant contacts.. “Just in case”

• Most don’t manage their contacts (at all) • Unaware new contact management features

Opportunities Identified!• Need to simplify things so that users can actually enjoy using an app that they value

Personas Method!We organized and re-organized the attitudes and behaviors we uncovered in our interviews into patterns

Findings!We uncovered 4 user personas to start, but soon realized we had two main user types to serve: proactive and passive explorers

Opportunities Identified!We can focus our efforts!

Dina

Attributes

I love my job, but I

want to be ready for my

next big thing.

29 year-old project manager at Red Shift a

digital post-production firm in Providence, RI

The Tiptoer

Goals–Stay open to job opportunities

–Build successful future

–Keep network healthy

–Make useful connections

Motivations–Financial success

–Professional Success

–Personal Satisfaction

Frustrations–There's a lot if noise in feed (but she skims and

finds what she needs)

–Hard to keep track of everyone

–Difficult to maintain relationships long-term

–Doesn’t find LinkedIn intuitive

Engagement & ActivitiesComputer: iMac. High use at work and home

Mobile: iPhone and iPad.

Fluent, but not a power user.

Tech savvy

Tries to stay organized, but very busy

Always on a look out for new

connections / opportunities

Already reaching out a bit to close contacts

about career opportunities

Checks in with LinkedIn regularly

Behavior–Adds new connections often

–Collects interesting people

–Tries to manage contacts, but can’t

keep up

–Likes, comments and messages

–Uses app to respond to invites,quickly

skims feed (occasionally).

–Researches companies

Nick

Attributes

Networking is necessary evil.Late 30s.

Back-end engineer at Unroll.me (email management startup), a small, 8-people company in New York City.

Passive Explorer

Goals–Get a good job that he likes–Stay connected to contacts–Stay open to opportunities

Motivations–Professional Respect–Personal Satisfaction

Frustrations–Refers to LinkedIn as “bad Facebook with ties”–Feed is useless.–A lot of things are either not meaningful or not intuitive.–Too many notifications.–Hard to trust (not enough transparency).

Doesn’t see himself as much of a people person. Sees himself as a good developer, and part of that is going to workshops on new software and technology. Also goes to a local tech meetup. It’s such a relaxed setting that talking to new people is easy, even for an introvert like him (free beer helps with that.)

Behavior–Mostly just responds to requests–Barely looks at the feed–Occasionally adds people he meets–Prefers Twitter for industry updates

Engagement & ActivitiesComputer: Macbook Pro Mobile: Android power user.

User Goals Dina “The Tiptoer”

•  Build successful career •  Ready for the next big thing,

already quietly reaching out to close connections

•  Stay connected to quality contacts

•  Stay in touch with past

•  Not actively looking, but wouldn’t mind a dream job finding him

•  Doesn’t want to waste time on “boring Facebook”

•  Uses LinkedIn because out of obligation

Dina

Attributes

I love my job, but I

want to be ready for my

next big thing.29 year-old project manager at Red Shift

Red shift is a video production studio doing digital post-production work

The studio has 32 employees, and is located in Providence, RI

Active Explorer

Goals–Stay open to job opportunities

–Build successful future

–Keep network healthy

–Make sure connections are useful

Motivations–Financial success

–Professional Success

–Personal Satisfaction

Frustrations–There's a lot if noise in feed (but she skims and finds what she needs)

–Hard to keep track of everyone

–Difficult to maintain relationship in long-term

–Doesn’t feel intuitive

Engagement & ActivitiesComputer: iMac. High use at work and home

Mobile: iPhone and iPad. Fluent, but not a power user.

Tech savvy

Very organized

Has a job

Always on a look out for new connections / opportunities

Checks in with LinkedIn regularly

Makes effort to stay in touch, maintains relationships

Behavior–Finds new connections

–Collects interesting people

–Manages and organizes contacts

–Interacts with contacts (occasional comments and messages)

–Uses app to respond to invites,quickly skims feed (occasionally).

–Research companies

Nick “The Explorer”

Nick

Attributes

Networking is necessary evil.Late 30s.

Back-end engineer at Unroll.me (email management startup)It’s a small, 8-people company in New York City.

Passive Explorer

Goals–Stay open to job opportunities–Stay connected to contacts

Motivations–Research companies for future job opportunities–Stay current with industry updates.

Frustrations–Looks like LinkedIn is trying to be Facebook, (and a poor version of that).–Feed is useless.–A lot of things are either not meaningful or not intuitive.–Too many notifications.–Hard to trust (not enough transparency).

Sees himself as a good developer, and part of that is going to workshops on new software and technology. Also goes to a local tech meetup. It’s such a relaxed setting that talking to new people is easy, even for an introvert like him (free beer helps with that.) Doesn’t see himself as much of a people person.

Behavior–Always responds to requests–Barely looks at the feed–Occasionally adds people he meets–Reads Twitter for industry updates–Occasionally tweets himself (mostly re-tweets)

Engagement & ActivitiesComputer: Macbook Pro, running Parellels for Windows at work. Carries it home after work.Mobile: Android power user.

Primary Solution: The Shortlist The Shortlist!• Your most important contacts – your best alliances and your inspirations, the people you hope will be good resources in the future

• Self-selected, but LinkedIn offers suggestions

Benefits!• Now Nick and Dina’s feeds are more manageable and they focus on who to contact, and when.

Secondary Solutions Filter Feed!• By post-type

• To see just the updates you’re interested in

Filter contacts !• By company, location, field

• For quickly finding who you’re looking for

Sort contacts!• Recently contacted and Recently Added

• Helps with the “When” to contact

!

Benefits!• By using the data LinkedIn already has about your connections, you can better filter them without having to keep updating things like tags and notes

Feature Benefits

Filter Feed By Post Type See just the types of updates you’re interested in – less noise

Filter Connections by field, company, and location

Find the specific contacts you’re looking for without having to rely on a user-generated tagging system.

Sort Connections by last contacted Helps Dina see who she hasn’t contacted in a while, so she can meet her goal of keeping her network active and healthy

DESIGN ITERATIONS

Sketches

• We created a “hotlist” feature – to target users’ best alliances and inspirations

• Added filtering to feed and contacts • Incorporated new desktop features (tagging, reminders, notes, how we met)

• Users like the hotlist idea – not the name • Inputting tags/notes/reminders is too much work for most. Will leverage know data instead (endorsements, main industry)

Digital Sketches

• Feed navigation is getting too busy, so we’ll remove “Top Stories” banner

• iOS 7 patterns aren’t so intuitive for users

• Need to make adding to hotlist as easy as possible

• Need a “hide” feature in addition to hotlist • Still need a better name than hotlist!

Axure Prototype

•  Replaced “Hotlist” with “Shortlist” •  Discovered UI inconsistencies •  Improved hierarchy issues in text

Link to Prototype

•  Shortlist feed vs Shortlist list confusion

•  Path to shortlist feed should be shorter

Summary We’ve helped users: •  Determine who to contact and when

to contact them by helping them to target and keep track of their best contacts.

•  Easily filter out noise from less important connections

•  Leverage known data to filter contacts, rather than generating their own

•  We haven’t found a way to give feedback on how effective their outreach is, but we believe they will feel their outreach is more effective

THANK YOU! Be sure to find us on LinkedIn and add us to your Shortlist!