🔎 Improved search experience
Project: 🔎 Position Discovery Type: 🚀 Feature User: 💁🏻♀️ People
Key changes
- New search bar which can be accessed from every page on cord.
- Once expanded, user is guided to search by different options.
- Improved usability when creating a saved search and setting notifications.
Why?
We run a product market fit survey where users can share how they think cord could be improved. In Q1 this year, 25% of respondents said they wanted to see more positions on cord, and 10% said that search could be improved.
This is a high volume of users who are either frustrated by the low volume of available positions or the inefficiency of the current search and filter system. Some users struggled with the lack of specific filters, such as searching by remote location, while others found the search function to be inaccurate, often showing irrelevant job positions. Additionally, there were instances where users were unaware of existing filters or the search functionality altogether.
Given that the number of positions won't change overnight, we focused on improving the search experience so that it is simple for users to find all the positions that might be relevant for them in one place. By enhancing the search functionality, we aim to provide direct access to all relevant positions with less friction, ensuring users can find any positions that might be right for them efficiently.
What?
The top navigation has been redesigned to make space for a more prominent search bar. Clicking on the search bar autofocuses and expands it, allowing users to type and see categories they can search by, saved searches, and matching results.
Users can save their searches with a custom name and notification preferences, which can be managed through a new popup. The saved searches can be easily accessed and managed directly from the search bar or the search page, with the option to delete saved searches.
On mobile devices, the expanded search bar adapts to show only the most relevant options, ensuring a smooth user experience.
On the back end we have also made improvements to help people see more positions:
- For non-tech users (who typically see fewer positions on Discover than tech users), we have broadened the criteria for the base data set which determines the position that appear:
- We have removed the filter for job titles and replaced it with job category
- We now consider skill preferences, and if none are specified, we use core skills
- 33% of direct positions don’t disclose salary, so we have removed “Exclude positions without salary filter” from default searches so that users see more positions in their saved searches.
- Solved issue where users were not able to message about a position because they are on public search. We now redirect them to logged in search so messaging is as frictionless as possible.
How?
At the start of the project we ran a brainstorming session using the Six Thinking Hats method which helped us generate ideas together and take them through a process that analyses and develops them further with the objective to increase value and address any potential risks. People from teams across cord were involved in this session to ensure we were considering the ideas from different perspectives. From this, we were able to identify the winning ideas, big and small, and no brainers.
Katerina then went away and started creating prototypes, which we shared with users to get feedback. Once the designs were confirmed, Jiyeon started work on building the front end. Meanwhile, Asta worked on improvements on the back end to help people see more positions in their searches.
Thank you to Jiyeon and Asta for your meticulous implementation, bringing the designs to life ✨
What’s next?
We’ll be speaking to users to understand how they’re finding the new search bar. We’ll also be adding result counts on the search bar so users can quickly see how many results they should expect when searching by a particular job title, skill or industry.
After this, we’ll implement any improvements users have suggested, and work on improving the usability and accessibility of the filters once a user has triggered a search.