E3S Military Page
UX DESIGN
SUMMARY
Project Background
E3Sentinel (E3S) is a management consulting firm that provides mission-focused services and solutions to federal agencies. E3S is currently in the process of redesigning their corporate website to promote the company image and recruitment of new talent. A Military/Veterans page on the corporate website will be dedicated to communicating the company’s commitment to its Veterans. This project is currently ongoing but I’ve been able to provide the company with the proper UX research to design an effective web page for users.
ROLE: UX/UI Designer TOOLS: Adobe XD
PROJECT LENGTH: Ongoing DATE: August 2020
DISCOVERY
Business Goals & Objectives
To fully understand the business goals and needs, I met with company leadership to talk about the scope of the project. With E3 Sentinel’s new website redesign they are looking to build out and polish every part of their site. The company would like to focus on attracting and retaining talent within the military community, as well as the following:
Increase company’s Veteran demographic
Communicate and detail military support
Provide a military space to grow and mature
Wants to show organization affiliations
Provide transparency and information for reference
Offer veteran specific jobs to talent
DISCOVERY
Competitor Research
I performed competitor research and learned how other companies are attracting military/veteran candidates to their enterprise. An analysis of leading competitors revealed their strengths, weaknesses, similarities, and differences. My findings were as follows:
Painless Navigation: Incorporating the Veterans page into the secondary navigation bar helps users get to their information faster. This avoids laborious clicking and frustration in scrolling through pages.
Jobs Link: The more successful companies provided a button or link to their job postings on the Veteran page. This avoids having the user click back and forth to find the job postings if they become interested in the company while on the Veteran’s page.
Employee Spotlights: Majority of the competitors provide a highlighted section that shares stories from employee Veteran or military personal. This gives the site more credibility and can feel relatable to users.
DISCOVERY
User Research
I developed a user survey using Microsoft Forms to gage Veteran employee needs and analyzed the data into an affinity diagram. Twenty-two (22) employees participated, which helped me to discover trends and expectations of potential users. A total of 10 questions were asked to each participant. The questions focused on job hunting experience as a military veteran (advantages and pitfalls), company website expectations, and usability (the how, when, why, and where).
The purpose of these surveys was to gather insights into how military personnel use civilian company websites and what convinces them to join. The results gathered from the survey allowed for the examination of how users feel about current website and where they feel the company is lacking.
The findings from these user survey results exposed that participants want transparency upfront. The participants expanded on their job hunting experiences in the civilian world and admitted that they will not apply to companies that do not communicate veteran friendliness.
When asked the questions, “What matters to you most as a Veteran employee?” participants expressed:
A demonstrated appreciation of the value veterans bring to the organization
Military experience in leadership
Joining a company that places emphasis on values and backs it by action
A strong veteran's community
Evidence that companies recognize, value and hire veterans
DISCOVERY
Persona
The primary persona of E3S’ Military/Veteran’s page is Charlotte Wilson. Charlotte is a 42-year-old Subject Matter Expert and an Army Veteran. The persona of Charlotte was created based on the survey results and critical insights from my research.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we increase the company’s Military/Veteran community by creating a dedicated military/veteran corporate page that conveys company transparency.
IDEATION/DESIGN
Brainstorming
Using the lean prioritization method in prioritizes the needs of the users with the goals of the business for features and functionality; I chose the top four (4) features that would best resolve user frustrations. Each followed a similar theme of creating a way to connect the company with the users and facilitate employment.
Allows users to seamlessly view company’s military commitment, support, benefits, and values
Provide stories from current Veteran employees so users can see themselves at the company
Show military/veteran demographics for transparency
Make sure the page is readily accessible
IDEATION/DESIGN
Information Architecture
To ensure new features are placed in an order that is intuitive, I developed a sitemap and user journey. The user journey is based on the scenario of a new user coming to the E3S website wanting to learn more about they company’s Military/Veteran commitment and apply for jobs.
IDEATION/DESIGN
Wireframes
After sketching out ideas, I produced a first round of low fidelity wireframes based on the current company’s branding. The low-fi wireframes will provide a best plan of action in most important content and web page organization for users. Please see the full low-fi wireframe for the Military/Veterans page below.
IDEATION/DESIGN
Prototypes & Usability Testing
The team’s next steps is to build out a prototype and perform usability tests. Update coming soon….
REFLECTION
What I Learned
Producing the Military/Veterans page for the E3S’ corporate website has been a great experience. I’ve already learned so much about merging business goals with user needs to produce optimal functionality. The company is going through a secure rebrand so to mitigate subject-to-change situations, I have created sketches and wireframes through flexible design.