Wyzant: Tutor Jobs Redesign
In 2020, we devoted engineering and design resources towards the tutor-side of the marketplace to support our growth strategy. One such project was a redesign of the Tutoring Jobs feature, a jobs board used by tutors to win new business by applying to open student requests. This feature is a major business opportunity for tutors and it also accounts for close to 25% of our student lead-to-lesson core metric. Improvements here would help with student conversion as well as tutor retention.
Roles & Responsibilities
I recruited and facilitated user research interviews with sixteen different tutors to identify how they apply for jobs and assess student needs
Once research was complete, I led a cross-team synthesis with interview attendees to identify themes
Utilizing an updated component library, I redesigned the Jobs experience and conducted usability testing
Provided engineering design documentation and QA support for development
Project Scope & Constraints
Our project required engineering spikes which gave us a timeline to conduct appropriate user research
Understanding user needs across audiences would be critical as power-tutors, low-volume tutors, and brand new tutors all apply for tutoring jobs
We’d be building the end product in a new Ruby on Rails framework, allowing us to move quickly on engineering effort
Conducting User Interviews
As a product design team, we had spent the last year and a half focused on the student experience. We needed to re-familiarize ourselves with the tutor UX. Thankfully our engineering squad needed time to spike into development questions, which gave us ample time to conduct user interviews.
Recruiting Tutors
I partnered with the data and customer support teams to identify research participants based on their utilization of the Tutoring Jobs feature. These included tutors who logged support tickets linked to jobs feedback, high-volume jobs users, low-volume jobs users, and new tutors mostly unfamiliar with the feature.
Low-Volume Tutors
High-Volume Tutors
CS Feedback Tutors
New Tutors to Wyzant
Leading User Interviews
I invited members of our marketing, engineering, customer support, and product teams to take notes during our half-hour tutor interviews. I am a champion for user research and design practices and enjoy exposing them to colleagues. I have found it builds buy-in on projects and more deeply roots design into the culture of an organization.
Example of our research script
Research Synthesis
Some of our synthesis was done in-person but in the middle of our project, the pandemic hit, forcing us to complete our exercise remotely. Luckily we had just begun using Miro which allowed us to complete our post-up activity as a team.
Post-up exercise
Completed exercise using Miro
Give Tutors More Control
Once we had our synthesis I partnered with the Senior Product Manager on the project to identify areas of improvement that would benefit both tutors and Wyzant. We wanted tutors to have more control, and that meant exposing new data to them, like recommended student rates. With a recommended rate, tutors could more competitively price themselves to earn student’s business by applying for the job closer to what the student is expecting to pay.
Using Our New Design System
During this project, I was also managing updates to our design system, which included preparing for a transition to Figma. While cataloging our styles I began making notes for potential improvements and new components. One such component was a new card style that allowed for an accessible entry point to complex content. I incorporated this into our Job prototypes.
Screenshot of our eventual Figma Design System
Initial Mobile Card Iterations
Initial Desktop Card Iterations
Final Mobile Web Card Designs
Final Desktop Card Prototype
Card component used for a Job listing
List View: Before and After
Previous design - List of available tutoring jobs
After implementing card styles and improving UI
Job Application Design: Before and After
Previous design
After implementing the new design and recommended rate feature
Designs on Mobile Web
List of tutoring jobs
Application screen
Prototyping and Testing
I built out a clickable prototype that closely mimicked the real Jobs functionality. This was an important asset for engineering, but it would also allow us to run usability tests.
Prototype screens and functionality
Usability testing our designs.
Utilizing Usertesting.com, I conducted unmoderated tests with tutors from our initial research pool. I was then able to review asynchronous feedback for further refinement in our designs before dev handoff.
Outcomes and Lessons Learned
After launching, we monitored the usage of the new Jobs board and saw a total re-calibration of job applications utilizing the recommended rate.
60% of Job Applications were within $10 of the student’s recommended rate.
Student’s converting with a tutor who submitted a job application went up 2.8%
Tutors from all of our cases valued this feature and used it to secure business and make more money.
Additionally, in allowing organizational participation in the research at the start, we were able to build buy-in and interest from our engineering team that made development and QA more collaborative.
