Overview
An internal hiring platform for managers at Eli Lilly to efficiently find suitable experts for projects.
Summary
2-semester course project sponsored by Eli Lilly and Company.
Team
3 UX/UI Designers
4 developers
2 supervisors from Eli Lilly
My Role
UX Research
UX Design
Client
Eli Lilly and Company
Background
A multifaceted organization struggling with technical resource allocation for projects.
Eli Lilly & Company's IDS organization is made up of various elements, such as research, medicine development, manufacturing, digital health, global services, and more. This means that there are many knowledgeable and technical resources within the organization. The challenge is that people often have difficulty finding the resources they need for technical components of their projects.
Lilly's team came to us and hope us to provide a solution for their managers/directors to find suitable experts within the company for their projects.
Initial Prompt from Lilly
What tools can we use to find an “expert” within Lilly?
Dig into the problem
Primary Research
Understand user needs
We started the research by sending out surveys to the directors and managers currently working at Lilly to understand the problem in a quantitative manner. Then we conducted an in-depth interview with James Meltzer, the associate UX director at Lilly to understand the current process and pain points within context.
Synthesis
Map out the journey
After organizing the data, we synthesized data by creating a journey map to highlight the problems or difficulties that users were experiencing, and to identify potential solutions to address those issues. The journey map allowed us to see the full picture of the user experience and identify opportunities for improvement.
Key insights
Based on all the information we gathered, we identified 3 main pain points that currently existing:
Refined Problem Statement
HMW
increase the credibility and efficiency for Lilly's project managers to find suitable experts?
Design the journey
Ideation
Concept Brainstorming
Then we started the brainstorming session by creating a clear user story with a set of user goals. By evaluating the concepts based on how well they address the user's needs in the user story, we identified the most relevant and promising ideas while ensuring they are aligning with the strategies.
User Flow
Align pages and features with user flow
With the desired user flow mapped out, we started to figure out the pages and features that will align with the user's needs and goals. We considered to ensure each page and feature is designed to guide the user towards the next step in the user flow, leading them towards their ultimate goal.
Define goals
What to follow and align
Before directly jumping into design, we first defined 3 strategies that can help address the problem and guide our design solutions in the following stages. In this way, we assured a seamless transition from research to design phase.
Style Guide
Derived from Lilly’s design system
With provide of the current design system from Lilly’s side, we determined the style guide for this project.
Final Design
Key features that aligned with strategies
Final Design Walkthrough
Iterations
To turn a blurry design iteration into a precise page, I took lead on design progress reports and feedback collections in weekly product meetings with stakeholders, which allowing our design to better align with the business need. Through this continuous design presentations and feedback, we identified areas for change and iterated multiple times based on requirements.
Matching Score Panel
Apply Job Templates
View Endorsement
Test and evaluations
At final stage, we assessed the design through a remote, unmoderated usability study involving 12 participants of different levels of seniority: senior employees, junior employees, and managers.
The process included:
1. Introducing the design to users.
2. Having them complete tasks.
3. Soliciting feedback on what went well and what did not.
4. Analyzing the data from the testing
5. Making design improvements based on the insights gained.
Future Steps
Since this project is only two semesters long, we cannot continue to complete the entire project afterwards. We have now worked with the student developer team to implement the entire project, which will be further developed in the following semesters as a continuous project. We have also discussed with stakeholders how this project will benefit Eli Lilly from more perspectives in the future.
Reflections
Articulate design rationale through a good story.
Throughout the design process, I understand that it is important to articulate design rationale from beginning to end. When trying to explain my designs to these team members, I noticed a pattern — I was more successful in explaining the design when I walked them through my thought process by placing it in a story. In this way I could help my team members think from the user’s perspective and empathize with them(developers, supervisors and stakeholders). By clearly explaining how each design decision is aligned with user goals and defined strategies, I ensured that everyone understands the reasoning behind and foster agreement.