User Research / Website Redesign
Student Price Card | Fall 2023
SPC is a student loyalty discount program in Canada that offers discounts and deals on items such as fashion, food, shoes, travel, and more.
During my time there as a design intern, I owned the revamp of the company careers page.
Timeline
April - September 2023
(16 weeks)
Team
1 Product Designer (Me)
2 UX Researchers
1 Developer
Constraint
Limited development resources
What's the Problem?
SPC’s Careers page is outdated — falling behind newer, user-driven competitors like Student Beans and UniDays. SPC struggles with recruiting high-quality job candidates due to the confusing and poor UI, leading to low talent attraction and financial losses.
Goal:
Revamp the Careers page to streamline talent hiring process, and showcase SPC’s fun work culture.
Key User Action:
Apply to Job openings
How might we…
Redesign a compelling, user-centred Careers page to attracts top talent?
I wanted to understand what SPC is lacking and what other companies in the industry are doing right. So I started off by doing a ux audit.
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Competitor’s Analysis
I expanded my research beyond direct competitor sites to gain a broader perspective on industry best practices and to benchmark against leading talent attractors.
Takeaways
Colourful, 3D elements attracting attention
High usage of people imagery
First-person, relatable tone of voice
Takeaways
Quick links are accessible on hero section
A quick overview of all the company benefits and perks
Highlight industry-specific successes & testimonials
Deliver valuable insights on their industry to build trust
Primary Reserach
A survey to 20 current job seekers told me their current frustrations and what they value:
A narrative structure is integral to telling a good brand story. The product owner provided a very specific narrative structure for the new webpage, but based on my research and UX best practices, I thought some adjustments could be made.
Narrative Structure Provided by Product Owner
I stuck to the conventions apparent on most careers pages. With students in mind though, I saw two main approaches for presenting our brand story and careers information.
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Splitting information into 2 pages brings familiarity
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Quicker access to job-related information
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Removing nesting categories to reduce cognitive load
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Long page scroll reduces scannability
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One-stop shop of all company and job information
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Optimized for info priority (based on survey)
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'About Us' button not effectively used
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Long page scroll reduces scannability
We decided on the Content Split approach because it maximizes the value of a careers page: a goal-driven approach to presenting information on a page that is digestible for the applicants.
flat colours
Sharp, clean lines and shapes
Professioal tone of voice
Colourful
Youthful and fun text and image treatments
Relatable tone of voice
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Brand - Portrait imagery leans into being people-focused
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Simplicity - Photo grid is easy to implement and resize
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Brand - Missing the fun element of the brand
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Brand - Team imagery invokes friendliness and warmth
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Brand - Rounded button are approachable
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Brand - Parallelogram isn’t a part of the current brand
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Robustness - Decorative icon doesn’t reposition well for mobile
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Brand - Rounded button are approachable
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Brand - Lack of people imagery doesn’t create a sense of community
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Robustness - Decorative elements don’t reposition well for mobile
We decided to move forward with a “clean illustrative” approach — the best of both worlds.
Design Decision
Presentation of open positions
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Friendly, approachable imagery
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Not robust -- difficult to translate to mobile responsively requires significant effort for each item
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Easy to scale
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Easy to manage collection lists
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Ability to filter teams
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No spotlight of culture & community
Presentation of testimonials
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Expansive imagery is welcoming and authentic
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Visually intersting
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Images likely won't scale well without custom tweaking
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Recycles similar layout in 'Company Value' components
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Not scannable — difficult to digest all the text at one glance
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Missing the relatable, friendly look and feel of the brand
tone down on micro-animations
Keep breakpoint optimization in mind on design
Validate Top-Down Requests (if possible)
Even if you’re handed really specific instructions from the top, it’s worth taking a second to validate them. You might end up spotting some unexpected opportunities or ways to make things even better than planned.
Present Options Wisely
It’s great to give people a few options to choose from, but try not to overdo it. Too many choices can lead to decision fatigue and end up stretching the project timeline longer than needed.