The Favorite Healthcare Staffing app, called Mobilize, conveniently allows U.S healthcare professionals to view and book all our current job openings. Users can easily view any available per diem shifts (daily shift bookings),local contract jobs, travel assignments, and permanent hire jobs. Users can also filter job searches by employment type, class and area, specific facilities or facility type, location, schedules and more.
The challenge for users was, on a daily basis, candidates that applied to become a Favorite THP had to wait an inordinate amount of time between application submittal and working their first shift.
When new applicants are contacted, the recruiter spends at least an average of 30 minutes per interaction building a applicants Mobilize profile, without a guarantee that the applicant would be placed. This could be due to issues including loss of interest, the applicant not being qualified, or missing credentials.
Additionally, many active Favorite THPs aren’t even aware that they have a profile, even if using the app. The lack of self-service (shift preference management, account registration, opportunity search) presents a significant strain on recruiting operations, due to the bottleneck of requiring recruiter interaction to perform even simple mobile app tasks (such as account credential recovery). This results in a negative amount of resource time-spending, along with additional costs to the business.
I was brought in as an additional UX resource, when the project had already begun it’s design phase.
Initial work from the team
The UX team spent several weeks familiarizing themselves with the product and existing insights through various activities, including product demos, reviewing and critiquing UI and key user flows, creating a glossary of terms to align with the UK market, understanding the differences between the app and website, and reviewing recent market research conducted by an external agency called CIL. The design team also conducted a walkthrough of key user journeys in the app, including the onboarding flow and availability screens, and documented the flows.
It was raised by the team that availability was a high priority for the business, as this allowed them to fit workers into shifts more efficiently when they had the users availability information. Adding availability is the primary behaviour we drive users towards in the app (home screen). THPs are able to match shifts based on what they add.
Finding work is a key goal for users. Improving availability matching provides an opportunity to make the process quicker and easier for THPs, and frees up operational teams time. Operational teams also reported users are unclear about what ‘Best match’ means. When THPs face usability issues, they rely on operational teams for app support, reducing time spent actively placing THPs into work.
We worked closely with brand ambassadors to create digital assets and bring branding in line with accessibility standard to support design.
- Ensure adherence to US accessibility standards
- Create clear brand guidelines to be used for designs, as well as any future design work
- Ensure buy-in from the marketing team to prevent redesign work late
Two of the UX team members flew out to Kansas to meet the Favorite team. Whilst there, they worked closely with the team to create ‘Availability’ wireframe concepts. These ideas were played back and amended based on feedback, with a final concept created to move forward with.
A shift in priority
I was brought in when a shift in priority from stakeholders was announced. It was decided that there should be a higher focus on reskinning the whole product, rather than just a section.
With the shift in priority, we worked closely with product to reskin the rest of the app. This involved me looking back at all the research, alongside meetings with members of the team, to fully understand how the product worked and the issues faced.
Each page was built out in Figma, ensuring I kept to the brand guidelines and UX heuristics. Once a page was designed, I presented it to the Favorite team for feedback. I would also join weekly stand up calls to discuss any issues or blockers.
I also worked closely with the UX copywriter, who assisted with both feedback on the designs, alongside ensuring the copy both made sense and was grammatically correct.
Testing the designs
We tested the designs, using clickable prototypes to conduct remote user testing. Users were invited by email to complete a screener survey.
- There were only three sessions, which were 45 minute, 1-2-1 sessions.
- Users were given tasks to complete, walking us through what they were thinking.
- The sessions were analysed, to find usability issues that could be fed back before the final amends.
Using the findings from the feedback, I made small amends to the designs to improve any pain points.
Final amends and handover to dev
We presented final designs to the team and stakeholders. After this, we continued with activities including:
- Creation of user stories
- Story pointing
- Scope adjustment
- Sprint allocation
- Development and QA
The Mobilize app was developed and handed back to the UX team for review. We took screenshots of all the built in screens and put them on a Miro board. We then put post-it notes on areas where we could see issues or improvements needed. The team regularly caught up with developers to discuss what could be changed.
The app was released on the 12th August 2024.
Outcomes and results
Since the launch of the improved mobile app on August 12th 2024, we have already begun to see some key indicators of success.
- We saw a 15.2% increase in the number of THPs booking shifts in the app!
- Our number of THPs who successfully booked their shift in the app and remained scheduled jumped from 61.64% to 78%.
- External Mobile App webpage views on favoritestaffing.com, increased by 51.1% compared to the week before.
Lessons learnt
- Onboarding: Spend as much time as is needed to fully understand the product and the problems it’s facing.
- Be prepared for a shift in focus: What originally started off as a main focus on availability, quickly changed to a full app reskin. This meant pivoting designs and thinking.
- Terminology can be different: Throughout the reskin of the app, there were multiple times where the terminology we used did not make sense to American users. Building a glossary of terms and phrases helped us to identify and change potential copy issues.
Screenshots
