Aureo Website: Clarifying Expectations and Optimizing Flow for Freelancers
3 Week Timeline
Team Project: 3 members
My Role: Lead UX Researcher, Lead UX Designer, UI Design Support
Tools:
Aureo is an online platform that connects and matches brands to vetted freelancers based on skills, experience, and shared values. Juggling countless contracts, invoices, and scope changes, Aureo stretched themselves thin serving as messengers between clients and freelancers, while contemplating how to keep freelancers on their platform.
Redesign the current desktop website so freelancers can apply for and get updates on contract work quickly and easily.
See Final Prototype BreakdownWe met with 5 individuals and used my interview guide to learn how to find work and think like a freelancer, and about their experience on Aureo.
My data compilation and analysis suggested that freelancers:
Value the flexibility in deciding how and when they work
Want to show their personality in their proposals
Need to know what information to share and actions they must take when applying for work
However, freelancers had a difficult experience on Aureo’s platform that contradicted these values and needs:
Freelancers need a way to provide and receive job-relevant information quickly and in a personalized manner so they can present themselves to potential clients to the best of their abilities.
Provide a quick, easy way for freelancers to communicate with brands?
Allow freelancers to showcase their personalities and skills sets more in their proposals?
Present more project-specific details in an accessible manner?
Although we couldn't get many insights without making an account, we noticed other freelancer job platforms clearly communicated their business process and encouraged quick freelancer profile creation through:
Simple breakdown of the platform process
Limited number of steps (to complete a form)
Since freelancers dedicate lots of energy to find work and create proposals, I understood how precious time is for these individuals. Without a clear outline about how Aureo's proposal process, freelancers would be left in the dark and may feel their efforts go to waste.
With these thoughts and findings in mind, we visualized how we could provide crucial, project-relevant requirements and details to freelancers
and reimagined the freelancer proposal submission process with 3 mid-fidelity wireflows.
Using my test plan to analyze our data, I quickly realized that freelancers regularly access and depend on timely, detailed updates regarding their proposals.
Some freelancers couldn’t clearly differentiate between some project categories on our home page. In response, we changed the wording of “Open Projects” to “My Current Projects,” which only contains projects that the freelancer is contracted to work on.
One individual wanted more straightforward action words to guide them on advancing their proposal. Hence, we placed a CTA below the project request that would update to show the appropriate next step based on a freelancer’s current stage in the process.
Reading long paragraphs on web pages and dialog boxes can be messy and overwhelming, so we presented project requests and SOWs in a print preview format to provide uniformity and better readability.
After I analyzed the feedback on our new iteration, I discovered how important SOWs are for freelancers, so we improved upon:
Downloading before reading the SOW didn't make sense, so we placed the 'Download' button below the document to follow the natural order a freelancer would look at everything on this page.
Freelancers wanted to quickly message brands without having to communicate with Aureo, so we designed a simple, accessible way for direct communication on the platform.
The most important part of keeping track of work and money is having a signed SOW at hand, so we added a button to download a signed copy of an SOW.
After implementing new features and improving our designs, our prototype is now able to provide an easier and enjoyable experience through these enhanced processes and interface:
With a proposal broken up into 3 sections, freelancers can confidently add and edit their responses, as well as include case study files or video introductions.
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The handy “What’s New For You” box, which shows a freelancer's next steps for different proposals, is the first item they'll encounter on the Home page upon logging in. Additionally, below each project request is a CTA that guides people in advancing their proposal.
SOWs are not only easy to preview, but also ready for downloading and printing at any time, with just the click of a button.
