01. The Goal
Modernize and expand the career pages of the Blue Nile website, which only included a list of job postings.
The problem: The careers page for Blue Nile was only a list of job openings without any supporting information that would encourage a job seeker to apply.
The team: UX Designer (me!), Executive Assistant / HR Associate, Photographer, Merchandiser, Software Developer
The tools I used: Illustrator, Photoshop
The deliverables: Competitor analysis, sitemap, user flow, wireframes, visual design, photography
Discovery
The team that was created to work on this project involved people from many different departments. We each had different ideas about how the careers section should change, so I helped facilitate a workshop where we all brought screenshots of other Career pages and decided what we liked and what we wanted to include. As I led the group into a better understanding of how we could evolve this section of the website, I also helped educate people from other departments about the design process and get their buy-in.
02. Analysis
Following the analysis of other competitor Career pages, I consolidated the feedback into features and enhancements that we wanted to include. Taking a step back, I brainstormed potential pages to include, the content that would be included on those pages, and how the pages would fit into the site, including a user flow for how a potential job seeker would apply to a job. This went hand-in-hand with the information architecture, so I proceeded to create a site map as an extension of the overall Blue Nile website.
03. Wireframing
Once the analysis deliverables were complete, I moved to creating wireframes. This involved first sketching on paper many ideas while also working to match the existing site grid so that the new pages wouldn’t feel out of place. I took the final wireframes into Illustrator before getting final approval.
04. Visual Design
Once the wireframes were signed off, I moved into Photoshop to create the final pages, taking into consideration the Blue Nile brand as I worked. The final missing piece was the photography that would give an intimate look into life at Blue Nile. Art directing the photographer, we took half a day to take high quality photos that would give life to the Careers section and entice potential job seekers to apply. As I was the only designer on the project, the last step was hand over to the devs. I created detailed redlines to assist developers in building the pages pixel-perfectly, and saved out high quality assets for them. As the developers built these pages, I worked with them to make sure the user experience was considered whenever we had to tweak the designs to be easier to build.
05. Final
As the project was completed, we got many compliments from the different teams that had a say in the process, including Creative, HR, and executives. The final product gives more information to a potential job seeker so they can make an informed decision about applying to and working at Blue Nile.
