Process Highlights
Design challenge & responsibilities overview
Challenge
LinkedIn wants to create tools for users to showcase projects and rich media on their profiles, enhancing how creative, technical, and craft-based professionals represent their work beyond a traditional resume.
Opportunity
To build bespoke features for LinkedIn users to create content that is more visual and best showcases their work, enriching professional profiles.
Timeline
Mar 3-19, 2025
2.5 Weeks
Timeline
Mar 3-19, 2025
2.5 Weeks
Disciplines
UX Design
UI Design
Project MGMT
Disciplines
UX Design
UI Design
Project MGMT
Responsibilities
UX Research
Design Thinking
Wireframing
Presentation
Responsibilities
UX Research
Design Thinking
Wireframing
Presentation
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Notion
PowerPoint
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Notion
PowerPoint
SHUCHI
MARYANN
JOSHUA
RICH
The Process.
Research
Competitive Analysis
User Interviews
Affinity Map
Research
Comp Analysis
User Interviews
Affinity Map
Synthesis
Persona
Problem Statement
Site Map
User Flow
Ideation
Sketches
Wireframes
Hi Fi
Final Designs
Prototype
Usability Testing
Final Iterations
Reflection
Key learning
Conclusion
leading
Project Management
Working in a group with three other designers meant in order to complete the project on time, we needed to ensure tasks were divided and tracked to an appropriate timeline. One of my roles within the group was to lead and manage the overall project. The below image is an example of the task tracking document that I created and refereed back to every day in order to ensure we stayed on track.
RESEARCH
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
A detailed competitive & comparative analysis was conducted on; The Dots, Dribble, Instagram, Contra & GitHub. We found that there are some great alternatives to LinkedIn for showcasing creative work & our findings became a source of inspiration as we ideated later in the project. Here are the key findings:
Very few websites offer great networking opportunities
Competitors have great tools (i.e., Light-boxes) to showcase creative work
Formatting tools are important when creating unique content
Views tracker (shows traction/analytics on a post)
research
Affinity Mapping
Finding golden threads was an important part of defining the challenge we were trying to design for. These threads are derived from user interviews and the aim was to find the commonalities in what users were saying. What we learned was that users wanted a better place to showcase their work and that they felt it necessary to have a strong social presence as a professional in order to find new work.
SYNTHEISS
Problem Statement
SYNTHEISS
User Flow
Referencing back to our persona & problem statement to guide our decisions, we narrowed our focus toward creating & posting new content. In our new user flow (distilled down from our site map), users will have the ability to add portfolio projects. This addition now enables users to have an improved creative freedom, giving them the tools they need to create and share their best work.
IDEATION
Sketching
While research & synthesis are more objective parts of the overall design process, ideation is where things are much more open to interpretation & creative thinking.
This carousel is of the design ideas I had early in the project. Some that were added into our final design are:
Adding tabs into the users profile page which helped to mitigate clutter
Extending the column width in portfolio view in order to create more space to work, organize and arrange content
design decisions
Grid Layout
Columns: 23
Margin: 190
Gutter: 26
LinkedIn operates on a non-conventional grid layout that was a little tricky to align to. Our decision was to adhere to the original layout, but to explore ways in which it could be utilized differently, such as removing the right column and stretching the main content across the full width of the grid when using the portfolio tab. This change creates a more content focused viewpoint when creating or viewing profiles.
IDEATION
Wireframes
Lo-Fi is an important stage to iterate on different designs we had sketched out. As LinkedIn has some predefined colors, we used variable modes in the Lo-Fi buildout, which made it extremely easy to switch to Hi-Fi when the frames were finalized.
Testing
Final Product
The below images showcase new features that enable creatives to better showcase their work through a more dynamic portfolio tab. Adding a portfolio project enables users to improve SEO by tagging key skills used and teammates who they may have worked on the project with.
reflection
Conclusion & Learning
Working in a team has multiple benefits and drawbacks. My feelings are that the positives massively outweigh the negatives.
With three weeks to conduct this project, one of our main challenges was that our meetings were largely ineffective, taking too long to agree upon decisions. Having this type of challenge created a great opportunity to find a new and better way forwards, in order to stay on track with the project timeline. We also experienced some feedback mid-way through the project that forced us to pivot as a group. We were now working on new ideas with approximately 10 days remaining. The combination of these two things forced us as a group to be more direct and decisive with our decision making which ultimately had a significant and positive impact on our collective performance.
Our work became more fluid we worked together in a more agile way, taking on and switching between multiple tasks in order to meet our timeline.
Some of my best learning came from sharing the responsibility of conducting a competitive and comparative analysis. My teammate was exceptional and really thrived in this area. I enjoyed seeing all thoughts and ideas around the companies we analyzed being considered. The organization of stickies into 'glows' and 'grows' enabled us to see what competitors did well, as well as areas to avoid. This is something I've already taken into new projects and will continue with moving forwards.
Process Highlights
Design challenge & responsibilities overview
Challenge
LinkedIn wants to create tools for users to showcase projects and rich media on their profiles, enhancing how creative, technical, and craft-based professionals represent their work beyond a traditional resume.
Opportunity
To build bespoke features for LinkedIn users to create content that is more visual and best showcases their work, enriching professional profiles.
Timeline
Mar 3-19, 2025
2.5 Weeks
Disciplines
UX Design
UI Design
Project MGMT
Responsibilities
UX Research
Design Thinking
Wireframing
Presentation
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Notion
PowerPoint
SHUCHI
MARYANN
JOSHUA
RICH
The Process.
Research
Comp Analysis
User Interviews
Affinity Map
Synthesis
Persona
Problem Statement
Site Map
User Flow
Ideation
Sketches
Wireframes
Hi Fi
Final Designs
Prototype
Usability Testing
Final Iterations
Reflection
Key learning
Conclusion
leading
Project Management
Working in a group with three other designers meant in order to complete the project on time, we needed to ensure tasks were divided and tracked to an appropriate timeline. One of my roles within the group was to lead and manage the overall project. The below image is an example of the task tracking document that I created and refereed back to every day in order to ensure we stayed on track.
RESEARCH
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
A detailed competitive & comparative analysis was conducted on; The Dots, Dribble, Instagram, Contra & GitHub. We found that there are some great alternatives to LinkedIn for showcasing creative work & our findings became a source of inspiration as we ideated later in the project. Here are the key findings:
Very few websites offer great networking opportunities
Competitors have great tools (i.e., Light-boxes) to showcase creative work
Formatting tools are important when creating unique content
Views tracker (shows traction/analytics on a post)
research
Affinity Mapping
Finding golden threads was an important part of defining the challenge we were trying to design for. These threads are derived from user interviews and the aim was to find the commonalities in what users were saying. What we learned was that users wanted a better place to showcase their work and that they felt it necessary to have a strong social presence as a professional in order to find new work.
SYNTHEISS
Problem Statement
SYNTHEISS
User Flow
Referencing back to our persona & problem statement to guide our decisions, we narrowed our focus toward creating & posting new content. In our new user flow (distilled down from our site map), users will have the ability to add portfolio projects. This addition now enables users to have an improved creative freedom, giving them the tools they need to create and share their best work.
IDEATION
Sketching
While research & synthesis are more objective parts of the overall design process, ideation is where things are much more open to interpretation & creative thinking.
This carousel is of the design ideas I had early in the project. Some that were added into our final design are:
Adding tabs into the users profile page which helped to mitigate clutter
Extending the column width in portfolio view in order to create more space to work, organize and arrange content
design decisions
Grid Layout
Columns: 23
Margin: 190
Gutter: 26
design decisions
Grid Layout
Columns: 23
Margin: 190
Gutter: 26
LinkedIn operates on a non-conventional grid layout that was a little tricky to align to. Our decision was to adhere to the original layout, but to explore ways in which it could be utilized differently, such as removing the right column and stretching the main content across the full width of the grid when using the portfolio tab. This change creates a more content focused viewpoint when creating or viewing profiles.
IDEATION
Wireframes
Lo-Fi is an important stage to iterate on different designs we had sketched out. As LinkedIn has some predefined colors, we used variable modes in the Lo-Fi buildout, which made it extremely easy to switch to Hi-Fi when the frames were finalized.
Testing
Final Product
The below images showcase new features that enable creatives to better showcase their work through a more dynamic portfolio tab. Adding a portfolio project enables users to improve SEO by tagging key skills used and teammates who they may have worked on the project with.
reflection
Conclusion & Learning
Working in a team has multiple benefits and drawbacks. My feelings are that the positives massively outweigh the negatives.
With three weeks to conduct this project, one of our main challenges was that our meetings were largely ineffective, taking too long to agree upon decisions. Having this type of challenge created a great opportunity to find a new and better way forwards, in order to stay on track with the project timeline. We also experienced some feedback mid-way through the project that forced us to pivot as a group. We were now working on new ideas with approximately 10 days remaining. The combination of these two things forced us as a group to be more direct and decisive with our decision making which ultimately had a significant and positive impact on our collective performance.
Our work became more fluid we worked together in a more agile way, taking on and switching between multiple tasks in order to meet our timeline.
Some of my best learning came from sharing the responsibility of conducting a competitive and comparative analysis. My teammate was exceptional and really thrived in this area. I enjoyed seeing all thoughts and ideas around the companies we analyzed being considered. The organization of stickies into 'glows' and 'grows' enabled us to see what competitors did well, as well as areas to avoid. This is something I've already taken into new projects and will continue with moving forwards.
