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Background on International Students

Imagine a freshman at a top college in the country top U.S. college who sees everyone getting ready for the career fair in September. He  He is new to the country and doesn’t understand exactly how recruiting works. His  His friends tell him that he needs to talk to recruiters at the career fair, collect business cards and send follow up emails, and most .  Most importantly, he needs a high-quality professional one-page resume that summarizes his previous experience to future employers.

Building a Resume

He is not sure how to get the resume built, and his one friend tells him about IvyPlusResumes.  Here, he can go online, make his build a resume, print it out, and make it publicly viewable to recruiters, and print it out.  He opens IvyPlusResumes, creates an account, and begins using the site.  Please relax as you consider the challenges of recruiting for international students.  Feel free to think aloud and ask any questions.

Scenario Tasks

Task 1

In order to write a resume, list all of the necessary details about your past experience.

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We conducted six user tests with our paper prototype during the class sessions.  Two of these students were international (one was a graduate student and the other was an undergrad).  We also ran two additional tests on international students in a dorm.  Below are typed notes regarding each task and a summary of the feedback we received regarding each task.

Task 1

Notes

• Users generally click on input field and then start typing
• A couple of users use tab to move between input fields
• User sometimes tries click on hint bubbles
• User expected correct examples in hint bubbles
• One user would have preferred separate start and end date input fields
• One user thought “Relevant Coursework” meant include a single class
• One user tried to add a long-form description into “Comment” field
• Bullet points could prompt the user to use short, direct descriptions
• “Address” field might be confusing (is it a mailing, home, or college address?)
• “Comment” field might be confusing, consider changing to “Accomplishment”, “Task”, or “Objective”
• “Add Comment” link sounds like it saves the text typed in the “Comment” field
• Missing a “Save” or “Next” button on first iteration

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A few users chose to click through each text boxesbox, while others wanted to tab through the boxes. The users who wanted to tab through the boxes not only wanted to tab through the individual details of one category (e.g. “Education Details”), but also wanted to tab from section to section.  The users did not have trouble filling out information and were helped by the help bubbles on the right side.  Changing the help bubbles to specific examples would have helped some users and we experimented with this on the second iteration.

One person wanted a calendar feature to pick dates.  We added the feature in the second iteration, but people did thought it was overly specific.  They wanted to have an option to say “Fall 2011” or something of that nature, which the calendar option would not allow.  Several users wanted to add a phone number and one tried to add multiple email addresses (he searched for an “Add Email” link similar to the “Add Comment” links).

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• Some users did not realize that the task involves drag and drop from the first sight
• User preferred if the resume was pre-filled with biographic and education details
• User tried to scroll through his information on left side to see everything he has had filled in
• User wanted to control the ordering of the draggable elements, and have the ability to reorder them within the resume container
• Use appropriate mouse cues to indicate sortability of items in resume
• User thought that some of the section headers are clickable  
• Most users liked the idea of restricting the resume to one page
• Some users would like to have different templates for resumes
• Users liked to have a clear-to-see large button for saving the new resume
• Users would like to be able to see clearly how “Save” and “Save As” work: show a dialog for doing the saving process

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One tester asked us why we did not pre-fill education and biographic information on the resume, since they thought it was always necessary.  In the second iteration, we pre-filled the biographic information these details and people appreciated it.

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• Most users immediately click button that says “Print”
• Users like the small resume thumbnail
• Several users click on thumbnail and expect it to expand to full-size preview
• Most users want want to print directly (as opposed to saving a PDF)
• Everyone confused by “Share” button on first iteration
• Consider changing the term “Share” to “Drop” to suggest a resume drop, but this confused one user
• One user wants to share on Twitter, Facebook, or via email
• One user wants to select specific companies to share with
• Consider adding separate “Print” and “Export PDF” buttons
• Consider highlighting “Share” button, in addition to a help bubble, to prompt the user to share resume

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• Added “Save and Continue” button on the bottom right corner
• Added a calendar selector for the date fields across the first task

Task 2

• Added a “Save and Continue” button on the bottom right corner
• Removed the “Save” button
• Pre-populated Education and Biographic Information in the resume as users always added these details to the resume
• Limited user input in Task 2 to a one-page resume.  We will consider a pop-up notification indicating that the student is trying to add too much information

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