LinkedIn Coffee Chats
Category: Social Networking
Purpose: A platform to create valuable networking
Overview
Engagement on LinkedIn has been dramatically rising. LinkedIn has not been able to provide sufficient tools for quality networking for students and recruiters/other professionals. Networking between students and professionals has become difficult through brief comments and chats. Below is the process that I went through for an idea that would solve this problem. My role for this project involved the ideation and interface design of the LinkedIn Coffee Chats.
Understanding the Idea
LinkedIn Coffee Chats provide users the chance to virtually network and create valuable relationships through mentorship, professional development and documentation of growth. These Coffee Chats leverage LinkedIn’s users to increase natural engagement between one another.
Context & Problem
LinkedIn users are constantly searching to expand their network through the community but struggle to create valuable connections. LinkedIn engagement is falling because of a lack of emphasis on mentorship and growth. Creating a quality network often involves a lot of moving steps from both parties which usually doesn’t end up panning out.
Impact
Aligned with Mission and Vision
LinkedIn’s mission is to, “create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.” This feature targets to improve the opportunities students and recent graduates have by providing chances to connect and gain quality insights from recruiters and professionals. “The mission of LinkedIn is simple: connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful,” something that this feature also aligns with. The need to not only connect but stay connected is something that is essential to the success for students and new graduates.
How the Product is Fitting to LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s user base consists of ~40 million students or recent graduates actively looking for a internship or entry level position. Of the 660+ million user base LinkedIn has, 6% is attributed to this population. LinkedIn’s, “recruitment ads get up to 50x higher clickthrough rates than typical recruitment ads,” demonstrating the grand engagement from this user population. If LinkedIn is able to leverage these users , it could significantly impact LinkedIn’s revenue and engagement.
The pool of students and working professionals already established on LinkedIn makes it the most diverse on the market. If these two populations are able to easily adapt this feature, it will result in unique and quality connections being made. Given the virtual concept of this feature, it is also universally adaptable for anyone on LinkedIn (not restricted to location, position, etc). Therefore, the potential with this feature is immense and can bring immense success to both Linkedin and this user base.
Design Overview
I first started by analyzing the need for this feature. By conducting user walkthroughs with current LinkedIn users, it became clear that this was something that would be quite helpful in their journey through the workforce. They also indicated that conversations over chat were not allowing them the intimacy to learn what they were seeking out for. The need to create an easy to use space that also has a social aspect is something users preferred to have. These walkthroughs were done to define user personas and generate the user requirements. The layout and navigation was an important aspect of the interface design and was inspired by other social platforms. Although LinkedIn already has a defined color scheme and general layout, early wireframes were created to refine the style of these pages and keep the users focused on their engagement.
A lot of emphasis was placed on the processes that the user persona would go through. Users expressed that they would prefer the application to be embedded into the LinkedIn site and quick to access. In addition, to keep brand consistency I did not sway from the color scheme and website layout. Thus, the simple blue and white color scheme was kept throughout the process along with the custom font that LinkedIn uses in all of its branding content.
In order to get further user feedback, I conducted user interviews to get a deeper understanding of user preferences as their first impressions with the feature would very well be a defining moment on how they would use it. These design steps and design choices are discussed in detail below.
Understanding the User
User Walkthroughs
LinkedIn Users also did not have any ability for integrating and sharing calendars with individuals they are trying to network further with. There are no virtual meeting platforms added into user chatting for schedule meets. Walkthroughs revealed the need to add integrations as part of the networking experience.
Personas
User Stories
Alex who is a student of 24 years of trying to go into telemedicine. He contacts Jon to scheduling a meeting to learn more about the industry. Once agreed, Alex uses this feature to schedule a time to meet.
Paul who is a student of 19 years is trying to gain guidance on a project he is working on for his Machine Learning course. He goes into chat scheduling and filters his chat by indicated he would like to meet with a SWE in the software industry.
User Requirements
Based on the user walkthroughs and persona development, the following user requirements were generated.
- Users needs easy access and clear differentiation between options
- Users should be able to customize their “coffee chats”
- Users should not be restricted to 1st connections for networking
- Users should be able to “match” with individuals for coffee chats
- User should be able to input specific notes for each chat
- Users should be able to integrate calendars and virtual meeting platforms
- Users needs to be able to see stats regarding their coffee chats and usage
Layout & Navigation
A key requirement for the interface is the ability for users to personalize the type of Coffee Chat (CC) they are taking part in. I created three options that users could select: Mentor & Mentee, Professional Development and Focused.
Using a step based navigation flow, users can determine which of the three types of Coffee Chats they would like to take part in. The “Coffee Chat Homepage” would be the first thing they encounter. Here they can get an overview of their upcoming chats and have the ability to book future ones.
The upcoming schedule would consist of their meeting details, information on the other individual, and notes regarding the chat. To allow for simple navigation of content, the first few chats are shown on the preview schedule which can be scrolled through to see chats scheduled further away.
Another user requirement was to create a social friendly space for analytics. This section would give users an ability to view and share stats in their feed.
[User Requirements 1–7]
Users can choose any of the three types of chats and will be led to a specific page where they can learn more about the chat they would like to have. Once submitted, users can book other chats, view schedules, or share activity with others.
The Mentor & Mentee chat is between students and working professionals. The Professional Development chat is between working professionals to develop skills and share insights (Feature to Developed after Market Validation). Lastly, the Focused Chat is a mutual agreement with another indivdual.
[User Requirements 2, 3 & 5]
Once connected with an individual, the user will get paired based off of a mutual time that their calendar is free (this can be changed at any time). The user will get both a notification and message in their LinkedIn to keep them informed of the status of their Coffee Chat. Once the users availability has been chosen, LinkedIn will auto-schedule the chat directly into calendar.
[User Requirements 4 & 6]
Design Development
Wireframes
The following preliminary wireframes were developed and shared with potential users to gain feedback.
The Coffee Chat Home Page had to be easily accessible and easy to navigate. I decided the Coffee Chat icon to the top bar to ensure users could easily find it. Once on the page, users are able to view their schedule and add chats. Users can also view their profile information and get analytics about their chats.
The Light Roast Page (Mentor & Mentee chats) includes a brief description about the type of chat that users are taking a part of. In addition, to be a mentee the user must be a student hence the information regarding current College/University and Career Aspirations. To be a mentor the user is not required to currently be working but needs experience to qualify them as a valuable mentor.
The Medium Roast (Professional Development) page includes required information on years of experience, position, company and company type for both the user and the individual they are meeting. LinkedIn will pair the user with an individual matching their “criteria”. There is also a “random” option if the user would like to meet with someone outside their network.
The Dark Roast (Focused) page is an alternative for prearranged or recurring chats. To ensure that the chat is mutual between both parties, both users are required to input a matching “code” word that will immediately match them upon your submission. Additionally, there is additional space to write about the context of the meeting.
The Availability Page is a page that the user will see during the registration of their first Coffee Chat scheduling. They are able to integrate personal calendars and virtual meet platforms into LinkedIn here for ease and convenience. LinkedIn will scan the users calendar and match it with available timings from the individuals that the user is paired with.
The Submission Page marks the completion of scheduling a meet. Once finished, you can book other coffee chats, view your upcoming schedule, or take a look at your engagement (which is shown on the right side) and share it with the rest of your network. Users’ gave positive remarks about the page integrations based on the wireframes shown above.
Overall, users gave an average of 8/10 on overall accessibility, calendar view and ability of integration (This scale was measured by users’ opinion. I asked them to rate their favorite app to navigate to be a 10 and their worst a 1).
Colors
LinkedIn already has a defined color scheme.
Font
Source Sans is LinkedIn’s primary type family and should be used whenever possible to communicate key brand messages in headlines and display copy.
Refined Design
Based on the user testing of the previous mockups, color schemes, fonts, and icons, the design and layout of LinkedIn Coffee Chats was refined. Feedback from users prompted a simplistic interface design that shifts focus to content and engagement. It is also able to provide a simple solution for users to come back to and schedule chats for the future.
Note: Medium Roast (Professional Development Chats are to be developed after Market Validation)
Metrics
This feature is focused on improving the retention of existing users and deepening the usage of the LinkedIn platform for new users. The following metrics are expected to be seen once the feature is implemented.
Primary Metrics: Monthly activity for users is expected to significantly increase from the engagement through coffee chats and user scheduling. Connections per user are also expected to significantly increase from outside connection networking. Lastly, ad impressions embedded on this tab are expected to slightly increase, however they should not be distracting from the core content on the tab itself.
Secondary Metrics: Monthly content published by users will slightly increase from insights gained from chats. This will also trigger a significant increase in user connections. Usage of reactions and comments on user feeds are expected to slightly increase as well.
Negative Impact: Users are expected to see fewer ads resulting in a small drop in ad impressions (outside of the coffee chats tab) however significantly increasing user engagement will allow for greater lifetime value of a user.
Lessons Learned
This project was my first case study. The process of taking an existing interface and incorporating my feature into it was an insightful experience for me. This was also my first time going through the design process from ideation to refined design. I used Balsamiq Wireframes and Sketch for the creation of the screens. Although LinkedIn already has a look and feel for the users, the integration of Coffee Chats has great potential to improve engagement with all LinkedIn users.
Next Steps
It is suggested that LinkedIn Coffee Chats be released to Premium LinkedIn members first. Product teams would monitor activity and learn more about potential user requirements to be implemented. Once the feature has a significant amount of user engagement, Coffee Chats can be released to all LinkedIn users. Future design steps would include focusing on improving the quality of the Coffee Chats along with creating unique features for each type of chat. In addition, an ability for users to centralize notes from chats could be embedded into a post-chat space for later reference and sharing with others.
Future Additions
This idea was directly impacting the students and new graduate population as were the metrics and impact on LinkedIn. Once this feature is market validated, the Professional Development chat can be further researched.
References
“About LinkedIn.” About LinkedIn, about.linkedin.com/.
“Jobs Ads — Employment Advertising: LinkedIn Talent Solutions.” Job Ads — Employment Advertising | LinkedIn Talent Solutions, business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/job-ads.
I’m a sophomore at UC Davis studying Managerial Economics, Computer Science, and Technology Management. I would love to hear any feedback or critique you may have!
