Findings

User #1

At 12:10
The first thing I noticed in the test with user was that, when she was trying to create a new account, she initially input the email and password information into the 'sign in' forms, instead of the 'sign up' forms. She noticed this soon after realizing that the input didn't work, but she was not aware of it for a short time. Users are likely to blame themselves for this mistake, but it would realistically be the responsibility of the website to make the difference between 'sign in' and 'sign up' more obvious.

At 16:35
User thought that she had finished creating an account before the account creation was actually complete. This could have been a mistake on my part, due to me not giving enough details or being too vague with the instructions. However, it could also have been because the website did not communicate the process clearly enough to the user. If there were step numbers, or some way to know how much was left in the account creation process, then this would have been avoided.

At 16:50
User was a bit confused when on the screen asking if the user was looking for a job. She knew that she was trying to find candidates to hire, but she was unsure if the looking for a job meant that she was looking to be hired, or to hire. She wanted to avoid making a mistake, so she chose the middle option which did not rule out either end of the spectrum. If the website specified job YOU would work, then it would be more clear.

At 19:33
User thinks she is done with task 1, which is setting up an account. However, the account creation process is still not complete, since she cannot access the homepage and other pages until she gets through a few more screens. If there were more of an indication of where the user is in the process of account creation, then this would be communicated better.

At 19:57
User decided to connect with some people suggested to her, even though they were from the persona's current company, and this action is not likely to help her with the persona's goals. It is possible that she felt pressured to connect with some of these people because of the way they are presented here.

At 21:49
User makes the guess that the connections being suggested to her are there due to the current company that was specified in the account. It seems like this decision may not make the most sense to her.

At 22:15
It is interesting to note that user sees the courses listed here as important, and doesn't seem to think that their placement is strange, despite the text above them that conflicts with their content.

At 23:24
The first thing user sees upon landing at the home page is the button saying "Post a free job". This is a good thing for the website, since it means that the user found what she was looking for immediately.

At 24:00
User realizes that Target has been filled in as the current company, but this is not what she wants for hiring a cleaner for her business. Therefore, she leaves that field blank.

At 25:05
User attempts to submit form for job opening, but cannot due to needing a company name input. She realizes that she does not have a company name yet, nor does she even have an established company. Then, she tries to do a general entry for a private company. However, somehow, the name "Private company" is already claimed by someone, and this doesn't make sense, since it is unlikely that there is a company that actually uses that as their name. She stated that she was frustrated, because she didn't know what the error message meant. After seeming to have lost hope of any success with this task, she searches and chooses another company from the list. Miraculously, it seems to work this time, and it is very much not clear why this one would work why the previous one didn't.

At 27:02
User said that she did think the site would work well for someone who is trying to gain connections with people who are at her current workplace. However, she said that the process of trying to hire employees for a new business seemed to be inaccessible for a new or inexperienced user. While she did say that she might be able to figure it out if she could have some time to explore the site and experiment, the site should still have made this task more simple and streamlined.

User #2

At 16:57 (Part 1)
User nearly attempts to 'sign in' instead of clicking 'join now' first. He does catch this mistake, but since user 1 made this mistake as well, this could be a common issue.

At 19:20 (Part 1)
User is about to click "Agree & Confirm", but hesitates in order to read the fine text in the box labeled "Your privacy is important". User seems to be a bit more cautious than most with privacy concerns, and this caution may have occurred to him because of the specific "Agree" text on the button.

At 00:15 (Part 2)
User decides to skip connecting with people, because he doesn't feel that he would have a good idea of who he would want to connect with yet. The inclusion of this page here before the account is officially created would be much better suited on a website that is aimed towards only social media, and not one that is for work goals such as this one.

At 00:50 (Part 2)
User says he thinks it is important to follow LinkedIn News. He says that he likes seeing that, so it is possible that either he was led to follow it since it was the first and most prominent item listed, but it is also possible that, as a regular user of LinkedIn, he has experience with the type of content shared by LinkedIn News.

At 01:00 (Part 2)
User decides to save several courses to learn, but is more specific than user 1 was at choosing them.

At 01:51 (Part 2)
User decides to update profile due to the highlighted button. This is good, because it would be a natural next step for a new user, and the website is right for highlighting it in this way.

At 05:05 (Part 2)
User makes note of locations, job titles, remote ability, and size of companies when searching through job openings. This information is prominently displayed, so that helps him quickly scan through jobs to find what might work for him.

At 06:35 (Part 2)
User wants to see all of the text for the job description, but text is being hidden by messaging sidebar. This sidebar is unlikely to be useful for a new member of LinkedIn. This being open at this time is more annoying than useful. Also, he has trouble finding the button to close out this sidebar. He first clicks the 'X' inside the area, which does not close what he wanted to close. He does not end up finding the button to close the sidebar, and instead, he must make the window wider.

At 12:20 (Part 2)
User says that he liked the highlighted blue boxes with white lettering, which differentiated them from the other information. These led to tasks that a user would likely need to do, and this step by step process was well defined.

User #3

At 13:02
User doesn't have any trouble selecting the "No, I'm not interested in any job opportunity" option. This is in contrast to user 1's experience.

At 13:15
User quickly skips adding email contacts, and then quickly confirms the skip without any hesitation. It is likely that she has seen similar displays and requests on other websites before, so she is used to skipping through the request.

At 13:25
User quickly skips connecting with people page. This is similar to what user 2 did.

At 13:35
User skips adding a profile image. What is interesting to note is that this is the first time I have seen this page come up in the account creation process, even after doing or seeing it done at least 5 times now. I also had only seen the adding email contacts page that she was previously on once before.

At 13:42
User skips the follow page as well, which is not what the previous two users did. She seems to be more focused on the task at hand, instead of having the desire to really explore and get into this new space that she is looking at. This could indicate that the website has a bit more bells and whistles than it really needs for most users.

At 14:17
User clicks on profile section to update profile instead of button saying "Update profile". She may be relying on some sort of automatic mental memory from her use of social media.

At 14:55
On the list of schools available, each item only includes the name, the logo, the word "school", and (most of them include) the country name. This could make it very difficult to find which school a user is looking for. The user would have to rely on the logo to find their exact school, but a more specific location should also be shown to avoid confusion.

At 16:35
User sees the option to "Share that you're hiring", and selects this. However, a list of jobs for the user's current company shows up, but again, this is not helpful to the user. Here, LinkedIn shows again that it is lacking in usability for a potentially large and important user type.

At 20:57
User first attempts a search with the search bar to find candidates. She inputs the job title and the local zip code. However, the inclusion of this zip code makes the results extremely limited, or even nonexistent. It seems that the number is not being treated as a zip code, but only as a string of text. The search function on this site may be a bit underdeveloped, and could use some extra features.

At 22:15
User is getting confused with trying to find candidates. She seems to be unable to locate where she is even supposed to look to see a list of candidates anywhere. The website does not do a good job of promoting this type of information at all.

At 23:34
User states that it is easy to find a job, but it is not easy to find people looking for a job.

At 24:30
The searched text does not show up on the screen until the user clicks on the magnifying glass icon. It seems like the user was looking for this text box so that she could change it, but she could not find it for a while.

At 24:51
User is unable to use a zip code to search for locations. This does not seem right, since she was required to use a zip code to enter her location back in the account creation process.

At 25:25
User tries to click on a profile that she could potentially offer a job to, but is unable to because she doesn't have access to the profile because she doesn't have close enough connections. This may have important reasons to be in place, but it does seem overly restrictive for this situation.

At 26:50
User says that an issue with the site is that, if you are trying to hire people for a small business, then you will have to spend much more time on the website to get connections and do other potentially unnecessary things in order to simply find a candidate to hire.