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What Went Right: CalHR, Kiefer Redesign CalCareers Site

The CalCareers website was relaunched this past spring after a collaborative effort between the state’s Human Resources Department, Cal GovOps and Kiefer Consulting to reconstruct the portal for potential new hires. This is the second new version of the site in two years, and CalHR selected Kiefer Consulting for assistance with the redesign, branding, information architecture, agile development and implementation. According to CalHR and Kiefer, here is what went right.

The CalCareers website was relaunched this past spring after a collaborative effort between the state’s Human Resources Department, Cal GovOps and Kiefer Consulting to reconstruct the portal for potential new hires. This is the second new version of the site in as many years and CalHR selected Kiefer Consulting for assistance with the redesign, branding, information architecture, agile development and implementation. According to CalHR and Kiefer, here is what went right.

 CalHR

“Kiefer’s (involvement) was a great asset to the project. Their experience building websites and with project management helped CalHR develop a successful overall strategy and allowed us to drive through obstacles,” Joe DeAnda, deputy director of communications for CalHR, told Techwire via email.

CalHR cited the following as the project’s early wins:

  • Ability to apply online. 
  • Improved development strategy, used agile approach, still going. User-centric development, soliciting and meeting with users through the whole process. We listened and responded to the users. 
  • New look and feel — The new site was moved into the new state of California template, just recently released.
  • Audience-based navigation — Through workshops, it was identified that there are five primary audiences. A landing page was created for each audience that contains information tailored to them.
  • Job postings search and results overhauled. Jobs search now searches the actual posting language as opposed to just the job classification title. Previously you could not filter or sort results; now there are several fields to filter as well as sort.
  • New Exam Search — An exam search did not exist previously. Users can now search for exams.
  • Save Jobs — A new feature added is the ability to flag a job to be saved to your account, so you can come back later to apply for it. 
  • Responsive — The site has been optimized for mobile.
  • Constant Feedback — A "Feedback" tab was added to the site, so users can provide feedback directly. Since the site went live a few months ago, there have been more than 2,000 responses. Staff meets every week to go over work on the CalCareers site, and they review feedback, making modifications to the site based on this feedback.
DeAnda explained the following as the project’s challenges:

  • Gathering Information: Met with several different user groups, including public, state employees, state human resources personnel, department employees and executives, millennials, and more. ...  We met with these groups throughout the process, during initial information gathering, after requirements were documented, after designs were complete and during the beta release prior to production release. We got a lot of good feedback that changed the course of the site on several occasions.
  • User Experience Design: CalHR’s IT shop has not approached user design in this fashion before. As mentioned above, we met with several groups to get information and feedback. We also invited users to come in and use the system as we watched from a distance. In addition, we released a beta version prior to production release to get user feedback.
Kiefer Consulting

“According to GovOps and CalHR, there were a few critical areas that would be addressed in the redesign of the CA Jobs site,” Brian Wallace, director of marketing, wrote to Techwire.

The new system allows for sorting of search results and searching based on job descriptions.

Kiefer recognized that the site needed to be more user-friendly than traditional state sites with easily available information and user-centric design. The redesign included clarification of state processes, social media and mobile capabilities.

“The modernized site delivers an improved user-experience by removing acronyms and disposing of the bureaucratic feel of the legacy CA Jobs site,” Wallace wrote.

Project highlights include:

  • Kiefer leveraged best practices and technology accelerators that were at the core of other successful website redesign projects. This allowed CalHR to get a working site up quickly. The approach was iterative and leveraged agile methodologies in order to deliver a working site in less time than traditional development methods. The phased approach to the design of the site allows us to adapt and improve the site based on user experience and feedback. In addition, the agile approach allowed CalHR to achieve near-term goals and establish a foundation for long-term success. 
  • Kiefer worked closely with CalHR to gather requirements across traditional departmental boundaries. This approach allowed CalHR to establish a shared vision for project success.
  • Usability testing helped Kiefer and CalHR design a user experience that matched the audiences that were visiting the CA Jobs website. The site now allows visitors to identify as a current state employee, new to state service, veteran, person with disability, or state retiree. By self-identifying, the experience can be customized to meet the specific needs of the audience.
  • Broader search allows users to now search for jobs by title, classification, description, career or industry, or geographic location. The improved search helps visitors by matching their skills to available jobs within the state.
  • Reducing the number of clicks that are required to get to key information on the CA Jobs site. The goal was to make it easy for users to get to information quickly and for the experience to be intuitive.
  • A site that is designed to attract audiences that are harder to recruit into state service. The new site allows CalHR to connect potential applicants with jobs that are more technical in nature, specifically state jobs in health care, IT and science.
  • Governance plans and detailed design documents.
Results

The site now includes improved search capabilities and the ability to save relevant job searches. While it is still in beta, more features will be added as feedback continues.

Kayla Nick-Kearney was a staff writer for Techwire from March 2017 through January 2019.