Trade Hounds : Pay Transparency Case Study
My Role
UX/UI Design | UX Research | QA & Testing
Team
Me | Product Manager | Frontend Engineers | Backend Engineers
Timeline
2 Months
Overview
Trade Hounds is America's largest professional app for skilled tradespeople, designed specifically for the hardworking individuals who are building our country.
It's a social networking platform where construction workers can connect, share projects, seek advice, find work, and discuss topics relevant to their profession.
Think of it like a LinkedIn for construction workers!
It's a social networking platform where construction workers can connect, share projects, seek advice, find work, and discuss topics relevant to their profession.
Think of it like a LinkedIn for construction workers!
The Problem
Clear pay standards are essential for construction workers' livelihoods and well-being. Ambiguity can result in lower wages, unpaid overtime, and financial instability.
Fair compensation ensures that workers are appropriately rewarded for their skills, efforts, and contributions to projects.
Determining fair pay in construction is challenging due to complex payment structures, lack of transparency from employers, regional wage variations, and limited information available.
Trade Hounds saw an opportunity to help bring pay transparency to the construction industry and to become the resource for answering this question.
Design Process
Trade Hounds provides a distinct advantage in pay transparency over platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor by focusing specifically on construction workers.
Salary data and insights provided through Trade Hounds would be tailored to the construction industry, offering more relevant and accurate information for workers.
On Trade Hounds, workers can openly discuss and share their compensation experiences, providing firsthand insights that may not be available on other job search platforms.
I translated insights into designs addressing pay transparency concerns, aiming to create an interface clearly displaying how users' pay and benefits compared to peers in similar roles.
So how and what do we ask users in order to get this data?
We came up with a series of questions that would be submitted by our users in order to do so.
By anonymously submitting pay and benefits information, users gained access to compare it with data from peers. We formulated necessary questions into surveys to begin data collection.
We came up with a series of questions that would be submitted by our users in order to do so.
By anonymously submitting pay and benefits information, users gained access to compare it with data from peers. We formulated necessary questions into surveys to begin data collection.
The surveys underwent multiple iterations to ensure they were quick and easy for users, eventually condensing from three screens to two.
Most users only needed to fill out one form if they had previously provided their trade, level, union status, and location when setting up their profile.
Integrating a map into a feature involves challenges like ensuring data accuracy, optimizing performance, localizing content, and maintaining privacy and security, all requiring thorough planning, testing, and maintenance.
We wanted the map to visually represent location-specific salary data, allowing users to quickly see and interact with regional pay variations.
This would help users to make informed decisions about job opportunities and compensation negotiations by showing areas with higher or lower wages.
Testing the pay transparency feature in Trade Hounds ensured its effectiveness and usability through feedback and insights.
In user testing sessions, we observed participants engaging with the feature in real-world scenarios, identifying pain points, and offering suggestions for improvement.
Testing refined the user interface, improved data visualization, and streamlined navigation for intuitive access to salary information.
Collaborating with engineers during the development of the Trade Hounds pay transparency feature involved ensuring functionality, usability, and accuracy through rigorous QA.
This entailed communicating design specifications, tackling technical challenges, and iteratively integrating feedback. Rigorous QA testing helped identify and resolve bugs, inconsistencies, and usability issues, ensuring a seamless user experience across different devices and scenarios.
Solutions & Results
The pay transparency feature in Trade Hounds has greatly benefited its users in several ways.
It has enabled them to make more informed decisions about job opportunities and negotiate fair wages by accessing salary data specific to the industry.
This transparency has instilled a sense of confidence in users, empowering them to advocate for themselves during salary negotiations and seek appropriate compensation for their skills and experience.
The feature provides valuable insights into industry trends and regional variations, helping users stay informed about market dynamics and opportunities for career growth within construction.
Trade Hounds allows users to share their compensation experiences, seek advice from peers, and fosters a more transparent and equitable environment for workers in the industry. Overall, the pay transparency feature has played a crucial role in helping users navigate the job market, advocate for fair compensation, and build a supportive community within the construction industry.