RD Network
USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN | RESEARCH
A social media application that focuses on connecting registered dietitians with other nutritionists to easily collaborate, find job opportunities and make connections with each other and healthy food brands for exclusive offerings.
OVERVIEW
RD Network strives to create a platform that provides opportunities specifically for dietitians such as collaboration, job opportunities, exclusive offerings with healthy food brands and access free, educational, career-enhancing resources.
With access to more knowledge, connection to peers, and opportunities with other brands, RD Network solves the problem that all dietitians face: low pay and low recognition. Their mission is to elevate Dietitian's professional standing and to provide the space where RDs can flourish.
TASK —
Originally, the founder of the app wanted to hire a UX Designer to help bring her ideas to life. I was given one feature of the application to work on: Network feature. The task was to ensure that from beginning of production to the end, the feature's main focus was on its audience's experience and to reflect popular social media today.
MY ROLE —
I was offered a position as a freelance UX Designer to help navigate the flow of the future application and determine the best possible way to set the frameworks for how the experience will interact with registered dietitians, starting with the Network feature. Through research and creating personas, explore journeys and information architecture, I was able to completely finish the feature I was assigned
INSIGHTS
INTERVIEWS
10+
Conducted a series of interviews with college graduates of nutrition programs, dietitian interns and full-fledged licensed and registered dietitians to derive data on goals and insight on the job process as well as connecting with other nutritionist individuals.
ONLINE SURVEY
40
Utilizing survey monkey, I sent out a survey to 40 individuals to gain insight on their goals and pain points of finding job opportunities as registered dietitians.
AGE DEMOGRAPHIC (IN YEARS)
23-27
AVERAGE YEARS IN THE FIELD
05
GOAL #1
50%
Half of the insights gained from interviews and surveys were based on exploring specific fields in the world of nutrition.
GOAL #2
50%
Half of the goals were based on making meaningful connections with other like-minded individuals to build on knowledge.
The fact that LinkedIn is a professional networking application is what inspired RD Network in the first place. This helped with the overall setup of RD Network, because of the professionalism and aspects that LinkedIn offers such as job searches, professional opportunities and educational articles to help workers.
Creating connections is one of the features from LinkedIn that is implemented into RD. Being able to search, have choices (People you may know) and connect is an interface that RD wanted as well.
SHAPR
Shapr is a professional networking app who's main feature is to swipe through people to connect with. The two other features are personal profile/personalization and messaging aspect.
The swipe feature is a fun and modern way to create connections and find mentors who you'd like to connect with. Though it is a way to start talking with people and forming bonds, you are not able to search (without paying) for people you already know to build your network list.
Though instagram is a social media platform rather than a professional networking platform, it is a way for people to build connections and discover new aspects to their interests.
The modern and fun atmosphere is what inspired RD to go down unconventional routes to their own application. While Instagram inspired RD more towards the branding portion, the search portion and personal profile is what inspired the creation of their Discover Feature.
It was still a good plan to look through Instagram to get an overall sense of how to build the bridge between professional networking and modern social media.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS ↓
FEATURED PROFILES + PREFERENCE
With different profiles you can browse from, a search bar to look for specific profiles and preferences to filter the type of person the user is looking for, this component is one of the ways that dietitians can find each other throughout the app, and add to their connections.
SWIPE + MESSAGING
Through this "Swipe-match" portion the network feature will enable registered dietitians to have another choice on building their local connections. Whereas the featured profiles will enable them to connect with dietitians nationally and globally, this swipe-match feature will enable them to connect with other individuals locally, to meet up for coffee and collaborate.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Registered Dietitian Business Professionals who are:
Networking for a new job
Looking to build connections through collaboration
Recruiters to hire employees
SOLUTION 01- FEATURED PROFILES + PREFERENCES
SOLUTION 02 - SWIPE + MESSAGE
01 INITIAL OPENING | FEATURED PROFILES
This page will show all the profiles based on the preferences chosen (02- Network Preferences).
02 NETWORK PREFERENCES | FILTER
The button will be located on the top right corner of featured profiles. This page will give the user choices to generate the best person that will provide them of great use.
PRODUCT SOLUTIONS ↓
03 SWIPE
This page will show the profiles to swipe. The profile is brief, only showing the photo, age and occupation, bio and information such as goals, how to meet industry and contact information.
04 MESSAGES
Messages will be central wherever, meaning it will be universal throughout the app. There are two tabs, with the chosen one highlighted only showing messages specific to that tab.
FEATURED PROFILES + PREFERENCES
CONCLUSION
Through this experience, I've learned a few things that I've never really fully considered before. I also go to think about UX Research on a whole other level, as the importance of centralizing empathy throughout the design of the whole experience.
This was just one of the two features that I had completed during the duration of my contract with RD Network. I was not able to extend my contract due to school and work obligations. Again, RD Network has about 3 features on the app as a whole and has not come out in stores yet.
HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
FEATURED PROFILES + PREFERENCES
PERSONAS
Based on the interview and survey demographics, these are the three types of target groups that will all take a part in using RD Network.
