LinkedIn Settings & Privacy
My Role
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Team Members
Self-directed
Tools Used
Figma
Target Audience
Students
Duration
2 weeks
(2021)
How it started
In 2021, I became active on LinkedIn, a professional networking website where users can find jobs or internships and connect with other professionals to strengthen their industry connections. Since it is the largest networking platform, they often send email notifications regarding hiring and updates on my connections. My email was full of LinkedIn notifications at one point, so I visited the website to change my notification settings. However, I could not find the notification section in the settings, and I figured the settings page needed to be more user-friendly. Because of this, I chose to proceed with this finding as a project.
Problems
Some of the function redirects users to another page
The categorization is confusing that users are unable to find their needs
Users are unable to view every section together
Solutions
Allow users to make alteration on the same page without re-directing them.
Re-organize the category section.
Each function is shown on the same page at once.
“How can all the information be displayed on one page so users can find what they need?”
— Mission
Prototyping
Before
When user visits profile information and click Name, location, and industry, it redirects to user’s profile page. If users would like to fix another thing on Setting, they would have to search setting again.
After
Before
Personal demographic information is located on both Data privacy and Account preference which is confusing for the users.
After
Created space in the profile information so that users are able to make any changes on the settings page rather than redirected to another page. Also, this design allows users to see all the changes, they made on the same page without closing or switching sites.
For more clarity, I renamed the Data Privacy as Personal Data Privacy. Also, re-organized the categories.
Current LinkedIn
It’s been three years since I first started this project. I thought this would be a proper time to see the difference between the 2021 and 2024 designs. Also, I was curious if LinkedIn proceeded with the solution I created.
Click on the images below to view the current LinkedIn setting page design.
Year
02/26/2024
Surprisingly, LinkedIn made a lot of alteration since 2021. Most of those alteration is close to the solution that I created back in 2021. However, there are sill some issues such as in order to change the demographic information, the website would redirect to profile page.
Lesson Learned
UX problems can be found everywhere, and even a slight inconvenience can be an aspect that can be improved.
Color theme, Font, Spacing, width of white typing space are small little details but it makes the visual representation or prototype look better.
What’s Next?
Even though LinkedIn improved its design in 2021, I still see some improvements that can be made to be more user-friendly. Further on, I would like to proceed with another project with the current setting page.