Transforming Indeed’s Mobile App Experience

In 2022, Indeed faced a critical challenge with their mobile application. Despite being one of the world’s leading job search platforms, Indeed’s mobile app was essentially a hybrid web application that mirrored the desktop web experience. This approach resulted in poor performance, lack of native mobile interactions, and missed opportunities to leverage unique mobile device capabilities.

The app suffered from fundamental design flaws that hindered user engagement and failed to meet job seekers’ expectations for a modern mobile experience. There were no app-first design patterns, no utilization of modern device capabilities like push notifications or location services, and most critically, no clear value differentiators that would compel users to choose the app over the mobile web experience.

Key Challenge: Transform Indeed’s mobile app from a web mirror into a native, app-first experience that would become job seekers’ preferred platform for getting hired.

The Mobile App Landscape

• App users demonstrated significantly higher engagement rates – over 55% of app users had 3+ sessions in 30 days compared to just 6% of mobile web users and 3% of desktop users
• Job seekers expected native mobile experiences with features like push notifications, offline functionality, and intuitive touch interactions
• Competitors were gaining ground with superior native mobile experiences

Cultural Challenge

Indeed’s organization was deeply rooted in web-first thinking, with teams optimizing primarily for desktop and mobile web experiences rather than considering the unique opportunities presented by native mobile apps.

Mobile App Mindset Transformation

The transformation began with a fundamental cultural shift. After gaining alignment from Indeed leadership, we introduced the “Mobile App Mindset” initiative, which represented a paradigm shift from mobile web to mobile app. This wasn’t just a design change—it was a complete reimagining of how Indeed approached mobile product development.

Vision Statement:  The Indeed mobile app is a job seeker’s trusted companion throughout their career.

Core Principles

• App-first design: Every feature should be designed specifically for the mobile app experience
• Native capabilities: Leverage unique mobile device features like push notifications, camera, and location services
• Cohesive experience: Create consistent, intuitive interactions across all app features
• Clear value differentiation: Provide compelling reasons for users to choose the app over web

The Mobile App Blueprint: UX-Led Roadmap Planning

Before diving into individual feature development, I led the UX team through a comprehensive visioning exercise called the Mobile App Blueprint. This end-to-end prototype served as the strategic foundation that would guide our product roadmap and strategy for the year.

Blueprint Purpose & Components

• Core Flows: Elevate the overall job seeker app experience through optimized user journeys
• Design System Foundation: Demonstrate standards for app quality and consistency, laying groundwork for MADS
• Key Features Roadmap: Guide the Mobile Apps FY2024 roadmap with evidence-based priorities

Comprehensive Prototype Scope 

The Blueprint addressed six critical feature areas: Onboarding, Home page (including Dashboard concepts), Search Overlay, Profile, My Jobs, and Messaging. Rather than going deep in any single area, the team optimized for the holistic journey, expecting individual product teams to refine concepts for their specific roadmaps.

Parallel Execution Strategy 

The Blueprint established three parallel development tracks that would run simultaneously:

• End-to-end prototype and user research
• Design system prototyping and component development
• Feature development and roadmap planning

Research Validation

The team conducted comprehensive user research with 7 participants through 90-minute moderated remote interviews, testing both engaged user and new user prototypes. The research focused on overall experience perception and directional feedback on feature usefulness and design pain points.

Strategic Alignment

The Blueprint aligned with broader organizational efforts and business goals, including Indeed’s Visual Uplift project to modernize design across all platforms, ensuring the mobile app transformation would lead the company through this evolution.

Outcome

The Mobile App Blueprint became the definitive strategic document that informed all subsequent feature development, ensuring cohesive execution across teams while maintaining focus on the overarching vision of transforming Indeed’s mobile app from a web mirror into a native, app-first experience.

Research-Driven Approach

The team conducted extensive user research to understand mobile app users’ unique needs and behaviors. Key findings included:

• Mobile app users were indeed “special” – they exhibited different usage patterns and had higher intent
• Users preferred bottom tab navigation for mobile apps
• Native profile experiences significantly outperformed web-based alternatives
• Job seekers wanted a centralized hub for managing their entire job search process

Navigation Revolution: Bottom Navigation Implementation

The Challenge: Indeed’s hybrid app used web-style navigation that felt foreign on mobile devices.

The Solution: Implemented native bottom tab navigation with four key sections: Home, My Jobs, Messages, and Profile. This change immediately made the app feel more native and intuitive.

Impact: User research showed that participants found the new navigation “super clear” and “easier to navigate” compared to the previous experience.

Rich Profile Experience: From Hub-and-Spoke to Unified Profile

The Challenge: Indeed’s profile system was fragmented and didn’t meet job seekers’ mental models for how profiles should work.

The Solution:

• Leap-frogged Indeed’s planned strategy by moving directly to a unified profile system
• Introduced profile photos to humanize the job search experience
• Implemented multiple resume storage and management
• Made it effortless for job seekers to set their profiles to public (the most effective way to get hired faster)

Results: The profile overhaul delivered an 11% increase in job seekers with profile updates, significantly improving both user satisfaction and business metrics. Read more about this initiative in this article on TechCrunch.

My Jobs: Transforming an Underutilized Feature

The Challenge: My Jobs was a completely untapped feature at Indeed, with minimal usage and poor user experience.

The Solution: Complete overhaul to create a robust center for job tracking, including:

• Application status management
• Interview scheduling integration
• Progress tracking across the entire job search journey
• Non-Indeed Apply job tracking capabilities
• Automated job updates providing transparency into the hiring process

Results: The My Jobs transformation achieved a remarkable 528% increase in job seeker reported status updates, growing from 3.5 million to 22 million monthly updates.

Native Messaging: Beautiful and Performant Communication

The Challenge: Indeed’s messaging was built on an outdated email relay system that resulted in a web-centric experience embedded within the app. Despite 57% of all messages being sent via the app, the experience felt outdated, email-like, and failed to leverage native device capabilities. Key issues included:

• Competing content that distracted from core messaging tasks
• Poor information architecture that buried key actions
• Lack of modern mobile messaging patterns and interactions
• No gesture support or native mobile capabilities

The Solution: Complete reimagination of messaging for native mobile. Key improvements included:

Design Enhancements:

• Streamlined Information Architecture: Optimized navigation to focus on key actions and use space efficiently
• Modern Chat Experience: Prioritizing messages while including consistent job context
• Native Interaction Patterns: Introduced swipe gestures, long-press actions, and platform-specific patterns for iOS and Android

New Native Features:

• Online Status Integration: Connected with Profile as an end-to-end feature, showing status next to profile photos with easy editing from Messages
• Responsive Candidate Status: Simple, readable notifications that take up less space and use consistent UI patterns
• Message Drafts: Eliminated job seeker anxiety by allowing draft saving, addressing a critical gap in the previous experience
• Enhanced Attachments: Intuitive attachment flow with preview capabilities, aligning with industry standards
• Conversation Details: Centralized page with all context needed for conversations, with real estate for future features like My Jobs integration

Cross-Platform Excellence: Platform-specific patterns ensured intuitive interactions for both iOS and Android users while maintaining consistency through MADS design system integration.

Results:

• 9.22% increase in sent messages, significantly improving employer-job seeker communication
• Modern messaging experience that users described as “intuitive” and “app-like”
• Organizational influence: The app-first messaging designs inspired web teams to overhaul their experiences and integrate AI functionality, demonstrating the mobile app’s role as a testing ground for innovation

MADS: Mobile App Design System

The Challenge: Inconsistent visual design across the app hindered user experience and slowed development velocity.

The Solution: Pironeered Indeed’s first native mobile app design system (MADS), providing:

• Visual consistency across all app features
• Accelerated development and reduced implementation errors
• Scalable design framework for future features
• Modern, accessible design components

Impact: MADS enabled design-to-development velocity improvements while ensuring consistency as the team scaled. The system became the foundation for all future mobile app development.

The Indeed mobile app transformation delivered extraordinary results across all key metrics:

User Engagement

• Push notifications reach increased by 302%, growing from 15.4 million to 62 million users per month
• Onboarded 75% of US Indeed Monthly Active Users (starting from 0% with native onboarding)
• App users demonstrated 55% engagement rate with 3+ sessions in 30 days (compared to 6% for mobile web)

Feature Performance

• Profile updates increased by 11% following the native profile rollout
• My Jobs status updates increased by 528%, from 3.5M to 22M monthly updates
• Messaging engagement increased by 9.22% in sent messages

User Perception

Research participants noted that the transformed app felt “modern and purposeful,” with users saying:

“It’s kind of like this app really does want you to be successful and get a new job or career. So it’s finding new ways to help you do so with these updates.”

“To have everything all in one place makes everything more user friendly.”

Business Impact

The app transformation positioned Indeed as the definitive mobile job search platform, with users choosing the app over web experiences due to superior functionality, performance, and user experience.

Key Success Metrics:

• Dramatic improvements in user engagement and retention
• Significant increases in core feature utilization
• Enhanced user satisfaction and app store ratings
• ADDITIONAL BUSINESS METRICS NEEDED (app store ranking, revenue impact, etc.)

Team Structure & Leadership 

The transformation was executed by a team of 8 mostly-senior level designers under my leadership and direction. As UX Design Manager, I provided mentorship, guidance, and growth opportunities while coordinating with UX Research and UX Content Design to ensure comprehensive user-centered design across all initiatives.

Cultural transformation is essential: The Mobile App Mindset shift was crucial for organizational alignment and success

Research-driven design works: Extensive user research informed every major design decision, resulting in solutions that truly met user needs

Native experiences matter: Users can immediately distinguish between hybrid/web and native app experiences, with strong preference for native

Systematic approach delivers consistency: MADS design system ensured visual consistency while accelerating development

Mobile-first opens new possibilities: The app became a testing ground for innovative features that eventually influenced web experiences

The success of the mobile app transformation established a strong foundation, but the vision extends far beyond the initial overhaul. In early 2025, I drafted the FY25 UX Strategy to demonstrate continued strategic leadership and innovation, positioning Indeed’s mobile app to evolve from a job search utility into a true career companion.

From #1 Business App to Career Companion

Strategic Vision: “To be the trusted companion in every professional journey—seamlessly connecting talent with opportunity through experiences that inspire confidence, provide support, and ensure no one searches alone.”

Building on the app’s achievement of hitting the Top 10 in the US iOS App Store and driving a 40% increase in engaged users, the strategic roadmap focuses on three key pillars:

Lead Indeed: Elevate the App Experience

Quality & Polish Excellence:

• Implementing fluid animations, gestures, and meaningful haptic feedback to guide users naturally through their journey
• Platform-specific optimizations for Android and iOS to meet user expectations
• Dark mode implementation (responding to over 50% of users who have this setting enabled)
• Quarterly UX QA sessions and dogfooding to maintain premium quality standards

Innovation & Performance:

• AI-powered features that feel natural and helpful, providing guidance without overwhelming users
• Advanced native device capabilities including location services for commute-based job matching
• Camera and voice inputs to simplify communication and application processes

Your Career Companion: Personalized Support

Adaptive Experiences: Tailored guidance based on job search intent, recognizing that users are urgently searching, casually looking, or exploring possibilities

Community & Support: Tools that make job searching feel less isolating by connecting users with others who understand, featuring accountability mechanisms and clear paths to success

Enable Native Excellence Across Indeed

Organizational Impact: Establishing Indeed as a center of mobile excellence through:

• Comprehensive training programs and knowledge sharing across teams
• MADS design system governance and optimization
• Cross-team collaboration frameworks that maintain quality while accelerating development

Strategic Leadership & Execution

The FY25 strategy demonstrates sophisticated strategic thinking by:

• Integrating with broader product strategy while identifying unique UX opportunities
• Balancing innovation with operational excellence
• Creating organizational capability beyond just the mobile apps team
• Establishing measurable quality standards through systematic QA processes and research frameworks

Continued Impact & Innovation

This strategic evolution showcases the ability to:

• Scale successful transformation from tactical execution to strategic organizational leadership
• Balance user needs with business objectives across multiple stakeholder groups
• Drive cultural change by establishing app-first practices across Indeed
• Maintain momentum while building sustainable processes for long-term success

The mobile app transformation laid the groundwork, but the FY25 strategy demonstrates the vision and leadership required to sustain and amplify that success at organizational scale.