01
Context
Bridges for Enterprise (BfE) runs a global network connecting social enterprises with pro-bono advisors. Behind the scenes, their recruitment and application management workflows were entirely manual and scattered across tools with no central system.
As one of the first designers on the project, my role was to help build the interface for an internal intranet portal from scratch, while also establishing the design and research foundations for the team going forward. This case study covers the startup application management module, used by recruitment teams to view and process incoming applications.
02
Understanding
System flow
We mapped out the existing workflows of startups who apply to the BfE program, as well as the workflows of the startup recruitment teams who evaluate and process these applications, with the help of their team heads and our product manager.
This gave us a clear picture of the end-to-end process and surfaced the complexity of managing applications across multiple stages and stakeholders.
Role-based task mapping
With the system flow clarified, we mapped out how information needed to flow between the different roles in a digital system, at various stages of the startup application and management process. This stage gave us a high level understanding of all the interactions and features that would be necessary for the intranet portal.
User feedback
We maintained regular communication with the startup recruitment teams to gather feedback on these flows and ensured we had covered the nuances of their daily workflows at BfE correctly.
03
Ideation
Low-fidelity explorations in order to brainstorm on simple ways to solve complex workflows.
Through a mix of walkthrough and user testing sessions, we gathered feedback to understand which options felt more natural and familiar to the user, and which captured the flow of information better.
04
Design
Wireframes
End-to-end workflows were mapped out through detailed wireframes for engineers to start building the tech infrastructure, while we developed and defined the design system.
Design system
We built a custom design system using the Material UI component library, customised to improve aesthetics and user experience. Using an established and well-updated React library helped us save time in development and in maintaining accessibility and usability standards.
High fidelity UI
The startup application form (previously a Google form) is the first touchpoint between a startup and BfE. The application form was extensive, requiring detailed information that applicants wouldn't always have readily available. To reduce abandonment and friction, we designed the form to allow users to save their progress at any point and return to unanswered questions when they were better prepared.
The applicant listing allowed the recruitment teams to view, filter and process applications through a Kanban and a tabular view.
The listing was designed to support two distinct use cases. The Kanban view catered to pipeline management, allowing recruitment teams to track and move startups through stages visually and in bulk, with each column acting as a status filter. The tabular view served use cases requiring broader filters and a holistic view across all applications simultaneously. The dual-view approach mirrors tools like Jira, where the right view depends on the task at hand, not a single fixed layout.
The application management view displayed all the details of the submitted startup application form, the ability to process the application as well as to communicate with the applicant or internally with other team members.
The core challenge was designing a multi-user experience with different permissions and actions across roles, while fitting a high volume of information into a format that remained scannable and consumable. The view needed to surface the right details for each user type without overwhelming any single user with information irrelevant to their role.
05
User feedback on final interface
We had in-depth testing sessions with the startup recruitment teams to gather feedback on the final proposed solution. Through these sessions, a few missing interactions from their current workflows were discovered that weren't initially surfaced, which we had the opportunity to fix before handover.
06
Outcome
The completed designs covering the full startup application and management module were handed over to the development team alongside the component library, ready for build.
- Replaced a fully manual, multi-tool workflow with a centralised internal system.
- Marked the first step in materialising BfE's broader intranet vision.