What You Can Expect From LinkedIn's Mobile User Experience

On December 1st 2015 LinkedIn announced that the much anticipated new LinkedIn mobile experience was now available globally. Most of us have now had time to road-test the streamlined App and worked out what we do and don't like about it. This review is about the 5 main changes and how I've used them to help better maximise my time on LinkedIn. It is my hope that my insights help your LinkedIn App user experience.

The Reasons for The Change

I'd suggest that LinkedIn did some research and looked at other platforms to see what the user experience was like and how they could improve theirs. We can see a few 'Facebook like' changes in the new updates, in terms of messaging, which is less formal and much more user friendly.

From LinkedIn's perspective, here's what Joff Redfern, Vice President of Product, LinkedIn, had to say about the updates.

We’ve not only rebuilt the new Flagship app from scratch but we have taken everything you love and more to develop a mobile experience that is more intuitive, smarter and dramatically simplifies your LinkedIn experience. We know time is scarce, so we made it as easy as possible for you to connect to your professional network and stay informed about the conversations and content most relevant to you.

The App has been streamlined into five core areas, including:

1. Your Feed
2. Me
3. My Network
4. Messaging
5. Search

1. Your Feed (Home) 

Your Feed includes content from your network that LinkedIn decides will help with your professional day. LinkedIn Pulse articles are a great source of information for insights and updates within and beyond your industry. This is where the experience on LinkedIn via the app gets interesting as the feed is based on what LinkedIn determines is most relevant for your industry, function, and skills combined with what conversations and content you care about. 

Joff informs us that -

For the first time, as part of a lightweight onboarding process, we are going to ask you what content you are interested in, and over time you can also unfollow things that are less valuable to you.

So, what does this actually mean? In this article by Adweek on 1st January, 2016, titled '3 Mobile Development Lessons to Take From LinkedIn's New App Design' Shai Wolkimir explains this and states that LinkedIn 'is one company that truly understands the importance of a solid onboarding process, after realizing that their previous improvements encouraged 72 percent of users who completed the onboarding flow to perform at least one app action and become significantly more engaged'. Photo Source: Ad Week

Excellent! So you are asking my opinion and I am more engaged.

2. Me 

This is where you can see all things about you — who’s viewed your profile, who is commenting on, or sharing your posts.

I really like the options now available to make changes to your profile (including privacy settings), however dislike that it's made the summary (a great place to tell your story) somewhere that you need to click into to get more information. Depending on your goals for LinkedIn, you therefore need to be very aware of what others see when they click in and view your profile from the App versus their computer and ensure it caters to both (with 60% + of users accessing LinkedIn via the App).

3. My Network

This feature is a daily briefing of what’s happening in your professional network, so you can see very quickly people you may know, new posts from your network and suggestions to keep connected.

While this feature can be a useful networking tool, newbies beware! You will be given prompts to say congrats to a connection celebrating a new role or work anniversary, or send a message to someone in your network when they have written a post on LinkedIn. When the App first came in I saw an influx of 'Great Post!' in response to the LinkedIn Pulse article I published. While I appreciate and value the sentiment, I encourage users to tailor their messages on LinkedIn.

Another option within this feature (if you choose to sync your calendar with the App) is the  prompts from LinkedIn to look at the profile of the person you are meeting with that day with details on what shared connections or shared interests you have. Tricky!

4. Messaging 

This is probably my favourite change in terms of the updates and is where I think LinkedIn has tried to take a leaf out of Facebook's book (does that even make sense?). The goal is to get people using LinkedIn as the default for messaging in the same way Facebook messenger is currently used. This sits very comfortably with me as I would rather message clients and colleagues on a business platform. This is a feature that is enhancing my LinkedIn user experience as I am using the messaging feature more than I used to.

5. Search

LinkedIn states that 'the search function is now 30% faster, and a lot smarter, so you can quickly find people, jobs and groups you’re looking for'. I often use the search function to find connections and forward their profiles to other people if we have been discussing potential candidates (when I am speaking with recruiters) or potential opportunities to collaborate (when I am speaking with businesses). There are many other ways to use the search function to research potential clients, candidates and companies so speeding it up will make the experience better.

I hope my review of the updated and streamlined LinkedIn mobile App helps your user experience. If you would like to know more about these new features, you may also like to watch Joff's LinkedIn SlideShare Presentation.

While I do spend most of my time either on LinkedIn via the website on my laptop or on the LinkedIn App via my iPhone, I do know that the changes to the App frustrated some iPad users. If I am describing you, simply do what I do when I occasionally view LinkedIn from my iPad and access it via the website and create a LinkedIn icon on your home screen for easy access.

The changes have not replaced my use of the Groups App (which was updated in October 2015) and I dedicate time each week to moderate a private LinkedIn group for my clients and contribute from time to time in other LinkedIn, Content Marketing and Small Business groups (locally and globally).

What do you think?

Please share your experience with LinkedIn.

 Karen is an Independent LinkedIn Specialist Trainer and the Founding Director of Think Bespoke. With over 10 years LinkedIn training experience, Karen is ranked in the top 10 LinkedIn experts for Asia Pacific by the Social Media Marketing Institute.

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