Redesigning a bilingual recruitment platform from the ground up
Enjin Inc. was a Tokyo-based startup connecting bilingual talent with international companies in Japan. I led the complete product redesign, covering everything from user research and branding to a fully responsive web platform across desktop and mobile.
- Role
- UI/UX Design, Branding, Graphic Design
- Company
- Enjin Inc., Tokyo
- Duration
- 4+ years (2020–2024)
- Platform
- Web (Desktop & Mobile)
The Challenge
When I joined Enjin, the platform lacked clear user flow, visual consistency, and mobile optimization. Information architecture was confusing, the visual language was dated, and the mobile experience was essentially broken.
The core business problem was straightforward: potential users, both job seekers and recruiters, were dropping off because the platform didn't feel professional or trustworthy enough to commit their career data to.
The original platform. Cluttered navigation, inconsistent visual language, and no clear distinction between three different services.
Research & Discovery
I conducted 20+ interviews with both job seekers and recruiters to understand where the platform was failing. Three patterns emerged: users couldn't distinguish between Enjin's three services (Career, Forum, Community), the application flow had too many steps, and mobile users were abandoning entirely due to broken layouts. These findings reshaped the entire information architecture.
Three recurring themes from 20+ interviews: unfamiliar IA, cluttered UI, and confusing service boundaries.
Restructured user flow, forcing service selection upfront instead of burying it in tabs.
Key Decisions
Decision 01
Three distinct sub-brands under one visual system
Enjin.world had three core services: Career, Forum, and Community. Rather than treating these as tabs in one app, I designed three distinct logos and visual identities that shared a common design language. This gave each service its own personality while maintaining brand coherence.
A staircase, representing the idea of stepping up to a better version of oneself. Career helps users aim for greatness.
Infinity meets speech bubbles. The back and forth exchange of questions and answers, adding wisdom amongst users.
A speech bubble completing a cube, expressing the value of communities as bridges connecting people living and working in Japan.
Decision 02
Teal + off-black palette for professional trust
The original orange-and-green scheme was too playful for a recruitment platform where users are making career decisions. I moved to teal and off-black with high contrast ratios. This conveyed approachability without sacrificing professionalism, and reduced visual noise across dense job listing pages.
English primary font. Simple, professional, high readability across dense job listing pages. Pairs naturally with the teal brand palette without competing for attention.
Japanese fallback font. Designed by Google specifically for CJK rendering at all sizes. Consistent stroke weight with Roboto, so bilingual layouts feel like one cohesive system rather than two fonts fighting each other.
Decision 03
Restructuring navigation from tabs to distinct landing pages
The research revealed that users couldn't distinguish between Career, Forum, and Community when they all lived under tabs in one interface. I separated them into three distinct landing experiences with their own entry points, each optimized for its specific user intent.
UX: Invoke Familiarity
The old IA was too different from what users knew. The solution was to echo UX patterns from their most-visited sites (LinkedIn and Facebook) so the learning curve drops to near zero.
UI: Simplify
"Confused" was a recurring word in interviews. The fix: minimize distracting colors, add whitespace, and let users breathe and focus on content.
The Solution
Since users couldn't distinguish between services, I designed three distinct visual identities that share a common design language. The redesigned platform featured a clean, mobile-first responsive layout with clear visual hierarchy.
The wireframes established the information hierarchy before any visual design, making sure the restructured navigation actually solved the problems we identified in research.
Desktop wireframes. Job filters and service distinction prioritized based on the top research pain points.
Mobile wireframes. Each service gets its own entry point instead of being buried in tabs.
The design system. This component library became the single source of truth across all three service verticals.
The final designs unified three distinct service verticals under one design system while giving each its own visual identity and optimized user flow.
Service selection moved to the very first interaction, not buried as an afterthought.
Career and Forum. Distinct visual identities built on top of shared UI components.
Mobile-first. The broken mobile experience was the number one reason for user abandonment.
Responsive job listing and profile views, optimized for the mobile-majority user base.
Additional deliverables
Beyond the product, I also designed event collateral (standees, brochures, and slide decks) for the Japanese market, keeping brand coherence across all touchpoints.
Tabletop standees. Three service identities applied to physical media.
B2B brochure. Bilingual, designed for the Japanese startup event circuit.
Results
As the sole designer, I owned the complete design output, from product UX and branding to marketing collateral. The component library I built became the single source of truth for all product development, enabling consistent UI delivery across three distinct service verticals.