Linkedin and labels

"linkedin logo" by clasesdeperiodismo

I spent the weekend focusing on family matters including falling from foldable tripod ladder which has decided to fold itself while I was on it. Luckily enough my butt was the first body part to hit the ground, sparing me a broken back or head.

Hide and seek

Aside from that I worked a lot on my LinkedIn profile and realised not much has changed since I took my parental leave, which was about 5 years ago and not because it was perfect as it was if you catch my meaning. LinkedIn is surely one of the best platform to reach out to potential employers and look for job openings. However I spent quite some time updating my profile, changing my "about" section, adding new skills, uploading my resume... Talking about uploading my resume, if I am not mistaken, I remember that some years ago, you could upload a file or insert a link easily just clicking a button on the top-right side of the profile page.

Now if you want to do the same you have to go to "add new section", click on "featured" to open a drop down menu which includes "media" for any kind of upload including resume, and "link". Which it's not the most intuitive place I can think of.

Hurray! You learned a new language! 

If you like to update the languages section of your profile instead, you have to click again on "add new section", click on "accomplishments" and then "languages". Wait... What? Under "accomplishments"?

I understand that it's not easy to make the right choice and the "right choice" is often debatable but in my opinion a language is commonly considered a knowledge or a skill. This is not just an example of poor judgement in giving a label but the aftermath of an increasing complexity. If you want to include everything you will probably have a price to pay in terms of usability. 

As Steve Krug stated in the title of his famous book about usability: "don't make me think!". I do believe that if you have to spend even 5 minutes to look for anything on a webpage, a social platform, or mobile app, etc it can mean only two things: you either don't have great technology skills or the usability can use some boost/improvement.