Connecting Aspiring Professionals with Local Mentors
Role
UX | UI Designer
09
Weeks
03
Prototypes
10
Usability Tests
01
Webpage
Problem Space
Despite the proven benefits of mentorship, many young adults continue to lack access to such opportunities due to various barriers, including weak family structures, limited community connections, time constraints, mental health challenges, generational gaps, and cultural differences.
Customized Search
Category searches to help find suggested mentors and groups based on initial setup with a search option for quick lookup.
Mentor Profile
A space for mentors to list years of experience, expertise in the field, mentorship possibilities, educational background, and reviews from past mentor relationships.
The Solution
Point Of Contact
To streamline mentor connections, Pivot requires a brief message explaining your mentorship interest. We've implemented word count limits to ensure efficiency.
Dashboard
Provide quick links with recent activity including scheduled sessions with mentors, active chats, and mentor search options
Guidance
To ensure the best user journey, we’ve included error messages, microcopy, and modal notifications for a smoother experience.
Design Thinking Process
Overview
Secondary Research
Formal role model networks are invaluable for fostering better socio-emotional, cognitive development, and skill-building techniques in young adults.
Individuals without formal mentorship opportunities in early adulthood experience more difficulties with:
Psychological well-being
Academic success
Behavioural competencies
Employment opportunities
Mentorship Guidance
Must Be 18-35 Years of age
Entering or in their early stages of a career
Preliminary Interviews
To understand the experiences and perceptions of young adults who have engaged in or aspired to form informal mentorship relationships, I conducted semi-structured online interviews. Participants were selected based on their self-reported experiences of mentorship during early adulthood.
This approach allowed for a flexible in-depth exploration of user narratives, enabling a better understanding of the impact of mentorship on their personal and professional development.
Participant Criteria
Limited access to formal mentorship structures
Located within the GTA
Insights
The approach I took to solving the problem was to connect with young professionals in my community who’ve experienced barriers when assessing comprehensive resources. After initial user interviews and discussions, I discovered that the main points of contention were that current mentorship opportunities and resources are:
Broad in nature and requires more personalization.
Require extensive research and time
Are not promoted to communities that require them the most
Key areas that users indicated as beneficial for finding desired mentors included:
Current Needs
Find mentors that can help with specific needs i.e Resume help, portfolio reviews, ect.
Mentor Information
Quick access to mentor qualifications, years of experience, and self identified barriers
Location Search
Users would like to know the general location of mentors to ensure understanding of local job market
Community Forum
Ask questions in a general forum where mentees and mentors could engage within a non-judgmental format
Affinity Mapping
After initial interviews, affinity mapping of motivations, pain points, and behaviours helped me understand the key theme for product ideation.
A need for better community sharing
How Might we Question
How might we help young professionals access culturally relevant, transparent, and comprehensive resources by connecting them with mentors who share similar professional and personal experiences?
Persona
The Self-Relient Achiever
Experience Mapping
After creating a persona, I set out to understand the journey of my persona’s current information landscape based on secondary research and interview insights.
As part of the ideation phase, I determined that the task flow I wanted to focus on would be the process of searching for a mentor to fit my persona’s needs of connecting with someone to help/discuss his graphic design career. The flow would include:
Mentee homepage
Mentor Category Selection
Mentor profile page
Contact form
Confirmation of request
Notification status
Sketching
Wireframing
To visualize the desired layout, I moved to Figma and initiated the wireframing process. I began with a basic, low-fidelity wireframe using simple shapes and varied shades to define the layout's structure and importance.
This initial wireframe then served as a foundation for a more refined version, where I added placeholder text and simple icons to facilitate the first round of usability testing, allowing for early feedback.
Usability Testing
I conducted two rounds of usability testing with five users each. Analyzing user behaviour and feedback, I identified and addressed critical issues to enhance the overall user experience.
Testing Feedback
Testing allowed me to understand three key areas of improvement with the main feedback surrounding a need for greater information organization of the mentor’s experience, professional title, and years in the field.
Icon Clarification
Testers indicated the user journey would benefit from changing icons throughout the product to reflect the information linked to them better.
Mentor Information
Mentees wanted a more built-out version of a mentor information section to know more about the qualifications and experience to ensure a fruitful experience.
Quick Links
Users indicated they wanted a quick way to access mentor chats, calendar dates, and important information on the homepage.
Branding
To understand how to apply colour, I created a moodboard with 4 keywords that embodied my persona’s journey and experiences. I felt that above all else, change was the biggest theme. Themes surrounding change and playing with the word led me to my product’s name Pivot.
Accessibility
All colours used adhered to a minimum AA standard. In total, two colour combinations passed as AA compliant with all other colour combinations adhering to the maximum AAA compliance.
Marketing Website
To gain insights into how my target user would interact with my product, I created a marketing website. This website serves a dual purpose as a marketing tool and as an extended desktop version of the app. I concluded that a mobile app and a desktop version would optimally cater to the needs of busy young professionals.
Mentee Calendar
A feature that would benefit all users would be a calendar where users could add dates and meeting times to help with organization within the app. and would be located on the main homepage.
Next Steps
Community Forum
I would like to build a community forum within my prototype. This would be an excellent step to help all users communicate more effectively on my platform.
In House Chat Feature
The first step, if I were to build on my prototype, would be to create a chat feature where mentees and mentors can communicate. This would encourage further discussion and resource-sharing
Reflections
Throughout this case study, I improved my design and research skills while sticking to tight deadlines. This process reinforced the importance of striving for pixel-perfect designs while recognizing the need to sometimes prioritize a timely delivery and to reflect on the overall process. I am excited to apply these lessons as I continue my journey in UX Product Design.