Mentorable

Enabling millennials to learn and grow in their careers through situational coaching.

TIMELINE: 4 months

ROLE: Solo Project for Springboard's UI/UX Bootcamp

A few years ago, I moved to the SF Bay Area to marry the love of my life. I left a thriving career at a global agency to move to a country where I knew nobody, and I had no way of knowing how to navigate the circumstances I found myself in.

I needed a mentor or coach, but I didn’t know how to get one outside a place of work. Neither did any of my peers.

THE PROBLEM

Millennials are disappointed by a lack of opportunities to learn and grow professionally

And that’s a big problem because millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025. That’s a LOT of disgruntled folks who are not motivated to work.

THE SOLUTION

Customized Experience

An onboarding process that enables users to personalize their mentoring experience to cater to their needs and allows them greater flexibility

Proactive Recommendations

Tailor-made recommendations to provide users with a starting point or a next step in their professional development journey

Flexible Learning Environment

Users have the freedom to choose what, how, and when they learn, allowing them to take on professional development on their terms

USER RESEARCH

A personalized approach to mentorship that puts millennials in the driver's seat

While secondary research overwhelmingly points to a need to change or redesign the process of finding mentors and coaches, I conducted user interviews with five individuals between the age of 24 - 40 to understand what is working, what isn’t working, and what improvements and changes millennials are looking for. I then performed a thematic analysis using affinity mapping.

These are the questions I asked users:

What areas of career do professionals need help with the most?
What (classes, courses, talks, seminars, coaching) has made a big difference in their career trajectory to date?
What is the preferred way to perform these activities?
What are some of the past issues and challenges they’ve encountered with mentoring?
What can be done to improve or simplify the process, or what needs to change?

The users I spoke to could be divided into two categories

Mid-career professional in transition.

She's feeling stuck or stagnating or sometimes dealing with burnout, imposter syndrome, and the like. She needs proactive guidance and actionable feedback as a part of a safe support system to feel like she's living out her potential.

Christine H.

34, SF Bay Area, Graphic Designer

Goals:

Develop her management & leadership skills
Transition into a new career
Feel supported at work
Invest in herself, live out her potential

Needs:

Safe space to ask for help
Constructive & actionable feedback
Proactive guidance
Learn from peer experiences

Frustrations:

Feels stuck
Burnout from having to figure it all out
Stress, imposter syndrome

Wants:

Online video calls
Company pages
Flexibility to choose time, location, mentoring style
Search by skillset/needs

22, Orlando FL, Student

Hailey D.

Goals:

Good job with a steady income stream
Transition from college to work
Work for a team/company that is invested in her

Needs:

Guidance on the next steps
Help with portfolio, resume, personal branding
Gain job-specific skills
Positive & affirmative feedback

Frustrations:

Loss of college support system
Pressure of getting a good job or internship
Running out of time and money

Wants:

A community-based forum where you can read & contribute
Searchable FAQs
Reviews and ratings

Graduate starting UI/UX Career

Hailey feels the loss of her college support system, and she's lost when she takes her next steps. She needs help with tangible things like her portfolio or resume and gaining the skills she needs for her career.

I sifted through the interview data, and almost immediately, I noticed some trends across the responses. I started grouping similar responses in clusters until I had the insights I needed to take next steps.

MAIN INSIGHT

Millennials need flexible, proactive, and personalized professional guidance and support

Users complained about not having a say in certain areas of the mentoring relationship and process and, at the same time, having to take ownership of the conversation and the outcomes.

Recurring Themes

SITUATIONAL COACHING

Want to acquire a new skill
Feeling stuck in a career
Transitioning to a new job or role
Want to grow in career
Need help with LinkedIn profile and cover letter
Need help networking
Accountability

FLEXIBLE AND SELF-PACED

Zoom calls with flexible scheduling
Flexibility to meet in-person
Community-based forum
Daily tips
Video tutorials
Step-by-step instructions and resources

COMMUNITY

Find a good support system
Seeking connection through helping others
Bounce ideas off one another
Different backgrounds, different perspectives

“I know I can do it, I have it in me. I just need some guidance to help me along the way”

DEFINE

A need to redesign the online mentoring experience to deliver proactive guidance and flexibility to millennials

The time I spent conducting user research and synthesizing the research started to pay off. The recurring themes from the research gave me what I needed to narrow down to three to five problem areas.

I knew I had to simplify the process of finding career coaches and mentors from similar backgrounds. And I knew there was a need to redesign the online mentoring experience to deliver flexibility and proactive guidance. But that seemed like a daunting task for someone relatively new to UX design, and many self-doubts started to creep in.

At this point, I used a technique I tend to use when I feel like I'm struggling to quiet my mind and find clarity. I decided to sleep on the problem. The following day, I woke up knowing what my problem statement needed to be.

How might we create opportunities for millennials to learn and grow professionally through situational coaching?

IDEATE

Prioritizing the most critical features that meet user needs

I knew I wanted this app to create opportunities for users to learn and grow professionally. During interviews, users themselves.

Keeping in mind the recurring themes from talking to users and getting a better understanding of their needs, I created user stories and listed out all the things that users want to be able to do. I evaluated each item and set a high, medium, and low priority for each user story. This helped me determine what features should be a part of my MVP.

SKETCHES

A three-phased approach to addressing user needs through design

Having identified several UX patterns that could potentially address my user needs, I began evaluating different products and apps using these patterns.

At the same time, I was conducting several informational interviews with UX designers and gained exposure to several apps and patterns that I hadn't consciously thought about or studied earlier. Looking back, I'm so grateful for these conversations and the discoveries they led to!

I studied app structures, patterns, flow, and design and noted anything I could replicate in my app. By this point, it was time to start creating quick napkin sketches to bring all these ideas to life. I tried to approach each screen or issue with as many solutions as possible without judgment.

Finally, I evaluated each screen based on how well it served the user and accordingly narrowed it down to one option per screen. I spent some time refining each shortlisted screen from my napkin sketches.

WIREFRAMES

Incorporating feedback and making iterations

Armed with app sketches, I conducted guerrilla usability tests with five users. These tests gave me a good direction regarding improvements I needed to make to the sketches.

The significant areas of feedback I received were:

Emphasize the primary CTA on every screen
Ability to toggle back and forth quickly between screens
Maintain consistent language and labels across the app
Add descriptions and details to guide users

As the designs evolved, I was confronted with new choices and challenges, which required me to research more UX patterns, assess my designs, and make further adjustments.

HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGNS

Getting ahead of myself, getting a reality check, and recalibrating expectations

By this point, I was frazzled. I got a round of feedback on my initial round of napkin sketches. I should have refined my sketches further and evaluated if I needed more screens. But I was SO EXCITED to create the wireframes that I dove in head-first.

Lesson learned. Building the wireframes took me way longer than it should have. I was designing wireframes in Figma and making edits to my sketches all at the same time.

Finally, my wireframes were ready, and I got started on my high-fidelity screens. Despite building a style guide that perfectly balanced my personal preferences and what the product/brand needed, I was no longer feeling very inspired.

I mostly replaced the colors in the various boxes and buttons in my wireframes. I had spent years as a marketing professional, evaluating designs for multiple brands and clients. And honestly, these designs would not have made the cut. But I forged ahead, reminding myself that progress is sometimes better than perfection.

I shared my concerns with my design mentor when I finished my designs. Her advice was simple, but it transformed my perspective — what I think about my designs and how they 'look' is not nearly as important as what feedback I get from users.

Thanks to a long weekend, I took a few days offline. I returned, recharged, put some finishing touches to the high-fidelity screens, and was ready to ship them out for usability testing.

TESTING AND FINAL DESIGNS

A time and place for improvements

Based on the feedback I received from usability testing, as well as, from my design mentor, I made several improvements to the designs.

Simplifying Navigation

Getting rid of 'unnecessary' clicks

I also used this opportunity to overhaul the design to make it look more contemporary.

Mentorable Mobile App - Prototype

REFLECTION

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

I can't believe how much I got to learn from this project!

As a first-time designer working solo, this project felt large and overwhelming at times. However, it helped to connect with my 'village' which includes other students in the same boat, as well as my design mentor. I realized that it was okay to start in a place of uncertainty about project outcomes and scope, and slowly watch the project come to life. It also dawned on me that there would always be a trade-off between submitting work that I think is perfect vs. how much I can get done within realistic timelines.

If I had more time to work on this project, I would love to explore the experience from the perspective of the coaches and mentors, and how the product could be improved to help them provide better products and services to users.