Client/Problem:
Student run organization, optiMize, helps young entrepreneurs create impactful projects by offering them workshops, funding and mentors. However, they do not have an efficient way of allowing mentors and mentees to connect with each other. I solved this problem by designing a new feature for an app that would make the process of creating a mentor/mentee relationship quick and easy.
Research:
I created a simple mind map to help me narrow down what are some of the most important aspects of a good mentor/mentee relationship. What I initially came up with as the 3 most important factors of a mentor/mentee relationship were connection, experience and growth of learning. Defining these 3 factors allowed me to formulate some user interview questions that would help me understand what other people generally look for in a mentor or mentee.
User Interviews:
Findings:
For turning to someone for advice, all of my interviewees said it had to be somebody relatable to them either in career, age, ethnic background or experience.
For how people knew they were getting the advice they asked for, the answers I got were: it needed to be honest, positive, not what you want to hear and not “yes men” responses.
For giving quality advice to others, the overall responses I got were: listening carefully, ask questions, relate to the situation, don’t force a solution on someone, talk about past failures instead of bragging about your personal accomplishments and be vulnerable.
Sketches, User Flows & Wireframes:
Once I synthesized my user data, I drew a few User Flows to get an idea of how users would navigate through my app. While establishing the general flow, I started thinking about interface options that would correspond to these steps through userflows.
After drawing some sketches and User Flows, I made my first Paper Prototype of this app and presented it to my classmates to get some feedback.
Paper Prototype:
People liked how it was easy and pretty straight forward to navigate.
Preferences could be condensed into one page.
Need a demographic filter.
Analyzing the feedback I received while testing out my Paper Prototype, I then created a second one to get a closer idea of how this app/feature is actually going to look and function and presented it to a couple of classmates and got some more positive feedback as a result.
Final Prototype:
I used Balsamiq to create my clickable prototype. This allowed me to really see a step-by-step process of how a user would actually go through this app.
Next Steps:
Prioritize advertising this app to professional mentors so they can upload profiles to help get their name out there.
Add a calendar feature, so once a mentor and a mentee connect, they can have an actual date set to remind them when they are meeting.
Implement a short Bio section in the preferences page, so it can help narrow down a match.
Show this app to other Universities so it can be more widely used and accessible.
Give this app a connecting feature with a networking app like LinkedIn.