M2M Mentorship App
Project Type
Side project
Tools
Figma
Duration
Feb 2020 - Mar 2020
My Role
Product Designer
UX Researcher
Introduction
Overview:
M2M mobile app is a platform for sustainable student mentorship connections.
Problem Statement:
New students are looking for help to adjust to new environment and have a great campus life. There are already lots of mentorship programs providing mentorship programs for experienced students and new students are connected as mentors and mentees in the universities. Why are students still having this problem?
Users:
New students who are looking for mentorship from senior students at universities.
My roles:
I am the sole designer and am responsible for the end-to-end design process.
Constraints:
It was a one-week design exercise with constraint of time limit. After the submission, I spent more time polishing it.
Solution Preview
A platform for sustainable mentorship connection
Discover mentorship based on similar interests and goals
Mentees get to choose their mentors from a recommended list based on backgrounds, goals, and availabilities.
One mentee gets help from multiple mentors
One mentee is able to get more than one mentors to help he/she in different aspects of campus life.
Keep mentorship connections by aiming for same goals
Each mentorship is set up based on specific goals to achieve, which provides more motivation for the mentorship.
Design Process
Use Design Thinking process to find a solution-based approach and solve the problem in a short time period
Emphasize
To understand users, I sent out a survey and interviewed students who are potential users.
Survey
Survey (51 responses) - To gain insights in students’ preference for mentorship
The survey was conducted to gain information for the research questions below:
Under what circumstances do students need mentorship?
In what form do students want to be paired as mentors and mentees?
What kind of mentorship do students want?
Interview
Interview (5 participants) - To emphasize users by interviewing students with mentorship experience
The interviews were conducted to gain information for the research questions below:
How do mentors and mentees like the pairing process based on their experience?
How do different types of mentorships work and what are the difficulties in the process?
What is the most important thing in a mentorship?
Research Insignts
New students need help in different aspects of the campus life.
Most of the mentorship, mentors and mentees are matched based on their answers for questionnaires. But there is a chance that people do not click.
Students usually have enough motivation to join the mentorship program but lack of motivation to keep on mentoring.
Define
Journey Map
Create user journey map based on research finding and discover issues
Pain Points
How might we provide long-lasting mentorship?
Based on the user research, most of mentorships did not work due to these 3 pain points.
Ideate
Based on the problems found in the user research, I proposed design solutions correspondingly.
Design Solutions
Brainstorm
With the identified issues and proposed solutions, I brainstormed some design ideas.
User Flow
I integrated the design solutions into a user flow for the mentorship app.
Prototype
With a clear direction, I created low-fidelity prototypes to quickly visualize key solutions and test with users.
Wireframe - Solution 1
Issue: Bad match
Solution: Choose mentors from the recommended list
Sign up - Recommend - Select - Connect
Wireframe - Solution 2
Issue: Different needs
Solution: One mentee matched with multiple mentors
Review list - Connect - Add multiple mentors - Schedule meetings
Wireframe - Solution 3
Issue: Lack of persistence
Solution: Set up goals
Reminder - Check progress - Schedule a meeting
Test & Iterate
To identify usability issues, I conducted usability testing on low-fi prototypes. A high-fidelity version of prototypes was developed afterwards based on user feedback.
Feedback 1 - “The scheduling system is too complicated.”
Iteration: Complicated meeting schedule process VS Pre-filled meeting request
Most of the participants complained that this system is too confusing and complicated. As most students have fairly regular schedules, I simplified the scheduling process to have a regular meeting time agreed by both mentor and mentee, and mentee will request the meeting before the meeting times to confirm that each meeting can proceed as usual.
Feedback 2 - “The “channel” feature here is confusing.”
Iteration: Integrated social features VS Focus on mentorship
In the first version of the app, there is a “channel” feature for students to find events under different interests and industries. Participants were confused about this feature. They did not know what it was for and when to use it. I did more research and analysis. I think it would be better to focus on mentorship related features first. After gaining more user base, I can add back the feature and develop a community in the later stage of the product.
Final Prototype
Discover based on similar interests and goals
Be able to have multiple mentors to get help in different aspects
Keep connection based on aiming for same goals
Reflection
Gain insights from participants’ previous experiences.
In the user research phase, I obtained a lot of important information from the survey and user interviews, which helped me empathize users, discover design opportunities and develop design solutions accordingly.
Focus on main problems need to be solve in the product.
Mentorship is a broad topic and there are a lot of issues to be solved. I found the three major issues of the existing mentorship system, and I directed the resources to solve these issues.
Test the idea in the early stage of a project.
I did usability testing with the low-fidelity prototype and integrated participants’ feedback when I worked on the high-fidelity prototype. The testing in the early stage helped me iterate design ideas in a more efficiently way.