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i-Mentor
Project:
Role:
Tools:
Time:
Individual Project
User Research, Visual Design, UI / UX, Human-Centered Design
Figma, Illustrator, XD, Photoshop, After Effects
Two weeks (2020)
Chanllenge
The goal of this project is to design a system that allows mentors and mentees to learn about each other on campus. We will begin by considering the needs of both mentors and mentees, including how to connect mentors to mentees, how to help mentees make friends, and how someone may become a mentor in the future.
Everything we do from...
Why
What
How
THIS IS WHY
Imagine you are a freshman,
confused about many things, and urgently need an
experienced
mentor to help you
adjust to campus life.
WHAT IS i-Mentor
i-Mentor is is a mobile app with social, privacy, and efficiency features that allow mentees and mentors to learn about each other more efficiently.
THIS IS THE HOW...
How our design can bring the feeling of social, privacy, efficiency to student life.
Efficiency
01
Question near you to help the experienced students find who need help urgently
The system helps users filter priority requirements by GPS and user preferences, and notifies experienced users.
Efficiency
02
Available mentors to help mentee know who is available now
Category users needs into three themes: life, study and career based on the campus scenario. Allow user use filter to customized needs.
Social
03
Users have to answer a personality survey before sending a friend request
Allows users to browse other people's profiles, and if a user is interested in someone and wants to send a friend request, the user must answer a personality survey before sending a friend request.
04
Privacy
Protect student privacy, by allowing students to anonymously post and answer questions.
Find interested on-campus topics and leave your comment, allow user to anonymously post and answer questions and set the privacy.
UNDERSTANDING
Design Process
Understand
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Online research
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User interview
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Competitor analysis
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Journey map
Define
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Product definition
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Persona
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Design tenets
Explore
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Ideation
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Sketching
Prototype
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Clarifying user flow
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conducting wire frame
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simple sketch prototype
Iterations
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Usability testing
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Re-design
Design
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High-fi mocks
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Accessibility
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Reflection
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Next step
Understand
RESEARCH & UNDERSTAND
Research Goals
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Define scope.
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Understand current solutions and personas.
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Map users' pain points.
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Illustration design opportunity.
Online Research
Two types of mentor system:
Mentorship system
Question & answer system
Findings:
For mentee and mentor, they may either need to discover each other.
Target system:
Integrate two types of systems to help mentor and mentee discover each other.
User Interview
Sam
Echo
senior student
writing mentor
Lisa
senior student
Troy
new student
Rio
new student
Qianshi
new student
Since I decided to go with mentor system which allows mentee and mentor explore each other, I conducted six interviews, half of them are mentee ( new students) others are a mentor. During this interview, I try to understand the current process, how mentee finds the mentor on campus, and how the mentor finds the mentee. Below are some findings.
User Journey Map
Competitors Analysis
I curious about what happens in this market? Is there have a similar product?
Current communication channels:
newsroom, email, phone call, group chat, web/mobile portal or in-person
Take Away
How to enhance both needs to help mentee and mentor discovery each other becomes a big challenge
Findings
Mentor
Experienced Students
Existing Web Portal With Limited Use
a web portal for mentee to find a mentor and make an appointment. But mentor can not actively looking for a way to connect with the mentee
Social Network
experienced student hope to grow personal network and increase potential opportunities for dating.
Get To Know Each Other
when i get the requested from portal, i totally don't know more detail about mentee.
Mentee
New Students
Unfrequent Communication
when I need help, I'd like to know which mentor is available and using an efficient way to give me help.
Low Trust On The Existing Portal
not allow users to anonymously inquire some question.
Not Match With Their Expectations
it is so hard to break the ice and find a mentor to match their expectations.
DEFINE
Production Define
This system has three users: mentee, mentor, and portal manager. I wish the new product I am designing benefits all of them.
Mentee:
Timely find mentor to get help, anonymously post a question, get to know each other, and grow up.
Mentor:
Efficient way to help mentee, actively connect with mentee and help them, grow the personal network.
Portal Manager:
Easy to maintain system healthy, assign a task to some mentor who working on campus and perform KPI with the contractor.
Due to time constraint, my primary focus for this design challenge is mentee's and mentor's experience design.
Persona
Mentor and mentee
Design Tenets
Efficient
Build a product that improves process efficiency.
Trust
Build a reliable product to improve user's connection, and help them grow personal network.
Inclusive
Build a product that satisfied with needs of users with diverse background.
EXPLORE
Directions
Starting ideation the solutions. a lot of options come into my mind and I choose the final 3 options for further consideration.
Sketches - Discover and explore each other
I started to sketch some idea to create a new flow of discovery and explore each other for user
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Winning Directions - Option 03
After listing the pros and cons, the option 03 more benefits to our user with low cost
Define
Explore
PROTOTYPE
Key User Flow
The app will cover mentee discover the mentor, mentor activity answer mentee's question, mentee become a mentor in the future and other features. For this exercise, I currently focus on the mentee and mentor explore each other and mentee may become a mentor in the future.
Wireframes
After doing some hand sketches and decided which direction going to move forwards. I then start to do Lo-fi wireframes
Customized users needs
Mentor discovery mentee and answer questions
Tracking grow up
Submit a new request to add friends
Mentee discovery mentor and send message
Add a question and setting privacy
ITERATIONS
Usability Testing
in order to support the user fleet find mentee and mentor on this app, I did a usability testing with 6 users with the first versions prototype. We have had those testers play different roles to go through the work end to end.
Goal
The user easy to complete the assigned tasks.
The user clear to know each page of features and guide user into next step.
Task
Task 01: Mentor discovers mentee and answers mentee’s questions.
Task 02: Mentee discovers mentor and sends a friend request to the mentee.
Issues found
We have identified 5 issues which required immediate solution.
2 issues that need features improvement
Redesign some key pages
User easy to distraction.
The function is not clear
Make purpose much more clear for user
Make home page more diversity
User easily ignore the section of question.
User don't know the meaning of others.
Highlight the add question section.
Make instruction more clear.
User don't know the current level.
Highlight the current level for the user.
Visualization process of growth.
Iterations
Our Brand
Visual Inspiration
Base on the target user I try to create the mood-board, refine theme color, and do some color experiments with the font.
Clear visual indication to earn user's trust
Clean and simple to improve efficiency
Universal color palette to be inclusive
inspirations: Tinder Airbnb and Quora
i-Mentor Brand
Accessibility
I paid particular attention to accessibility. Including accessible color, high color contrast, large font size, clear visual, big touch area.
Future implementation factors. Voice over, motion, alternative text.
Design
Color
DESIGN
Scenario 01
Troy ask question and find a writing coach
Troy register with college email and get customized recommendations
Troy discovers an available writing coach and send a message
Troy ask the question and setup sharing options
Scenario 02
Keta explore the mentee and make friends
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Kate explore mentee and answer mentee's question
Kate send a friend request
Kate get notifications regarding she’s points update.
Reflection
This was an interesting challenging design exercise. I was able to gain the insights from primary research and secondary research, blend insight into my design at limited time. It provided me the right chance to learn and practice what I learned.
The things I learned from this project: How we trade off the design decision and make the making the choices easier for users; Prioritizing process becomes more user friendly.
Next steps
Prototype and user testing, validate the concept and gather target user feedback for further iterations.
Complete full eco-system, design for portal manager, which platforms help portal manager easily manage this system.
Network effects, build the Connection link all the student.
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