Context

In the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, more and more businesses are taking place online instead of in person. I want to develop an online mentorship connection platform to share knowledge and help others succeed in their professional life. It will be a more mobile, accessible, and achievable experience.

My Role

I am the only full-stack UI/UX designer on this project. I’m responsible for all the design procedures.

* This project is INSPIRED by my work experience in the Altomni Corp. It didn’t take any advantages of the company resources including the main idea, research, and design.

Design Tools

Figma, Miro

A Quick Show

View course

Mentee main screen

Search mentor

Research

Stage I: Design Challenges

Stage II: Side-By-Side Interview

Stage III: Findings & User Problems

Research Stage 1

Design Challenges

Research Stage 2

Side-by-Side Interview

I took the fundamental research and side-by-side interviews with 6 people who have the experience of being a mentor/mentee and studied their current user behaviors. 

Inspirational Quotes

Research Stage 3

Findings & User Problems

Mentee

  • Mentor Availability and Matching Issues:

    • Don’t know where to find a mentor.

    • It is hard to find a mentor that highly matches the needs of mentees.

    • Always get ignored by mentors because of the number of mentees.

    • Attracted by the overpraised introduction of mentors. Regret after taking several classes.

  • Logistical and Scheduling Challenges:

    • Low flexibility. Need office hours or book appointments for simple questions.

    • It is hard to get the schedule for the next class.

    • Time zone differences between the East and west coast (or globally).

  • Educational Content and Delivery Concerns:

    • Introductory courses can be pre-recorded.

    • Need help with how to review.

Mentor

  • Scheduling and Time Management:

    • It's hard to match the schedule.

    • Almost impossible to quickly time adjusting.

  • Tracking and Assessment:

    • Hard to track the mentee’s progress.

    • It is hard to see the overall mentorship impact.

    • It's hard to know if their suggestions really work.

  • Educational Content and Delivery:

    • Not sure about the specific topic each mentee wants to learn.

    • It is hard to demonstrate prepared material.

    • Limited flexibility for question answering.

  • Resource Management:

    • Sharing assets based on multiple platforms.

  • Balancing and Equity:

    • It is hard to balance the efforts of each mentee because of the number.

Synthesis

Persona

Synthesis

Journey Map

Ideation & Concepts

  • Design Goals

  • Ideas

  • User Stories

Ideation & Concepts

Design Goals

  • Mentees can find mentors within 5 minutes without additional help

  • Both mentees and mentors can easily manage overlapping spare time for mentorships

  • Mentors can easily demonstrate the teaching process

  • Mentees are able to pay a price that is equivalent to the knowledge gained from mentors

Ideation & Concepts

Ideas

  • User Experience and Onboarding

    Set an onboarding process for better user matching

    Smart calendar function for users in different time zones

  • Communication and Interaction Tools

    Messaging function

    1 on 1 meeting and group discussion format

    Blackboard function for mentor’s demo and mentee’s note-taking.

    Notes function for mentees to create their own review material.

  • Course Content and Resources

    Preview course info (short video)

    The meeting can be recorded.

    Upload and download course material.

    Mentors create group discussions for mentees interested in the same topic.

  • Monitoring and Analytics

    Prepare recorded courses for basic knowledge as a time saver.

    Provide a dashboard of mentorship data for mentors to analyze better. 

    Review rates and comments. Build up a mentorship community.

  • Administration and Management

    Admins for paid mentorship courses and financial issues.

    Pre-set popular basic questions about the course and display them below the mentor info section.

Ideation & Concepts

User Stories

Design

  • Information Architecture

  • Workflows

  • Wireframe

Design

Information Architecture

Design

Workflows

Design

Wireframe

Final Design


Mentor’s schedule and files are pre-uploaded before starting the mentorship. A time saver!

Schedule meeting with mentor

Apply For Mentorship

Mentees can choose the time and duration of the meeting as needed.

Mentee’s Course Content

Mentees are able to create their own notes by topic and add course resources like practice questions or recordings to form personalized notes.

Vedio Mentorship

Both Mentor and Mentee can enable “Blackboard” for demonstration. Functions like “Save” would help mentees to save their mentor’s handwriting. Also, the “Attachment” function allows users to share files like pdf.

Mentees can now quickly get replies from their mentors. The mentor can also create a “Group Chat” for mentees attending the same course.

Messging & Get Connected

Mentors are often busy. The calendar system allows them to add their own “Events” accordingly to their daily schedule. Ready to “sync” with the local device.

Mentor Screen & Calendar

Mentor Dashboard

Mentors can track their students and their mentorship data weekly, monthly, or yearly.

Mentor Course Managing

Only mentors can "add or remove” the course files of a class. Also, mentors can create a new course and post it to mentors.

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