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

I am the only full-stack UI/UX designer of this project. Iā€™m responsible for all the design procedures: Defining the business goal and user groups, taking side-by-side interviews, creating the user persona, forming the journey map and information architecture, building wireframe, and making final mockup designs for the company eventually. 

* This project is inspired by my work experience in Altomni Corp. The company didnā€™t publish or assigned any names, logos, brand identities, and actual product for this design project. 

RESEARCH STAGE I: DESIGN CHALLENGES

User type:

What are the user groups? Mentor, Mentee, Admin?

How to configure the role of three potential user groups?

How to activate potential users?

Process:

Howā€™s the current mentorship connection experience?

How can mentees connect with a mentor?

Should an administrator be involved in the business?

What tools or software are needed for mentoring?

How many mentees VS. mentors?

Any competitors in the market?

Information:

Information needed for mentors/mentees?

Information needed for courses?

RESEARCH STAGE II: SIDE-BY-SIDE INTERVIEW

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

Mentee: Kevin L. - Freshman at School of Visual Art. (Online meeting)

Mentee: Gary F. - Beginner Software engineer at Larksuite. (Online meeting)

Mentee: Shirley A. - Having a new position of Product Designer in Google. (In person)

Mentor: Krista D. - PM at IntelliPro Inc. (By phone)

Mentor: James W. - Computer Science mentor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (In person)

Mentor: Shujing Z. - CEO of Greendeer Application Guidance Shanghai. (Online meeting)

Question included:

  • If you have spare time, do you want to join a mentorship program.

  • Mentorship frequency.

  • Feeling before and after completing a whole mentorship course.

  • Tool for mentorship and howā€™s the experience.

  • Number of mentees.

  • How to prepare for a course.

  • How to schedule a mentor course.

  • Preferred course duration.

  • How to interact/collaborate during class. 

  • How to find a mentor/mentee.

  • Price would pay/get for each course.

  • How to evaluate a mentee's progress. 

  • How to rate a mentor/mentee.

Inspirational Quotes

Mentorship program is available for each freshman in my college so Iā€™m currently doing it. Although itā€™s online after the pandemic, there are so many students in one meeting and the mentor always ignores our questions. Also, we need to wait for get into the mentor program.

-ā€” Kevin L. Freshman at School of Visual Art

I definitely love helping people in my field to improve when everything fits in time. It would just be even better if I can get extra income because life is really hard.

-ā€” Krista D. PM at IntelliPro Corp.

I do mentorship with high school students everyday to help their college application. I found itā€™s really hard to demonstrate materials or do some hand writing if I need to. We use Zoom.

-ā€” Shujing Z. CEO of Greendeer Application Guidance Shanghai

RESEARCH STAGE III: FINDINGS & USER PROBLEMS

Mentee:

  • Donā€™t know where to find a mentor. 

  • Introductory courses can be pre-recorded. 

  • Hard to find a mentor that highly matches the needs of mentees. 

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

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

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

  • Hard to get the schedule for the next class.

  • Need help with how to review.

  • Time zone between east and west coast (or global). 

Mentor:

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

  • Hard to match schedule.

  • Hard to track menteeā€™s progress.

  • Hard to demonstrate prepared material. 

  • Limited flexibility for question answering.

  • Hard to balance the efforts on each mentee because of the number.

  • Almost impossible for quick time adjusting.

  • Hard to see the overall mentorship impact.

  • Sharing assets based on multiple platforms. 

  • Hard to know if their suggestions really work.

PERSONA

JOURNEY MAP

IDEALTION & CONCEPTS

  • Set an onboarding process for better user matching

  • 1 on 1 meeting and group discussion format

  • Smart calendar function for users in different time zone

  • Messaging function

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

  • Preview course info (short video)

  • Prepare recorded courses for basic knowledge as a time saver.

  • Blackboard function for mentorā€™s demo and menteeā€™s note taking.

  • Notes function for mentees to create their own review material.

  • Mentor create group discussions for mentees interested in same topic.

  • Upload and download course material.

  • Meeting can be recorded.

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

  • Review rates and comments. Build up a mentorship community.

  • Admins for paid mentorship courses and financial issues.

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

USER STORYS

DESIGN GOALS

  • Mentees can find mentors within in 5 minutes without additional help

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

  • Mentors can easily demonstrate teaching process

  • Mentees are able to pay price that equivalent the knowledge gain from mentors

WORKFLOWS

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

WIREFRAME

User Sign Up & Onboarding Process:

Mentee Onboarding:

Mentor Onboarding:

Mentee Screen:

Mentee View Course:

Mentee Create Note Pack & Write Notes:

Video Mentorship Service:

Messaging & Account:

Mentor Calendar:

Mentor Course Managing & Confirm Mentee Request:

Mentor Dashboard:

Mentor Inbox & Create Group Chat:

USER INTERFACE DESIGN

Mentee Main Screen & Search.

Mentorā€™s schedule and files are pre-uploaded before starting the mentorship. A time saver!

View Course & Mentor.

Apply For Mentorship.

Menteeā€™s Course Content

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

Vedio Mentorship

Both Mentor and Mentee can enable ā€œBlackboardā€ for demonstration. Functions like ā€œSaveā€ would help mentees to save mentorā€™s handwriting. Also, the ā€œAttachmentā€ function allows users to share files like pdf.

Mentees now can quikly get replies from their mentors. The mentor can also create ā€œGroup Chatā€ for mentees attending same course.

Messging & Get Connected.

Mentors are often busy. The calendar system allows them to add their own ā€œEventsā€ accordingly to their daily schedule. Ready to ā€œsyncā€ with local device.

Mentor Screen & Calendar.

Mentor Dashboard.

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

Mentor Course Managing.

Only mentors can "add or removeā€ the course files of a class. Also, mentors can create a new course and post to mentors.