Challenge
To design a digital mobile interaction that improves the experience of finding a mentor in the workplace.
Role
UX/UI Designer, User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, User Testing, Design System, Brand Development
Platform
Android
Tools Used
Figma, Notion, Google Workspace, Procreate
Timeline
10 Weeks, June-Sept 2023
THE PROBLEM
Working professionals have a hard time finding and keeping mentors.
Mentorships can boost our careers and job satisfaction, as well as reduce our feelings of isolation at work, but currently, there is no easy way to tell who can invest their time and energy to mentor someone.
MY SOLUTION
A mobile app that shows employees who is available and willing to mentor in their own workplace.
The Mntor App addresses common needs for mentees in the workplace, such as:
• Full visibility of coworkers available for mentorships
• Hand-selecting mentors who match their needs
• Having a mentor who knows the context of the mentee's struggles
• Having the support of employers in their professional development
Step 1: Discover
Research, Research, Research
The Double Diamond framework will help structure my design process by dividing it up into 4 major stages.
Secondary Research
From where I was standing, the lack of mentorships was very troubling, but what if nobody else felt the same way? Conducting secondary research is the first step to validating, or challenging my own beliefs.
Primary Research
I conducted User Interviews to gather qualitative data and hear first-hand from my peers why mentorships aren't a bigger thing in the modern workplace.
Participant Criteria:
• Works in a setting where digital products are used
• Between the ages of 25-40
• They have experience in mentorships
I conducted 5 interviews with a set of open-ended questions, and probed them about their pain points, attitudes and behaviors concerning mentorships in the workplace.
Competitive Analysis
I looked at services such as 10K Coffees, MentorcliQ, and Qooper. These services focused on employee-to-employee mentoring, which was the direction I wanted to go in.
To see how these apps have solved the problem, and what they can do better, I asked myself these questions:
1. How do they match their employees?
2. How do they engage their employees during the use of their product?
3. How do they get around the busy schedules of their employees?
4. What is the overall feeling of using the platform, from the employees’ POV?
5. What are the strengths of the competitor?
6. What are the weaknesses of the competitor?
Here's a quick summary of my findings.
👍Pros:
These services tend to use Auto-Matching.
They're integrated with other software such as Zoom.
👎CONs:
Because of Auto-Matching, onboarding is long.
The user experience also tend to favour admins/HR, reducing THEIR workload of having to manually matching employees with spreadsheets.
The UI is boring.
There is evidently a gap in letting employees take the lead, and secondly, the element of delight was missing in competitors' products.
Step 2: Define
Finding My Focus
Now that I have a huge pile of data, it's time to sift through it all and pinpoint where exactly we need a digital intervention.
So. Much. Data.
In order to make sense of all the data, I used the Affinity Mapping process to help sort everything into Pain Points, Behaviours, and Motivation.
Tip of the iceberg of my interview data
A Story of Two User Roles
I learned that I made the mistake of interviewing people who have been both a mentor and a mentee, and as a result, I had two sets of data from two different user roles.
Although the research I gathered from the mentor's POV was extremely valuable, I had to make the choice to prioritize the mentees. The reason is simply because there are more mentees in the workplace, and they are generally less-connected than mentors, meaning they would benefit from a digital solution more.
I resynthesized the interview data, and this time, I only focused on the mentees' experiences:
I decided to focus on the key theme of "Finding Mentors", as it is always the first step to getting mentorships started.
This was my final How Might We:
How might we match employees with suitable mentors in the workplace in order to support their professional growth and increase job satisfaction?
Meet Our Persona
Based on my interview data, I created Wendy. This will help as I imagine myself in her shoes every step of the design process to ensure I am meeting my users' needs.
Click to expand
Wendy's Current Journey
Next, I created Wendy's Experience Map when searching for her dream mentor, in order to accurately pin point where a digital intervention would be most effective.
Click to expand
Step 3: Develop
Ideating Solutions
Now comes the fun part—I need to find solutions that will help users match with their dream mentor. No idea is a bad one!
The 4 W's
Actually, the 4 W's here are "What Would Wendy Want?"
For this, I wrote User Stories, and then sorted them into Epics. This helped me prioritize which task flow and functionality to design.
I discovered 5 Epics:
1. Connecting with Mentor
2. Mentor Recommendations
3. Creating a User Profile
4. Engaging with Community
5. Search for a Mentor
Chosen Epic: Search for a Mentor
The Search Task Flow
I translated the Epic of "Searching for a Mentor" into a Task Flow.
As a mentee, Wendy wants to search for a mentor and filter the results, so that she finds someone who is a right match for her.
Click to expand
Sketches
I expanded each screen from the Task Flow into 3+ sketches, keeping loose with my ideas at this stage.
Click to expand each image.
The "dating-app" style of confirming mentor matching missed the mark for a professional workplace application, so I cut it out.
Step 4: Deliver
Build, Test, Iterate
During this stage, I will execute my proposed solutions, test it with users and implement the revisions. The goal is to improve the user experience with each iteration.
Initial Wireframes
Now it was time to move things from paper to Figma. I translated my solution sketches into Mid-Fidelity wireframes, which were then prototyped for user testing.
Click to expand each image.
Testing, Testing!
I conducted two rounds of usability testing, iterating between each round.
The Home Screen was cluttered with unnecessary information, distracting from the CTA. I added a Search Bar and cleaned up info irrelevant to the user's needs.
The Date/Time Picker was confusing due to being unfamiliar to usual mental modes. It was replaced with simple time chips during the chat screen.
I also made other changes to improve the user experience, such as moving the "Schedule Meeting" to after chatting with the mentor, so that the user can get comfortable with the mentor first before committing to a meeting.
Click to expand and view the major changes.
Brand Development
Before I moved onto refining the app into a High Fidelity Prototype, I branched off to explore the branding of Mntor.
From my competitive analysis, I realized delight and warmth were lacking in existing mentorship products. So instead, I wanted Mntor to have a strong visual identity that reflects collaborative and authentic mentorships.
Below are previews of the visual identity story. Click here to see the full version.
Click to expand.
Checking Accessibility
I made sure that the UI adhered to WCAG AA Standards. To do this, I checked the colour contrast of the main use cases with the Stark plugin.
High Fidelity Prototype
Building Brand Awareness
To show what the Mntor App can do, I created a responsive marketing website. The purpose of this website is to tell potential users what the app can do, while raising brand awareness. Converting users to try out the app is also a main objective.
Conclusion
Taking Mntor to the Next Level.
Design "Mentor" View
Although it took me on a detour, my research into mentors gave me lots of good insights into their struggles, such as lack of employer support and lack of mentorship structure. These needs would be taken into account when designing the alternate view of the Mntor app.
Add Mentorship Progress Tracking
One benefit of this is that it allows the employer to know whether the mentee has learned the necessary skills to reach the next level. This way, the user's desire to boost their career is satisfied.
My Key Learnings.
Do not try to solve the problem for everyone
My early mix-up with the user roles was due to me trying to solve the problem for both mentors and mentees. Obviously, that was not feasible and I had to make the decision on what to prioritize.
UX Design is Collaborative
If I relied on my own biases and assumptions, I wouldn't have succeeded in creating Mntor. User feedback, as well as feedback from my colleagues and educators were critical in the development of the product.
Research, research, research!!
I had to dive deep into understanding my users before solutioning. As a result, when I began ideating, I already had lots of ideas on how to make my users' lives easier, and at every step of the way, I knew exactly what users needed.