Mentorship Project
Year
2020
Role
UX/ UI Designer
Team
Solo
Project Overview
New students experience both excitement and nervousness at the same time. Furthemore, the first semester is a trial period where new students can figure out how to enjoy school life for the time they will be there. If the trial period is not successful, they are likely to have some difficulties.
Especially in our school, we have a lot of international students. One of my classmates came from China recently this spring semester. Since she entered in the Spring and started from the second week of the semester, I realized that she was always in need of help. Furthermore, the coronavirus situation has made her experience more frustrating since whenever people meet her, they will always ask her about the virus. For these reasons, I realized that students need a system to help them adjust to their school lives.
Aims and Goal
Making connection between the students by encouraging and counseling each other through mentorship program.
Objective
To make community by matching someone need help and someone wants to help others.
Research
1. Listen To People
What are the biggest issues for students?
In order to find out the problems that students are suffering from, I decided to talk with new students and
current students about what they need and what they expect from the mentorship system as well.
Thus, I conducted in-depth interviews with Ȁ students.
2. Cultivating Empathy
“I want to be a mentor and mentee at the same time”
After the interviews, I realized that some students want to be a mentor and mentee simultaneously. Some of the senior students said that they still need help since they want to improve their skills to get a job after they
graduate. I analyzed their ideas based on their interviews.
3. Finding after the interviews
Mentee
1. Need personalization guidance
2. Want to see the mentor's review
3. Want to have a mentor as a group
4. Want to have some English conversation
Mentor
1. Want to set subject what I want
2. Want to set time schedule
3. Want school to provide meeting room or space
4. Want to get paid (credit or reward)
User Empathy
To understand mentees and mentor, I explore users thoughts using personas, empathy maps,
user journeys and mental models.
Proposal for Mentoring Program
1. Diverse Categories
By offering diverse categories, mentors and mentees can talk about some specific skills, casual subjects, or their interests.
2. 1:1/ Group Mentoring
Some of the students prefer to have a group mentor as it can be more productive and more
information can be related to each other.
3. Flexibility of Schedule
Mentoring can be run either offline or online for students in order to allow students to have the
freedom to juggle their careers and school. Therefore, they are not tied to a fixed schedule.
4. Review System
With a review system, mentors will have more responsibility and it will also help the
mentee to choose the right mentor.
Ideal Interaction User Flow
Proposal for Project concept
Wireframe Design
I sketched wireframe focused on core functions based on user needs.
Final Design
I sketched wireframe focused on core functions based on user needs.
Potential Opportunity for Mentorship Program
1. Credit/ Reward
In order to encourage students to be a mentor, the school needs to offer either credits or
reward when the mentor completed a certain amount of time.
2. Walk-ins Appointment Available
Students can try the walk-in sessions for a subject.
3. Weekly Appointments
Students can request an appointment in which they meet with the same tutor at a
fixed time every week.
4. Online Mentoring Service Available
Using Zoom or Skype, students can easily participate without any boundaries.
Summary
It was a great opportunity for me to learn how to design app for students such as making a connection between the students by mentorship program. Through the interview with students, I was able to plan the overall mentorship app design for them. I think it's very successful and I am happy to develop this if I have any further opportunity.