Mentor.ly

Mentorship addresses the social precedent for meaningful mentor relationships in the world today.

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Gaining Context

User research | Personas | Problem statements | Competitive audit

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User Research

Understanding the user

I interviewed 5 different people about their mentorship experiences and probed for their thoughts on what made those experiences good or bad. This helped me gain a sense of what people expect going into a mentorship relationship, which aided my approach in designing the mentorship platform.

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Illuminating the pain points

Unavailability

Unavailability is a problem many people have when mentoring with someone. We needed a way to make it clear what mentors were getting before they signed up for it.

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Inconsistency

Inconsistency plagues many relationships today, so we needed to find a way to provide accountability to mentors and mentees alike to help keep people on track with their commitments.
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Can’t find anyone

Many people today can’t find anyone to mentor them. While this may be for various reasons, a tool like the one we were building needed to make it easier than trying to find someone in person, since that clearly has not worked for the people struggling here.
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Knows no one

Many people just don’t know anyone who can mentor them or who would want to let them mentor them, so this platform we were designing couldn’t rely solely on mutual connections.

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Personas

Tarryn

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Darrell

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Competitive Audits

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Starting the Design

Sitemap | Paper wireframes | Digital wireframes | Low-fidelity prototype | Usability study

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Sitemap

We created a sitemap for the ideal mentorship website, based on our research.

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Paper Wireframes

Ideation with wireframes presented a great opportunity to think about target audience and empathize with the people who might use the platform.

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Digital Wireframes

Digital Wireframe Variations

Low-fidelity prototype

Users go through an account creation phase (added from the first version) where they can sign up via LinkedIn. They then fill out their profile and can see resulting matches tailored to their own profile, needs, and wants.

View low-fidelity Prototype: desktop / mobile

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Usability study

Parameters

Study type: Moderated usability study
Location: United States, remote and in-person
Participants: 5 participants
Length: 20-30 minutes

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Findings

• Inspire Trust
• Guide users
• Be extra clear

Our study led us to the following conclusions. In a nutshell: more transparency. The tool needs to inspire trust while assisting the building of rapport between potential mentors and mentees.

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Based on our study,

1. People need to be given clear feedback each step of the mentor-finding process, including the confirmation after the final step, and
2. The mentor request and mentor search features left users uncertain about functionality and how these features applied to them.

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Refining the Design

Mockups | High-fidelity Prototype | Accessibility Considerations

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Mockups

Search-by-tag, Mentor ratings, and relevancy ratings at a glance were all suggested and implemented.

Multiple usability participants wanted to see reviews and credentials on the Mentor page.

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Mockups: Original screen size

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Mockups: Mobile

Screen size mockups included the mobile variety which focused on emphasizing the most important part of each page so that nothing important was lost. Whereas Call-to-action buttons are small (yet prominently displayed) on a large screen because of the novelty factor. Buttons needed to retain their distinct size on mobile screens to allow adequate real estate for tapping.

High-fidelity prototype

High-fidelity prototypes focused on rich user experience while keeping everything clear, systematic, and concise.
Prototype: desktop / mobile

Accessibility considerations

We needed to make sure colors showed up well (high-contrast) for all users, including the older demographic which we believe will make up many of the people using the tool. Font-size was an issue that we wrestled with in order to best display information without compromising on professionalism in the brand. Clearly labeling forms was a top priority in order to make them accessible to everyone.

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Moving Forward

Takeaways | What I learned

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Takeaways

Impact

“I think it's really simple.”
–Krista F.
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What I learned

Mentorship is a complex feature of the human existence with a unique, person-by-peron dynamic. Instead of forcing people to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to finding & interacting with mentors, we fostered an atmosphere where individuals get to decide how they would reach out to and interact with their prospective partners.

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View Case Study Deck.

Let's connect!
zachary@dewfire.com

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