8 weeks
UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
A lot of young people struggle to find a starting point in their career journey. Seasoned professionals, on the other hand, seek ways to grow their leadership skills and share knowledge As a solo designer, I set out to create an intuitive experience that would allow entry-level specialists to browse, filter and sort mentors and easily book video conferencing sessions.
The founder of MentorMe had the idea for this startup because of her own personal struggles as a young actress in New York City. Coming from a Canadian family of professional athletes and having very little support in her acting career, she learned the tricks of the trade the hard way. However, in a highly competitive market it was vital to explore the options.
I had an idea that, among all professionals, the creative ones are those who struggle most because, unlike others, they don't have job fairs for young artists. With that said, having a very vaguely defined career path, they're the ones who need guidance most. My goal was to confirm this hypothesis and to define what specifically they would need assistance with.
✓ Surveys
✓ Competitive Analysis
✓ Comparative Analysis
✓ Interviews
✓ Empathy Map
✓ Affinity Map
✓ User Persona
✓ Problem Statement
✓ Information Architecture
✓ Solutions Addressing PP's
✓ Mid-fidelity Prototyping
✓ Usability Testing
✓ Improved Flows
✓ Hi-fidelity Prototype
✓ Validation & Improvement
✓ Animation
Due to the 50 screener surveys I was able to:
Interviewing 5 creative professionals allowed me to outline their specific needs and goals. Here are the key areas where they would require a mentor's assistance:
I analyzed what's already out there by reviewing the most popular apps providing similar services. Key insights:
This exercise helped me summarize the research findings and discover opportunities worth exploring.
..and was willing to address my persona's challenges. Melanie is an aspiring young artist from Berlin looking to eventually sell her oil paintings worlwide.
HOW MIGHT WE connect artists to trustworthy mentors within the budget?
It was essential to establish the information architecture and outline main flows. For an MVP, I landed on four tabs for the app.
I worked on two main flows:
Upon the first round with 5 participants, it was clear that while the prototype was intuitive on high-level, it still had a few issues. Mostly, sorting and filtering system needed work. I researched and brainstormed a few helpful improments.
✓ Filter "buttons" based on most popular creative fields
✓ Prompts while typing in the search filed
✓ Quick access to categories & services
✓ By location & availability
✓ Category / creative field
✓ Art medium
✓ Rating & price
✓ Language
✓ Location & time zone
✓ Message button on mentor profile
✓ Chat accessible from any screen
✓ Video calling button for the upcoming session
✓ Saving to favorites
✓ Multiple payment methods
✓ Saving payment details for future
All of the improvements were implemented while prototyping in higher fidelity.
I designed and animated MentorMe logo and came up with the little motto.
It was crucial to enable video chatting from multiple entry points. I integrated the CTA into both "My Sessions" and "Chat" tabs.
As an important step in building trust to mentors, I introduced the "Leave Feedback" feature. I also developed a few other microinteractions to smooth things out between the user and the app.
After a total of 45 screens capturing the app interactions around browsing & filtering mentors, establishing means of communication between young artists and seasoned professionals, as well as loading & empty states, the hi-fi prototype was annotated and handed off to the developer.
Final step - creating memorable App Store screenshots.
