Design partner (Research, Interview, Analysis, Wire-framing, Prototyping), Primary Client Contact, Presenter
Build total redesign concept prototypes that facilitate development of community and belonging for first generation college students, "Chicago Scholars", to connect with their mentors and each other.
First generation college students of color often feel isolated or lack resources while navigating higher education, especially in predominantly white higher education spaces. The mentors of Chicago Scholars provide guidance and resources, helping students through obstacles at their schools, internships, and places of work. The client, Chicago Scholars administration, had a vision for an online space for mentor-scholar interactions to create connection, a space to facilitate feelings of community and belonging for their scholars.
The client desired to have the following questions answered in our creation process:
Q. What would a social platform that was created by and for young people of diverse backgrounds look like?
Q. How do we create a platform that encourages engagement and bonds users?
We needed to investigate what was both practical and of interest to busy students and mentors, while giving life to the client’s vision.
We worked to better understand the organizational and growth model of Chicago Scholars. We established our stakeholders - Primary: HS, College, and Early Career. In analysis of development priorities, we learned that "success" of nonprofit was measured by student employment outcome and 4-year program completion. Method for success was mentor connection and student engagement with provided resources for internships, job placement, and tutoring.
Through domain and competitor research, we studied features, heuristics evaluations, and reviews of other learner based platforms to understand the market for our stakeholder needs.
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Interview data revealed that regardless of socioeconomic background, race, or immigration status, scholars and mentors were already creating spaces of belonging and safety amongst each other with a range of social media and communication; they already had friend groups, spaces of interaction, relationships with each other, team celebrations, preferred ways of messaging through text and their favorite social media apps.
So, that begged the questions, what would the role of this app actually be?
As we dove deeper into student and mentor interviews and usability testing for wireframes, it became evident that the client vision was disconnected from student and mentor need. Being a part of the Chicago Scholars program, students already felt a connection and bond with their peers and mentors, highly motivated people-of-color who were first generation college students, on this journey together. While the client expressed an interest in creating belonging with more diverse looking emojis and gamified student friendly features and celebration posts, it became evident that access to resources would actually increase traffic on the Chicago Scholars app.
User investigation (interviews, user flow testing, domain research) shaped the true high value opportunities with this project. Three dominant design concepts emerged:
Scholars need to receive credible responses from reliable advisors/mentors to navigate academia and the job market with greater confidence.
Scholars need to feel sage and comfortable asking questions to peers and mentors in a judgement-free environment.
Scholars need to communicate easily and quickly so they can build relationships with their peers, mentors, and advisors and get the resources they need to move forward.
We built prototype features that allow mentors to meet students where they were at, no matter the level of their bond or relationship, and create a place where students ask their difficult questions when they feel nervous, stuck, or frustrated on-the-go. See some highlighted fetures in prototypes below.
👁 CUSTOMIZATION | Filter features also allow students to find peers and mentors that they are interested in building relationships with. Customizable profiles allowed students and mentors to express their interests, backgrounds, and school experience, and filters allowed them find others with commonalities.
🤝 RELIABILITY | Students match with expert, verified mentor based on their area of need, i.e. resume writing, FAFSA, enrollment, LSAT, scholarships applications, schools, etc., areas identified by mentors historical data collection. Scholar view and mentor view of scholar profiles differ for connection needs and professionalism.
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👆 CONVENIENCE | Workshops and small groups can be quickly requested and hosted. Learning new skills and information with increased convenience. Documents and folders are easily shared and reviewed (Google), as an overwhelming percentage of student identified not knowing how to fill our forms, create resumes, study guides etc as a major obstacle. Additionally, jumping between app to email to docs was not preferable.
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❤️ FAMILIARITY | Heuristics mimic favorite social media apps of preferred communication for students (Instagram, the heaviest hitter).
In the initial phases of research, clients were surprised: they expected to be presented with ideas of a gamified social media platform tailored to celebrating diversity and achievement. I was able to create buy-in by presenting the research and the voices of their target users to demonstrate how prioritizing the convenience of the exchange of resources between scholar and mentor would increase engagement on the app because it offered something that no other space could.
A discussion that came up often with the client? Vulnerability can’t be manufactured. Community and belonging are very specific to each person, and we learned that what elicits those feelings often changes rapidly during young adult developmental years. But practical help always allows students to reach their goals and gain access to new spaces. Reliable and safe connection to mentors and each other facilitates trust during those confusing or challenging moments in higher education. Showing those voices and quantitative interview data throughout the process allowed me create client buy-in.
