Odyssey Mentorship App
Teammates
Helen Chan, Jennifer Deng, Ke Li, Caitlin Stange
Tools
Figma, Canva, Miro
My Role
User Research and Analysis, Ideation and Design leader, Lo-fi, mid-fi prototype designs
Project Overview
Graduating U of T students lack specialized mentorship to meet career goals, leaving them directionless and unsatisfied with school resources.
Through this project, we collaborate with UofT’s Innovation Hub to discover a better way for U of T mentorship programs to help prepare students to discover career paths and secure jobs after graduating.
We wish to create…
Strong relationships between mentors and mentees can help provide students with better support as they embark on this new chapter of their lives.
Guide graduating students with tailored advice on their career projections, as well as develop their confidence and bring it with them throughout their professional lives.
Design Process
Let’s Do Some Research…
122
21
4
mentees
mentees
mentees
mentors
66
17
3
mentors
mentors
Screener Participants
Questionnaire Participants
Interview Participants
Affinity Diagram
(click image for detailed version in Miro)
Research Findings
Pain Points:
Not knowing the jobs they qualified for
Current U of T career services are not useful
Confused about what to do for applications
Can’t secure jobs
Opportunities:
Introducing to relevant professionals in the field
Tailored advice on career plan
Creating detailed career plan
Forming mentorship group for group support and skill building
Introducing Our Personas
In this project, my group take both the mentee and mentor into consideration and created both personas for the mentee and mentor. But because of the limitation of time and resources, we only focused on Julia’s journey and needs for this project.
Julia The Job Seeker
22 year old
Master’s of Economics student
Wisteria the Wise
28 year old
Business Operations Lead at a start-up company based in Toronto
To work at a large-sized company after graduation
Help current U of T students understand what it takes to get hired in the current market
To explore career opportunities (e.g., internships) and find relevant mentors
Couldn’t find a job after undergrad
It takes a lot of time to find relevant professionals and receive effective advice from them
Networking and interviews are intimidating and she’s not sure how to navigate this new professional space
To give back to the U of T community without throwing off her work-life balance
Doesn’t know who to get in touch with at UofT’s Career Services to find mentees
Worried that becoming a mentor will take up too much of her free time outside of work
GOAL
NEEDS
OBSTACLES
Follow Me Through Julia’s Journey
To find out what’s missing in users’ current journey when seeking a job after graduating, we created an as-is scenario of the steps Julia took as she graduated and tried to find a job as well as her feelings along the way.
(click image to view full version in Figma)
Time To Think
BIG
Now that we understand Julia’s struggles and needs, our group came up with many solid ideas as well as wild ones.
My personal favourites are career butler which is a personal butler that builds your career plan for you, and the idea of your doppelgänger networks for you, they are absolutely wild and impractical. But in the ideation phase, we try to think outside of the box and hope to find something that will work for us.
Selected Ideas:
Mentor Tinder
Reward Badges
Tailored Advice
(click image to view full version in Figma)
Low-Fi Prototype Storyboards of 3 Features
We named our App “Odyssey.” Odyssey is defined as an adventurous journey and we believe the journey that mentees and mentors go on together fits this concept and our beliefs for this project perfectly.
Mentor Tinder Feature - mentees’ pov
The app will introduce a preference setting process when mentees first register on the app. Preferences are given the freedom to be modified later in personal settings as well.
Mentees can choose to view or send requests to their desired mentors based on mentor profiles.
Mentor Tinder Feature- mentors’ pov
Our group provides a full view of the feature by designing mentor’s pov when receiving a mentee’s request as well.
Mentors are given the freedom to view or accept mentees’ requests.
Reward Badges/Shout-out Features
The shout-out feature is to help mentors get recognition from mentees and U of T to help motivate mentors.
The system will reward badges based on mentors’ quantitative performances, the shout-out feature is for mentees to leave qualitative recognition.
Scheduling feature
This feature provides mentees pre-set and DIY topics to set up meetings with their mentor(s).
The scheduling feature will list out mentors’ available time and mentees’ can choose whichever works for them.
Usability Test 1 Results
2/4 mentee participants had a challenging time finding the Shout-out page
1 mentor participant, wants to have control over her profile page
Click here to see detailed low-fi prototypes and storyboards in Figma
Mid-Fi Prototype
From our first usability test on our low-fi prototype, our participants provided some solid and constructive feedback on our low-fi designs. To update from there, we manage to resolve some main issues in our Mid-fi.
“Have a hard time finding the Shou-out page.”
Removed from the secondary navigation, and instead featured “Shout-outs” on the mentor’s profile
Added an option to view all shout-outs
Added a pop-up that has a field with a character limit
Changed pop-up confirmation page to a confirmation notification
“I wish I could choose my featured Shout-outs”
Added screens for mentors to edit their profile and select their featured shout-out in “Account”
Mentors can report shout-outs and view changes in “Preview Profile”
What’s Next For Odyssey?
After another round of usability test, we still found 2/3 mentor participants expected to receive new shout-out feedback on the homepage. So for our next step, I would like to focus on:
Talk with developers about feasibility of our features
Further iterate to address accessibility and pain points
Conduct user research on mentor side, and develop mentor user flow
Design more features and complete prototypes for both user sides
Final Reflection
Storytelling: If there’s one word that I’ve heard more than anything else during this project, it has to be storytelling. Whenever we present our ideas to an audience, it’s very important to keep in mind that good storytelling can build audiences’ empathy, put them into users’ shoes and allow them to build emotional connections with users.
Expect the unexpected: Whenever you think a problem is solved, that problem can still come back to haunt you. Sometimes when you’ve been working on the project for a long time, it’s very easy to have assumptions about certain issues, because it starts to become habitual. But they might not be the same for the users, so always expect the unexpected, and never assume the problem is fixed.