Spartan Connections
My Role
Product Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline
3 weeks (June 2024 - July 2024)
Tools Used
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Overview
College students are often advised by their counselors, professors and peers that in order to create a successful life, they need to find a mentor who has already accomplished what the student desires and to learn from them. However, the process of finding a mentor can be incredibly difficult, even if the desired mentor is another student from the same university. As a student who myself has struggled to find a mentor, I applied my design and social skills and create a solution to this continuous problem with the hopes of providing fellow SJSU students access to an efficient, organized and effective platform to both find mentors and assist other students as a mentor themselves.
The Main Problem
The difficulty of finding a mentor has led many students to abandon the process entirely, making them feel behind in their academic and professional lives compared to their peers.
The Solution
Spartan Connections
An organized platform for SJSU students to build relationships with fellow like-minded students and grow both their career and personal life through mentorship.
Full Prototype Video
If you click on the phone you can use your left and right arrow keys to skip forwards or backwards :)
Initial Thinking
Where Do We Start?
Target Users
University Students at SJSU
Deployment Platform
Mobile App (Most university students are familiar with mobile app interfaces)
User Research Methods
Online Surveys (Google Forms)
In-person interviews with students
Online research
White Paper Research
Why Do Students Need Mentorship?
“Networking is the most important thing you can do here.”
This was the first sentence I heard in my first ever class at university from my business management professor. Every student is told that networking and mentorship are crucial, but it not always explained how it will help us professionally. I went searching for answers and discovered that if many different people repeat the same advice to you, it’s probably worth paying attention to.
of professionals obtained their current or most recent job from a referral
35%
60%
Have referred a friend or contact to a company they’ve worked for
-
of executives say mentoring has been critical to their career development
75%
90%
of employees with a career mentor are happy at work.
-
AND
AND
in job placements from students in the mentorship program at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder compared to students not in the program.
40% increase
Finally, research indicates that university students attending the same institution are more likely to help each other out, largely due to the formation of social networks and a sense of belonging. These factors contribute to their academic and social success.
User Research
Survey and Student Interview Insights
My survey had 48 responses from SJSU students
Do you currently have a mentor aiding with you with your academics/career?
of students have a mentor at SJSU
22.9%
Have you asked for academic/career advice when you were a freshman on campus?
72.9%
asked a student or professor for advice
How helpful was the advice that you were given?
7.28/10
average helpfulness
Are you still in contact with this student/professor?
65.8%
are still in contact with their advisor
Scheduling conflicts (9)
No longer in the same class (3)
Student/Prof. left the school (2)
Outgrew the need (1)
If you are no longer in contact, why?
How did you find your mentor?
Club (4)
Class (3)
Job on campus (2)
LinkedIn (1)
Summer fellowship program (1)
Key Research Insights
Student Pain Points
There is no organized platform for SJSU students to find local mentors. SJSU’s community app, SAMMY, has no built in feature for students to interact with other for the purpose of finding mentors or mentees.
1)
It is difficult to arrange meetings with mentors or mentees due to differing schedules. Finding common free time amongst both mentor and mentee requires lots of communication which may be difficult if the pair don’t know each other well.
2)
Finding mentors through sources such as LinkedIn or cold emailing is frustrating, time consuming and usually fails. LinkedIn’s massive user base and the seemingly random chance of sending emails to people that someone does not known is a major roadblock for university students looking to connect with local professionals.
3)
Lo-Fi Designs
Wireframes
I believed that having this service as a web app would be its most useful form since from my observations students tend to do their more important work on their laptops. However, conducting in-person user interviews with classmates led me to realize that since students already use multiple social media apps daily and most LinkedIn traffic is mobile, I decided to create the service as a mobile app.
Create a smooth onboarding system that matches students with mentors and mentees based on their majors and interests
Implement familiar scrolling interactions as well as instant gratification features through liking, commenting and sharing
Integrate schedule and event synchronization to tackle the most common problem of mentors/mentees struggling to find time to meet face to face.
Design Goals
Initial Usability Testing
Wireframe Testing Results
I sent these wireframes out to 25 users who I had previously interviewed and collected data through a Google Form. Notable data includes:
average user satisfaction
3.04/5
80%
of users could find and communicate with a mentor and mentee
average likelihood of a user to recommend this app to another student
3.27/5
User Pain Points
“There are too many text input fields when filling in my profile information.”
“The home page layout is a little confusing.”
“My thumb has to go too high to reach the events tab on the home page. Same thing when I'm trying to send a message on the mentor profile. Other than that, no issues!”
Iterations
Design Changes
The most important CTAs of the app have had their size increased, incentivizing the user to click them
The arrangement of page elements was reordered to accommodate this change
A ‘“less is more” approach for the events feed
A Better Home Page
92% of users preferred Screen B
Added a bio section to allow more personalization and better reflect social media apps students use everyday
Replaced text input fields with buttons to create a quicker, more intuitive onboarding flow
Adding app branding removes unnecessary whitespace and reinforces the product’s identity
Revamped Onboarding
92% of users preferred Screen B
Adding the matching topics to the mentor/mentee discovery screen can help users ask better questions
Adding an activity feed to show what posts and groups the mentor is involved in can be very useful knowledge
Mentor/mentee profile rearranged to be more cohesive with the app’s visual language
It’s the Little Things
100% of users preferred Screen B
Hi-Fi Design
Final Screens
Mentors and mentees are assigned to a student based on the data points acquired during onboarding
Appointments that work for both parties can be easily scheduled due to implementation and synchronization with each student’s Google Calendar, a feature that already exists with SJSU’s student accounts through API integration
Sending the appointments through a messenger feature allows for mentors and mentees to build and grow a relationship online before and/or after their meeting
Efficient Connections
Quick, easy onboarding designed for the user to get to their matching mentors as fast as possible
Categories for the user to select are automatically added to their onboarding experience stemming from their major’s most common career interests. Categories can be added or removed at the user’s will.
A curated home feed with recommended student events based on selected categories with a dedicated page to track all events a student is interested in
A Personalized Experience
More Testing Results
Final Design Usability Testing Feedback
The final design was sent out to the same 25 users who tested the wireframes with the same questions. Here are the updated results:
average user satisfaction
4.64/5
100%
of users could find and communicate with a mentor and mentee
average likelihood of a user to recommend this app to another student
4.76/5
Notable Quotes:
“I like how you can go from the appointment schedule straight into messages. Very convenient. The UI is very easy to use as well.”
“Adding the calendar into the app makes a lot of sense since our school accounts are already synched with Google. Using the calendar to look for available time slots to meet is very smart. I’d use this app for sure.”
“The UI is very easy to figure out how to use. I like the matching categories interactions.”
“I wish I had this when I was doing my undergrad. Would’ve saved a lot of time finding my current mentor!”
Closing Thoughts
Reflection and Takeaways
This app serves as a dedicated platform for SJSU students to partner with other students to further their academic and professional goals which fills a hole in the localized student market and solves a daily problem myself and many of my peers have.
Implementing a synchronized Google Calendar to find available time slots for meetings with mentors solves one of the the most common pain points of scheduling conflicts between both parties leading to meetings not happening.
Using modifiable categories to curate personalized mentors, mentees and events allows every student to find what works for them specifically and change it as their goals change directly through the app which can save a lot of time and keep retention high.
What Worked
If I Had More Time…
There is no specific way to determine whether a meeting should be in person as the vast majority of students prefer according to my survey or to keep the meetings as calls. This is a feature I would add before allowing the app to go live.
In addition to a mobile app, I would also create a desktop version to maximize the amount of users because while small, there is a group of students who prefer to use desktop only and do not use social media at all.
Implement more accessibility features by adhering to WCAG guidelines, such as creating a dark mode or adding colorblind filters for visually impaired students
Add the ability for students to not only connect with undergrad/grad students but faculty, administration and alumni as well to maximize the amount of healthy relationships we can create through this app.
What I Learned
No product succeeds without user feedback. The best way to design for your users is to actually ask them what they want and look at the data behind it. I conducted more surveys and user interviews than I have for any project before, which is probably why this is the most fun project I’ve worked on.
I realized that change is the status quo. It’s important to be able to recognize that something isn’t working and be agile in the process of fixing it. In order to be a successful designer, you need to be quick on your feet and not get too attached to an idea when it has been proven that it doesn’t work.
Finally, moving forwards, I want to be able to gather as much user data as possible during the design process to inform every decision I make and ensure that I can target specific pain points to make a very complicated more simple, which is what I think product design is all about.
Thank you for reading :)