Summary
Career Mentors is an organization that partners with post-secondary institutes, offering mentorship services for college and university students graduates. The service is only available through its dedicated app. Students can download the app from the App Store or Career Mentor’s website.
Once participants go through a couple of assessments on the app, they will have access to a career mentor experienced in their field of study, suitable for their temperament to help mature students like Leah and younger students like Ronald.
Project duration: February 2022
My role:
Lead UX designer (UXD), UX researcher (UXR),
Responsibilities:
user research, wireframing, prototyping, IA
The Problem
Graduating students have difficulties finding work related to their studies due to a lack of experience, connections, and knowledge of new career strategies and techniques.
The Goal
The Career Mentor’s dedicated app will connect users with mentors in their field of study. A compatible mentor for each student will affect how students start their careers after graduation by giving them consistent mentor support and industry standards resources.
We will measure effectiveness by the number of participants finding work in their field, the length of time finding employment after graduation, and how often users schedule time with mentors.
Knowing the competition
Career Mentor’s service is similar to Mentor City, a cloud service. Mentor City provides mentoring services for the Education sector, businesses, and nonprofit sectors. Not much is revealed on the website unless you signed up. The majority of mentoring services are done in-house for most post-secondary schools. The competitive audit allowed me to compare each service’s brand positioning and strategies to help with the design approach for the responsive website.
The app addresses the following pain points:
- Not enough experience to get entry-level, study-related jobs
- Not knowing new strategies to get a job
- Not enough practice in honing interviewing skills
- Feeling overwhelm between managing personal life and career development
The value the app will promise graduated students:
- Industry connections
- Time and money management strategies
- Business communication training
- Interview skills training
- Resume writing
- Internship connections
© COPYRIGHT 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | OWNER JENNIFER WALLACE
Understanding the Client
Hi, meet Leah, an IT professional. Leah has been unemployed for a year; however, she has taken odd jobs here and there to support an aged parent before upgrading her skills. She is married and has two children. Leah is beginning to feel the financial strain of not working full time. She wants a permanent job because she needs stability to raise funds for retirement and education for her children.
Leah’s challenge:
Leah, aged 50, is a mature student at a college who needs help managing some of the changes in her industry because she had left the industry to help an aged parent and taken a couple of odd jobs to have a flexible schedule.
Ronald, aged 22, is a student who needs guidance and support in his field of study because he doesn’t know anyone in the industry he is studying.
Ronald lives at home and has a part-time job.
He is in debt pursuing his education and hopes it pays off. He wants to find work related to his studies but doesn’t know anyone in that industry. It’s not a job he wishes to do for the rest of his life.
The process
Digital wireframe of the dedicated app
Simple design for highly interactive activities with mentors and users. Easy access to mobile features such as the camera and calendar and offline activities such as journalizing.
I conducted an unmoderated usability study in Toronto, Canada, on the week of February 20th. The participants were between the ages of 21-30 and 40 -50 to determine the mentorship needs of young and mature college students. The ages of the five participants are, respectively age 21, 27, 29, 45, and 50. Each session was 15-25 minutes without compensation.
Round 1 Findings of the responsive site
Round 2 findings of the responsive site
Round 1 and 2 Findings on the dedicated app
Refining the design
Site map
Prototype of response and dedicated app
View the HIFI prototype of the dedicated app. Each button takes users to a page for services as indicated
The final prototype of the single page responsive website . View HIFI prototype
Accessibility Considerations
- increase the font size for reading blogs
- use a toggle function for audio as users go through menu buttons
- use translation functions
Next Steps
- To create a survey to collect feedback on the service.
- Send design to engineering to facilitate the login process and build security.
- Ensure to update the app with Apple and Android store standards
Final product
Take away
The dedicated app’s impact is that students who are part of the mentoring program provided by Career Mentor, a third-party mentoring service organization, have access to a mentor and resources at their fingertips for three years after graduating to help with their career development and strategies.
I understand why some companies use dedicated apps, which allow users to interact more with services on or offline, using mobile features such as the camera and calendar.
Thank you
Thank you for your time reviewing my work on Career Mentor’s dedicated app and responsive site.
JWallace Design 