STUDENT PROJECT
Elevate
A career support app that addresses gender and race wage gap issues by connecting women with mentors and financial sponsors. By providing women with a professional support system, the app aims to help them spend less on education and earn a higher salary at a younger age, thus increasing the wealth they accumulate over their lifetimes.
YEAR
2023
ROLE
End-to-end UX/UI designer
DURATION
106 hours
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Procreate, Adobe Illustrator
Introduction
Statistically, people from disadvantaged populations (based on race, gender, and more) earn less money, have less overall wealth, hold fewer leadership positions, and are subject to higher unemployment rates than Caucasian or Asian males.
For this MVP app project, I wanted to explore the development of a service that would contribute to leveling the professional playing field. The main purpose of this app would be to provide support (be it educational, professional, financial, or emotional) to people from disadvantaged populations, with the goal of helping them attain and retain jobs with high salaries and good benefits.
I hypothesized that this could be achieved through mentorship, career sponsorship, and/or financial sponsorship. The nature of this support-system concept includes a sense of community, as well as financial abundance for individuals who might be experiencing economic instability. I wanted to approach it from a nonprofit standpoint, wherein users could create real connections by helping each other, rather than the relationship feeling like a financial transaction. Consequently, the app would be free of charge, and mentors would be involved on a volunteer basis.
**Note: Although I am a woman and therefore in a disadvantaged group in the professional realm, I’m also Caucasian and don’t have personal experience with issues such as systematic racism, and I haven’t had formal DEI training. Please excuse any faux pas I may have unknowingly committed during this project.
Process Overview
RESEARCH
Secondary research
Competitive analysis
User interviews
Research analysis
DEFINE
Target audience
Concept development
Site structure
DESIGN
Low- to mid-fi wireframes
Interactive prototype
Branding
ITERATE
Usability testing
Hi-fi wireframes
Hi-fi prototype
STEP 1: RESEARCH
Conducted research to learn more about wage gaps and the professional experiences of individuals from disadvantaged populations, in order to determine if my mentorship/sponsorship hypothesis was valid.
DELIVERABLES
Research plan
Secondary research
Competitive analysis
Interview guide
User interviews
Research findings report
Secondary Research
Because I went into this project with very little factual knowledge about wage gaps, the first thing I needed to do was secondary research. I wanted to ensure I was attempting to solve a relevant problem, rather than basing the whole project on headlines I had read in the past, or conversations with friends that I hadn’t fact checked. Once I had gathered statistics from various reputable sources, I confirmed that wage gaps are indeed a widespread issue, both long-standing and current. A few interesting (and disturbing) facts:
Not only do people from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) groups consistently earn significantly less than those from Caucasian and Asian groups, but on top of that, women of all races earn less than men of their same race. (This takes into account education and occupation.)
People from BIPOC groups are underrepresented in the professional workforce, and are overrepresented in lower-paying occupations.
Because race wage gaps have been a long-term problem, the discrepancy between overall household wealth of Caucasian families versus Black families has only grown over time. 30 years ago, Caucasian families had about 4x as much wealth as Black families; now, they have almost 5x as much. (This means Black families typically have less money to put toward things such as education and resources to support their children along a path to professional careers.)
The pandemic has set women’s labor force participation back more than 30 years.
Overall, it was easy to see that this subject is a problem worth addressing, so I continued forward. During additional secondary research, I discovered that mentorship can indeed have a significant positive impact on career development—75% of executives have stated the importance of mentorship in their professional growth, according to a study by the Association for Talent Development.
Competitive Analysis
When researching various mentorship services, I found very little in the way of apps for individuals not already associated with a specific company. There are app options for companies looking to implement mentorship programs within their organization, and there are also websites that connect individuals with mentors in specific domains (e.g. tech), for a fee. There were very few options designed to support people from disadvantaged groups. This demonstrated that my concept would be in a niche where there is a demand, and yet little supply.
User Interviews
Process
Six participants were interviewed, all women; four were Causcasian and two were people of color. They have all had personal experience applying to higher-level jobs. Given more time and resources, I would have liked to recruit a wider variety of people who identify as minorities based on race and gender.
These interviews, and organizing the information gathered, took much longer than anticipated. It was hard to find participants, and they weren't available right away. I then discovered that this is an extremely charged topic, and some of the lengthy conversations left me feeling emotionally drained. They also provided so much information that it was difficult to sift through it all and figure out what was relevant to my specific project.
Insights
Overall, these user interviews served to validate my hypothesis that mentors and financial sponsors would be beneficial to people from disadvantaged groups who aim to be hired in a high-paying role.
Although I had gained extensive insights from the interviews (as illustrated by my affinity map), two particular insights stood out as being of high-level importance to the target audience, and therefore to the potential app concept.
Mentors could help women spend less money on education and earn more money at a younger age by working with them to define the steps of their ideal path early on in their career. This would lead to more overall wealth over the course of their lives.
There are many expenses involved with attaining and retaining a higher-level job; women can only be successful in earning a high salary if they have financial support to begin with. Although the women interviewed were able to find this support through family and scholarships, not all women have this luxury.
Implementing the Findings
The fact that all interviewees were female helped narrow the target audience of my project; I decided to move forward with a product aimed specifically at women, so that I was basing my design on accurate research.
Taking into consideration the high-level insights:
I decided to further narrow the main target audience (in terms of mentees) to young women early in their careers, perhaps those between the ages of 17 and 25. (However, in order to maintain a sense of accessibility, this app would not exclude users outside of that age range.) Focusing on helping young women could lead to the maximum long-term impact on the overall societal problem.
I decided that the app should be dual purpose; along with connecting women with mentors/career sponsors, it should also connect them with financial sponsors. These two methods of support complement each other and could provide an aspiring woman with all of the support she needs in one place.
STEP 2: DEFINE
Developed an understanding of the users and their current experience, in order to pinpoint and create the structure for a specific aspect of the issue to solve.
DELIVERABLES
User personas
POV statements
Storyboard
Project goals
Feature road map
Task flow
Site map
Because I was given just 80 hours to complete this MVP, I needed to scope my project accordingly. Although this app would serve several different user types (mentees, mentors, financial beneficiaries, and financial sponsors), I chose to focus on young women looking to be matched with a mentor, because I felt these were the users who would benefit most greatly from the service. Of course they would also be positively impacted by being matched with a financial sponsor, but I realized the two types of relationships would be very different; separate features would be needed to facilitate interactions for each one, and I didn’t have the time to devote to both. I therefore decided to include the financial sponsor feature in the overall concept and wireframes, but to create a task flow specific to the mentorship feature.
Using the insights gained during research, I worked to deeply understand the chosen user type and their pain points, and thus what features would best help them achieve their goals. I found writing out point of view statements to be particularly helpful in defining what, on a higher level, the app should provide, and why. This allowed me to define and prioritize the necessary features.
POV STATEMENTS
I’d like to explore ways to help young women early in their career to connect with mentors who can assist in defining the most efficient path to their professional goals; a lack of direction can lead to spending more money on education and more time on attaining a high-paying job (which results in less overall wealth accumulated over a lifetime).
I’d like to explore ways to help economically-disadvantaged women who want a high-paying job to connect with financial sponsors, because financial freedom allows women to take risks that can lead to greater career success and satisfaction.
I’d like to explore ways to help women looking for support in their careers to connect with mentors they can relate to in terms of gender or ethnicity; people who have personal experience navigating gender- or ethnicity-related issues in the professional realm can provide more relevant advice and a deeper level of emotional support than those who do not.
I moved forward to define the user task flow I would focus on for the MVP wireframes and prototype. I chose to lead the user through the process of browsing mentor profiles, learning more about a specific mentor, requesting a mentorship with that person, and communicating with them for the first time. I felt this was the core flow for the user; there might be other tasks to complete prior to this one (setting up an account, indicating preferences in regards to mentors, etc), but this task would be the first truly active step the user would take toward building her career support system.
STEP 3: DESIGN
Explored wireframe layouts and developed brand identity, in order to create a tangible product with personality.
Wireframes
DELIVERABLES
Low-fidelity mobile wireframe sketches
Mid-fidelity mobile wireframes
Interactive prototype
Keeping the user task flow in mind, I began sketching out possible layouts for the screens I would need. Due to the time constraints of the MVP, I chose to design only a mobile version of the app, excluding a desktop version for the time being. Once I felt confident in a direction for each screen, I began designing mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma. After a couple of iterations based on mentor feedback, I set up an interactive prototype to use for testing.
During this stage of layout exploration, I found it helpful to do desktop research on various design patterns, and to refer back to the mentorship websites and apps I had found during competitive analysis. This allowed me to draw inspiration from relevant designs already in existence and adjust them for my own specific purposes.
Brand Development
DELIVERABLES
Brand logo
Color palette moodboard
Style tile
My first task was to name the app—a difficult task, indeed! I began by writing out who the app was for and what values I wanted to convey to them, followed by brainstorming a list of potential names. In the end, I chose “Elevate” because this is the effect I would want the app to have—to use the knowledge and resources of a community to elevate women above what they could achieve on their own. I do realize there is already an app by this name, but as this is a purely hypothetical project, I didn’t think that mattered.
As a former graphic designer, I had to remind myself more than once that the visual branding was not the most crucial part of the MVP project as a whole. I really enjoy bringing personality to UX design, and my most instinctive way to do that is through branding. I could take hours upon hours to explore various directions for the perfect logo, but in this case, I chose to go with my gut feeling, which was something clean, simple, and bold enough to be easily viewed on a small scale. I found a font that matched my criteria, and went through a series of small adjustments until I was satisfied with the result. Although I liked the strong vibe of the font I had originally chosen, I ended up rounding the corners for a softer feeling, in line with the feminine nature of the app.
The color palette I developed was inspired by perusing sites such as dribbble and Behance. I found many examples of bright, bold colors paired with high-contrast whites, grays, and blacks. I thought this direction would fit well, as I wanted the app to feel bold and modern. I considered using a dark blue as one of the main colors, as it is often a color associated with knowledge and professionalism, but in the end I shifted it slightly to a dark purple, to appeal to the female target audience. Vivid purple, coral, and goldenrod helped to give the overall palette a more energetic vibe.
As for typography, I had originally intended to use the same font as I had based the logo upon; I thought I could pair it with a friendly, feminine serif. However, when I tried it out on my mid-fidelity wireframes, I realized it had too much personality, so chose another, more subtle sans serif. For choosing type, I love using Adobe Fonts or Google Fonts; it’s so helpful to be able to type out a specific phrase and see how it looks in a variety of fonts.
I organized all of these brand assets into a simple style tile. In the end, I did go a bit over my time budget on this portion of the project, but it was worthwhile for the pure enjoyment of the process!
STEP 4: ITERATE
Conducted usability tests in order to improve the design based on user feedback, and implemented branding in order to create a high-fidelity prototype.
DELIVERABLES
Usability testing
Test results analysis report
Iteration on mid-fidelity wireframes
High-fidelity wireframes
High-fidelity interactive prototype
Using the mid-fidelity prototype, I conducted usability tests in order to determine if users found my design to be intuitive and clear, and what could be done to improve the design. I conducted three moderated tests, during which I asked the participants to talk to me about what they saw on each page. This allowed me to ask questions and pinpoint how the users interpreted each component, and how the design could be streamlined for better functionality. Given more time, I would have liked to conduct several more moderated tests or to create an unmoderated test, because a larger pool of participants would likely lead to more and/or clearer insights.
Because this test was conducted on a small pool of users and the feedback gathered was fairly minimal, I simply organized the data by specific screen, dividing the points into what worked and what I should consider revising. I also included feedback from my mentor in this data synthesis. Generally speaking, users found the design to be clear, and they completed the task flow without issue. However, there were specific elements that I needed to iterate upon.
One of the most important iterations involved the “mentor” and “sponsor” tags located on the user profile cards. Two out of three of the testers were confused by these tags, wondering if they meant that the user would be both their mentor and sponsor. In my concept of the app, although this could be possible, it would not necessarily be true. The tags were simply to show that the user was a potential mentor and also a potential sponsor. As two testers suggested these tags were given too much prominence by being at the top and could make more sense if placed slightly lower on the card, I decided to move them down and use plain text rather than a tag.
This was the first time I had used a mid-fidelity prototype for testing, rather than a high-fidelity one. It was interesting to see how clearly users interpreted my prototype, even without the use of color, images, or purposefully-chosen fonts. This reiterated to me that information architecture and interaction design create the foundation of a successful design. There were only a couple of times when users either didn’t notice an element or didn’t interpret it correctly; having this feedback then helped me make design choices when I implemented the branding to create high-fidelity wireframes.
I simultaneously made changes based on the usability test results, focusing on the high priority issues, and implemented the branding. This resulted in a high-fidelity iteration that I could then use to create the final, interactive prototype.
Next Steps
Work on the lower-priority issues that I discovered during usability testing but didn’t have time to iterate upon.
Perform another round of usability testing, to ensure that the last round of iterations successfully addressed user pain points and to gain feedback regarding the branding.
Develop the sponsorship feature using mid-fidelity wireframes and usability testing.
And much more! I have other ideas for future features that the users could benefit from, including an educational blog and a goal-setting/action plan feature.
Conclusion
Overall, this project taught me how easy it is to underestimate the complexity of a concept. I went into it with what I thought was a simple idea. I benefitted so much from the mentor assigned to me during the Designlab UX Academy course, and it struck me that a huge impact could be made if mentorship was a more easily-accessible service for ALL, not just to those enrolled in an educational program or already employed at a company. I wanted to use this as a way to help people who historically have had a more difficult time succeeding financially due to factors beyond their control.
However, I was quickly shown how convoluted a project could become based on the nature of its topic. I significantly overshot my time budget, largely due to the research stage and the sheer quantity of data I gathered and had to distill down into a single product concept. The previous project I completed had taken me half the amount of time as I had budgeted; when I compare these two experiences, I’m reminded that it takes practice to accurately estimate how long each task will take, but also that these tasks will likely take different amounts of time for each individual project. If this had been a real-world project, I would have made more of an effort to stick to the allotted 80 hours. However, I enjoyed the process and the subject so much that I didn’t mind putting in the extra hours to create something I could feel satisfied with!