A mobile app that encourages fuel-efficient mentoring for incoming college students through AI algorithmic matching.
Click here for the Figma prototype.
Reflecting on my transition to college, I thought back to my challenges as a first year. Something I lacked was a career student mentor. When I had questions about different internship experiences and career paths I had no idea where to start. And that is what Connectify offers: a space for structured mentorship.
I was curious to know how Googlers would go about a sprint. Some quick internet searches led me right to the Google Design Sprint Kit! Following the steps that Design @Google laid out, I created a sprint agenda to outline my week ahead. The sprint kit included several useful activities for the ideation phases of the design process which helped get the ball rolling.
I researched what solutions already existed and what I could learn from them. Instead of looking to social media platforms, I looked for platforms with missions directly relating to mentorship.
In addition to user reviews I found for the platforms researched in my competitive analysis, I set out a Google Forms survey that I sent out to 15 students.
This phase was for me to step back and take a breather. I reviewed my notes and thoughts that came up as I was ideating.
I focused on reviewing my sketches and considering the assumptions that were underlying my ideas. The major assumptions I made are that all students have a smart-phone device and that the universities that will use Connectify have an active student body with both mentees and mentors interested in meeting.
Equipped with my research, I was ready to transform my solution into a high-fidelity prototype. I was very excited about this phase because I could finally put my work to the test.
This feed is based on the onboarding process that is required for every student. The feed offers students a central location for announcements and community events from each department subscribed to and clubs interested in. A recurring pain point for college students was getting spammed with emails from random clubs and organizations-Connectify not only offers mentorship but the spaces to meet these other students on campus.
Interests
To help cut down on the small-talk, I created a step for students to choose topic tags that pop up on their profile page. In my video interviews, students had complained about the awkward small-talk phase at the beginning of calls so I wanted to include a feature to help break the ice.
What do you need help with?
Students also have the option to choose their purpose(s) for using Connectify. This helps the AI-algorithm generate helpful matches with mentors that are offering guidance in those specific categories.
I wanted to create the simplest user flow for scheduling a meetup to really encourage students to utilize the network that Connectify provides.
One of my favorite parts of the design process is talking with users which I didn’t get a chance to do with Connectify. I did get a chance to send my Figma prototype to 10 Wellesley college students and I received a 90% satisfaction rate. If I had more time, I would have worked on a user flow for administration involvement in checking mentor applications and moderating the Connectify ecosystem.
