Overview
Context
Noah is a transfer student who transferred to Ross to finish his business degree. He is excited by the resources available, but is worried about integrating into the social scene. He is concerned about building a solid career network, pursuing leadership opportunities, and inserting himself into a pre-existing social scene.
Messaging is Too Simple
-> Added a “request coffee chat” button to the like page to ease anxiety around initial connection
Victor’s Vault
Connecting new students to mentorship and community.
Empowering Students Through Tailored Mentorship
As an out-of-state freshman student, I only knew two students from my high school coming into college. Feeling out of place, uneducated, and socially anxious, I found myself lost as to what I wanted to pursue. Transitioning to college is challenging for many students like me, especially when it comes to finding guidance and building connections. While mentorship programs exist, they often lack personalization and effective relationship-building.
Keep reading to discover how I created a mentorship platform designed to match students based on shared interests, fostering long-lasting mentorships to help new students connect with resources, get comfortable around campus, and streamline career exploration.
Case Study for ENTR 390 - Digital Product Design
Timeline
August 2024 - October 2024 (6 weeks)
Role
Lead UX Researcher & Designer
Research
Initial Objectives
Understand the struggles of freshman and transfer students adapting to life at a large university
Identify how prepared, guided, and connected to campus resources students feel
Draw insights to guide development of a tool to help new students find meaningful friendships and mentorship
Design Methods
Qualitative Interviews, User Journeys, Personas, Sketching, User Flows, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing
I conducted 5 user interviews with University of Michigan students to further understand their struggles as underclassmen. Overall, three key themes emerged.
New students at the University of Michigan often struggle with transitioning into university life, facing challenges such as adapting to new academic pressure, integrating into social circles, and navigating campus resources. These difficulties cause students to feel lonely, overwhelmed, and disconnected from university community.
Freshman and transfer students need a way to connect with upperclassmen to feel confident in career choices and less overwhelmed by new academic pressures. Taking inspiration from the familiarity of modern dating apps, I decided to design a match-making mentorship app that pairs and encourages underclassmen to form friendships with upperclassmen that match their academic path, professional goals, and personal interests.
Deliverables
Personas
Initial Prototype & User Feedback
I focused first on the main problem new students face: anxiety around social interaction. My first prototype was built upon the main “matching” interaction, aiming to automate the user experience through algorithmic matching to reduce social anxiety.
The messaging interaction did not encourage relationship-building or ease anxiety no more than a regular direct-messaging platform.
Evelyn represents an incoming freshman from out of state who is overwhelmed by the size and complexity of university life. Guidance on academic priorities, making friends, and familiarizing herself with campus resources is crucial.
Iterations
Research Process
Hi-Fidelity
Final Designs
To reinforce a sense of familiarity and community, I aligned the app’s design with the University of Michigan's branding by incorporating blue and maize as the primary color palette. This choice establishes an immediate connection for new users while fostering a sense of belonging. I selected typography that strikes a balance between professionalism and approachability, ensuring the app feels both welcoming and supportive, cultivating a casual yet purposeful relationship with users.
Student Verification
Verify that all users are University of Michigan Students through UMID and umich email verification to reinforce community value.
Personalized Onboarding
Onboarding helps match you to your ideal mentor using personality traits, hobbies, academic path, and career goals.
Meet your Match
Algorithmically paired based on personality and academics, encouraging bonds to form through an option to “match with” someone and continue the conversation.
Reflection
Informative Dashboard
Featuring niche alumni tips, new message reminders, and on-campus events to encourage new students to explore new opportunities.
Results & Follow-Up
While I expected the majority of new students/freshmen to struggle significantly with friends during interviews, there seemed to be a big mix of people who were anxious about it and those who it occurred naturally to. So, this app may not be used by everyone for the same purposes. This taught me not to get attached to my biases. Even though I experienced something, it may not reflect my audience.
Due to a limited time period and resources, I was unable to get access to current freshman and transfer students and instead interviewed Junior students who had experienced these circumstances in the past. I suspect I may have missed more modern problems current freshmen face. In the future, I would like to conduct more in-depth questions with longer interviews.
Since timeline was limited, the number of frames, interaction states, and overall UI design were underdeveloped. I plan to expand the profiles displayed for potential matches and introduce more hierarchy to personal category types. Additionally, I would build out the “mentee” view of the app and expand onboarding prompts.
Swiping Confusion
Users repeatedly swiped left and right, believing they could navigate to the other tabs that way - but ended up frustrated when the recommended sections swiped instead.
-> Replaced section swiping action with vertical scrolling
-> Introduced “see more” buttons to access more content
Unclear Navigation
Users were confused as to where this back button would lead to based on the navbar layout.
-> Simplified navbar to three pages: add friends, home dashboard, and messaging to reinforce match-making and connection