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Horizon: Fostering Bright futures with SLM
Develop for good summer project
Overview
Getting to work with Silver Line Mentoring
Silver Lining Mentoring is a non-profit organization that matches volunteer mentors with mentees in the foster care system, and our team of product designers were tasked with improving the experiences of mentors and mentees in e-mentoring. We helped develop a solution for mentors and mentees to strengthen their 1:1 e-mentoring relationship while connecting matches to a community of support.
Role:
User Experience Researcher
User Experience Designer
Team:
1 product lead, 1 product manager, and 5 product designers (including me)
Timeline:
May - August 2024
Problem
Silver Lining Mentoring's Going Digital
Silver Lining Mentoring (SLM) is expanding to a new e-mentoring program with the goal of reaching more young people throughout the United States. In this process, they aim to use technology to enhance and streamline their long-term mentoring practices whilst continuing to provide a quality mentorship experience. To address this, our team designed a relationship management app that helps mentors and mentees maintain and strengthen their 1:1 e-mentoring relationships through a fun, gamified experience. This app complements MentorPRO (SLM’s preferred e-mentoring platform) by providing a dedicated space to support SLM matches.
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User Research
Conversations and surveys to understand our users
To get a better grasp of mentor, mentee, and admin needs, we conducted in depth user research using….
Focus groups
for group insights about the SLM experience from mentors and mentees, totalling
focus groups
Competitive Analysis
understanding mentoring services to identify gaps in the mentoring market, analyzing
solutions
User Interviews
for in-depth insights directly from SLM staff and mentors, conducting
interviews
Surveys
for providing quantifiable, large scale data on mentor and mentee needs, with
responses
Generating over
(just a snippet of our collection)
Defining our User
Creating a product for Mentees, Mentors, and Admin
We defined our key users based on our user research to determine their attributes and goals
Mentees
Young folks transitioning out of the foster care system (18+)
Goal: growth in life skills, financial literacy, social network, and higher education
Mentors
Volunteers trained to mentor youth in the foster care system
Spends time with mentees to offer life advice + guidance
Goal: Connect with mentee and support mentee how they best need
Admin
Experienced individuals, some clinically trained, who oversee match support between mentors and mentees
Goal: Efficiently monitor and support created matches
Key Findings
We synthesized our finding into 3 big ideas!
Communication falling apart is the biggest anticipated issue with e-mentoring
“Mentors often come to me saying they can’t reach the mentee... I think this might be a bigger issue in online mentoring, especially with the memory of COVID”
- Past mentor and coordinator
In current in-person matches, the most common issue is matches falling out of touch and mentees withdrawing from the relationship. This leads to doubts and worries about communication issues and lack of connection in the new model of e-mentoring relationships.
Opportunity: How Might we keep mentees, especially those in e-mentoring, engaged and motivated throughout their time at SLM to achieve their goals and connect with their mentors?
Mentees want to balance learning valuable life skills with a meaningful connection
survey responses sorted into common goal topics
“I feel it is also good to allow some time for mentors and mentees to connect with hobbies and interests, not just constantly working on the curriculum. Being able to share what is ever on their minds to connect on a different level”
- Mentee
Mentees desire a space to learn about professional resources and practices, with finances, housing, and employment, being common goal topics among mentees. That being said, mentee mentor matches are more than education. Many mentees desire a connection that goes beyond curriculum
Opportunity: How might we enable ease of access to relevant resources, allow users to measure their growth in relevant mentorship topics, and grow a relationship between mentors and mentees
Mentors and mentees lack community-wide channels for conversation
To me it’s super important because from my experience getting to know others has allowed me to learn about other programs that benefitted others and me being able to share programs or resources that have helped me.
-Mentee focus group response
Matches are often curious and love to hear about what other matches are doing. In the development of the new e-mentoring program, many matches also expressed interest in building community among matches in SLM
Opportunity: How might we build a community space for Silver Lining Mentoring that aligns with their clinically proven best practices, striking a balance between freedom and liability?
Guiding Statement
A relationship management app for mentors and mentees to strengthen their 1:1 e-mentoring relationship while connecting matches to a community of support
Rapid Ideation
70+ different ideas to respond to our findings
We used several methods to generate over 70+ different solutions based on our opportunities found through our findings, including
Prompted Ideation
simply generating the ideas that came to mind from our HMW's
What would company X do?
To see how existing mentor-based platforms could respond to our pressing HMW’s
SCAMPER
To learn about how existing tools can be modified or put into a new light to create new thoughts
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Key Findings
e-NUF ideas!
To narrow down our ideas, we then conducted NUF testing, rating each idea provided on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of
New-ness: Does the feature solve an existing need that hasn't been already solved?
Usability: Does the feature solve an existing need that hasn't already been solved?
Feasibility: How difficult will this be for developers to build?
(a snapshot of the process. The ones that are scored high on each of the 3 factors are highlighted)
Info Arch + Feature List
Boiling down into 4 key features
Taking this revised list, we further synthesized ideas with common themes into 4 key features and started diving into low fidelity designs
Profile
to compare experiences across different matches with distinct visuals showcasing mentees’ journeys
Homepage
for mentees to keep track of their own journey. track goal progress, and facilitate conversation w mentor
Engage
a section to keep mentees engaged with their mentors through activities and goal tracking
Community
a feed for mentees/mentors to bond over shared experiences and share useful resources
Feature Deep-dive: Timeline
Making time for entries - how I made time fun
My groupmate Allyza and I knew we were working on a timeline idea- something to allow mentees to record various entries and display it in a fun, engaging way. The first step to that was sketching out and outlining some options
Feature ideation
Milestones, memories, reflections oh my!
Allyza and I knew that the timeline would need to engage users to interact with it. But how would we do that? I came up with three distinct concepts.
Reflections
To remind users to consistently engage with the app, reflections would be an entry type where mentees would write a new prompted entry every week based on how they’re doing to be shared with their mentor
Milestones
An entry type to encourage mentees to pursue and celebrate their goals in the program, by having a dedicated space to record and share their achievement with their community
Memories
To highlight aspects of a mentee mentor connection outside of curriculum, memories would be the entry type to highlight those special moments that stick out, and post them later with friends
Feature ideation
Finding a place in time for entries
Allyza and I each created 2 ideas for the timeline- a place for mentees to see all of their entries and easily add more. My initial view for the timeline was to prioritize showcasing as much information as possible, highlighting the distinction between memories, milestones, and reflections, so I created two options
Feature Iteration
Iteration 1 - "Oh that's what a milestone looks like!"
During client discussion, our team discovered that many mentees weren’t entirely sure what the different types of milestones were for. To alleviate this, we added in milestone types, sourcing from our survey, MentorPro categories, and Discussion with mentors who knew relevant resources
First iteration
Final Iteration
Additionally, mentees struggled to identify what can be written for milestones. To remedy this, we added descriptions for each type of milestone along icons and examples based on which milestone was selected.
Feature Iteration
Iteration 2 - Making the timeline more engaging
When presenting our features to our client, Design standups and user interviews with 2 test users pointed to an overstimulus of information, and an inability to parse through each kind of entry
“there’s a lot going on here, so my eyes you know want to go all over the place"
-user interview
To address this, Allyza and I combined my iteration with one of her iterations, balancing visual simplicity, with information guided shape language to preserve information clarity. We also added a tap interaction to offer more information without removing the user from the homepage
Early Iterations
My version
focused on providing effective necessary info
Allyza's version
focused on providing a fun and simple view
Final Iteration
Making the journey both fun and informative for the user
Handoff
Horizons: Fostering bright futures with SLM
So what did our final design look like?
Timeline
Look back on your journey with pride
Designed for mentees to log and look back their own journey of growth. Comprised of 3 main elements:
Reflections - designed to encourage weekly reflection
Memories - designed to encourage sharing recent memories
Milestones - designed to encourage celebrating recent accomplishments
Community
Connect with others in a safe and supporting way
Connect with others through shared interests and experiences
Featured - amplifying underrepresented voices and stories
Community Guidelines - balancing safety and expression on a community space
Engage
Engage in meaningful activities with your mentor
A hub for all things mentoring relationship.
Prompts - thought-provoking and fun questions for both to answer
Kudos - send appreciation notes to each other
Testimonials
Moving on to new Horizons
We presented our project to company CEOs and board members - they loved it! The app has entered development for the Winter 2024 cycle, and is predicted to impact 3600+ foster care young adults without access to mentoring and inspire other non-profit, EdTech app for social good. Check out what they had to say:
“You all have so clearly understood and reflected SLM’s values around meaningful connection and the spirit of delightful engagement and lifting each other up is so deeply felt in this app experience. Well done, DFG team!”
- SLM Staff
This is what innovation looks like, this is exactly what leadership looks like, this is how collaboration happens— when people listen to each other and put their passions to work for the greater good. I’m so impressed […] you have no idea how big of an impact this will have on our organization and potentially the field. We are one organization in a bigger field, and we have people often looking to us as an example for leadership.
- Colby Swettberg, SLM CEO
“I’m so high-key obsessed with this app already, thank you all for your work on bringing ideas to a tangible and engaging reality that someone can develop!”
- Mobile Burrell, Director of Strategic Institute