Collab
Collab is a platform designed to help people find mentors and classes locally. It is intended for young adults who would like to learn or improve on a personal or professional skill while building their community network.
Project Type
UX/UI, Product Design
Role
Research, ideation, wireframing, visual design, prototyping
Timeframe
September - November 2018 (Three months)
Tools
Sketch, Illustrator, InVision, Principle, Photoshop
The Problem
For young working adults who have recently graduated from university or college, improving or learning new skills can be highly beneficial to their professional profile while also being valuable to their personal development. However, between costly courses at certified institutions and confusing online tutorials, it can be challenging to find effective resources to learn new skills. Further, busy full-time work schedules and a lack of physical proximity to educational resources makes it even more challenging to reach learning goals.
Design Challenge
How might we design a flexible platform to help people teach and learn specific skills locally?
Survey Insights
The results from an online survey conducted using Google Forms revealed that when learning new skills unrelated to ones profession, about 60% of respondents turn to online tutorials as their primary educational resource while 20% learn from family or friends and 15% enrol in courses at certified institutions.
The survey additionally revealed that about 70% of respondents, who are primarily young adults, believe that it is more beneficial to have face-to-face interaction with a teacher or experienced mentor as opposed to watching online tutorials.
Research
‘How Might We’ Workshop
To help define the design challenge and develop a framework for the ideation process, my class participated in a “How Might We” workshop in which we generated questions based on the concepts that everyone pitched individually. These questions helped define themes/insights which were later analyzed and taken into consideration when identifying problem areas for the primary users and possible solutions to address the design challenge.
Based on the feedback I received, I identified a few primary concerns:
How might we create a system that allows users to enrol in/create classes with greater flexibility? (i.e. location, price, timing)
How might we make it easy for people to find classes based on their interests/goals
How might we ensure that mentors are rated and paid fairly?
How might we ensure the credibility and legitimacy of the mentor?
User Personas
From these personas I realized that I would have to design two clear and simple user flows: one for the mentees to view workshops and mentors and another for the mentors to create the workshops and communicate with their mentees or “students”.
The Solution
Collab is a platform that helps young professionals connect with mentors that are experienced in the skills they would like to learn or refine. Users have the flexibility to choose between short-term and long-term mentorships. Short-term mentorships typically consist of one to two day in-person workshops for those who are simply curious about a new skill while long-term mentorships consist of a deeper one-on-one learning process that could last from weeks to months.
This platform is designed for those who would like to have a more personal and flexible learning approach than just watching tutorials online or paying for an expensive course at a larger educational institution.
Ideation/Wireframing
Key features of Collab:
Personalized Recommendations:
Browse lesson/workshop recommendations in explore section based on indicated preferencesSchedule:
Lessons the user is teaching and mentoring are organized into two separate tabs and can be viewed in one calendarMessaging:
Mentors and mentees are connected directly through private chat where they can introduce themselves and ask for additional helpProfile:
Users can view details about mentors including skills, ratings, reviews and upcoming lessons/workshops
Simple User Flows
High-level Interaction Overview
Sign Up & User Onboarding
Visual Design
The moodboard of different styles for the visual design of Collab can be viewed on InVision here.
Quick Sign Up & Onboarding
A delightful account creation and onboarding experience is achieved through a segmented step-by-step process, which reduces the cognitive load on the user.
Browse & Enrol in Classes
Recommended classes are generated based on indicated interests and objectives. View lesson details including learning objectives, mentor details, location, price and ratings. Next, easily enrol in the class by selecting "Join" and confirming the enrolment details.
Create & Manage Lessons
Users are able to create and post new lessons they would like to teach through the Mentors tab. Details about upcoming and past lessons can be managed in the same tab.
Easily Approve Enrolment Requests
Requests to enrol in classes can be viewed through the Mentor notifications tab for quick approval or accessed through the Pending tab in the settings for each class.
Design System
A brand guideline for Collab has been documented using the Design System Manager by InVision. The documentation can be viewed here.
Takeaway
From this project I learned that constant iteration is important, especially as you receive feedback from your users. Most importantly, I learned that user testing does not necessarily have to be done at the end of the design process, in fact it should be done periodically throughout so that major issues can be identified and resolved before the product is finalized. Through this I realized the value of user testing in not just validating the UX choices that were made by the designers but that it allows the user to play an integral role in designing the experience that is intended for them.
Image Credits
*I do not own any of the images featured in Collab except for the illustrations. The featured thumbnail image is credited to Andhika Ramadhian.