Nourish
Nourish is a project that hopes to create a place where women can feel right at home with technology through our unique three-prong mentorship program.
Duration
4 weeks, July - August 2021
Team
Working in a team of 4
My role
UI/UX Designer
Overview
In the United States, the percentage of degrees given to women decreased from 1993 to 2016. In addition, in a hypothetical postgraduation companies research, more women choose non-stereotypical companies than men women. This information shows that there might need more women in tech, as well as more time, effort, and resources being directed into making tech a truly inclusive and friendly space for women. Also, breaking stereotypes is extremely crucial for a woman's career decisions and choices.
As all of my team members all strongly identify with being in the technology industry, we hope to find and invite more women with interests in tech to join a community of like-minded individuals. In order to inspire others to join the industry we are all so passionate about, we created Nourish, a space for women of high school and college age to feel at home and comfortable with who they are and the career they pursue.
Overview
In the United States, the percentage of degrees given to women decreased from 1993 to 2016. In addition, in a hypothetical postgraduation companies research, more women choose non-stereotypical companies than men women. This information shows that there might need more women in tech, as well as more time, effort, and resources being directed into making tech a truly inclusive and friendly space for women. Also, breaking stereotypes is extremely crucial for a woman's career decisions and choices.
As all of my team members all strongly identify with being in the technology industry, we hope to find and invite more women with interests in tech to join a community of like-minded individuals. In order to inspire others to join the industry we are all so passionate about, we created Nourish, a space for women of high school and college age to feel at home and comfortable with who they are and the career they pursue.
Problem Statement
How might we expand the resources available and create a comfortable space for young women who want to pursue technology as a career?
User research
To have a better understanding of what challenges both mentors and mentees are facing in tech mentorships and how we can improve their experience, we created a survey. We only received 6 respondents all from mentees, but the information they provided is detailed enough for us the address some insights.
Research Insights
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​People are hoping to have more opportunities for reflection, constructive feedback, and evaluation of the relationship
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Mentees are hoping to have more responsive mentors
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While being in mentorship relationships, people are also looking for building friendship
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People hope to utilize mentorship time more effectively
Personas
Wireframe
Based on our research and users' needs, we created wireframes for different pages of our website which include: webinar page, about us page, mentor matching page, and task page.
Final Design
Match Page
The March Page asks mentors and mentees about their preferences and matches them based on their answers.
Task Page
Group Task Feature
The Group Task feature will show the tasks the mentors and mentees need to work together which are assigned by the system. There is also a progress ranking board where people can see how other groups are doing. This feature can improve mentors' and mentees' engagement with the program. To complete the tasks, mentors and mentees need to submit a short discerption of what they did with the tasks.
Individual Task Feature
The individual Task feature will show the mentors or mentees the task they got assigned individually. To complete the tasks, they also need to submit a short discerption of what they did with the tasks.
Add Task Feature
The Add Task feature will allow mentors or mentees to add tasks for each other. This feature can help both sides remember what they need to do for each other.
Question Board Feature
The Question Board feature will allow mentees to ask any questions not just to their mentor but to the community. This feature can help mentors get help more easily and get more resources.
Webinar Page
The Webinar Page has upcoming webinars that mentees can sign up to participate in and also has the past webinar recordings that are available for mentees to watch any time they want.
What I learned
I learned the importance of doing user research so that we can improve our product to match the users' needs and solve the problem they currently have. Even though we didn't get too many survey responses, the feedback we got was useful for us to design our features
For future improvement, we hope to do more user testing to verify if our features work for them and keep improving the features.