Booosty
A career mentoring platform
About Booosty
Booosty is a platform that connects career mentors to everyone who needs help in their career journey.
The Booosty's focus is on minority people.
Project Overview
This is an entrepreneurship project. The idea was initiated by a Vlerick Business School alumnus for his Entrepreneurship course and to apply for the Vlerick fund accordingly.
Role: UX/UI Design, Business Design
Target Device: Desktop
Tools: Figma, FigJam, Miro, Tally, Microsoft Excel
Problem
Delphina - an African working mother - lives in Belgium as a third culture person; and
needs someone who could guide her and fits her personality and professional background through her career path;
because she wants to improve her mental health, thrive in her job, and build new opportunities.
Solution
Using the Design Thinking method, we built a Desktop prototype that gives a meaningful and relevant experience to third-culture people where they can quickly find their best-fit career mentor and expand their network.
Process
With the help of Design Thinking and Business Design methodologies, we based our non-linear design process as below:
1. Empathize
Initial idea
"I had been a third-culture person in the US, and mentors helped me grow and be who I am now. I want to establish a platform where mentors help minorities, and everyone need help for their career."
This was the first thing the stakeholder told me about his idea.
Idea validation by user interview
As the single necessary and sufficient condition for a business is a paying customer, we started to interview 10 individuals with different backgrounds to know more about them.
Once we figured out that people with diverse backgrounds need career advice, and would pay for what they gain, we decided to deepen our understanding of target users.
Conducting Surveys
We wanted to expand the scope of our research and gather significant data in a short amount of time. Thus conducted two surveys, one to understand the mentor side, and one for the mentee side.
We had 2 main goals:
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To validate that there is enough paying customer in the target market
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To understand their background, needs and pain points
The most important factor in finding a mentor is their experience level
Leadership, Individual growth, and work-life balance are the top areas to improve.
The most demanded option is having a targeted mentoring program with the assigned task.
Career move-up is the top aspiration.
Market size
Second round of interview
Now, we had a clearer understanding of potential users, their needs, and pains. This time, we set the second interview round, and shaped the questions to define users' current journey in searching for a mentor, and becoming a mentor.
Interview analysis
Using the card storing and affinity diagram method, I analyzed both interviews' inputs to be able to shape needs analysis and value proposition.
Affinity diagram
2. Define
Need analysis
Using the card storing and affinity diagram method, I structured both interviews' inputs in a MECE way (Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive) to be able to shape needs analysis and value proposition.
To be able to launch the MVP, I only focused on the mentee side and assumed all mentors will be registered by us.
Mentee Persona
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Empathy map
Point of View (POV)
In order to clearly and coherently explain what problem our design process aims to solve, I shaped the POV statement. It defines the user and their needs and provides insights into why each need is important to that user.
Delphina - an African working mother - lives in Belgium as a third culture person; and
needs someone who could guide her and fits her personality and professional background through her career path;
because she wants to improve her mental health, thrive in her job, and build new opportunities.
How Might We Questions
To generate creative solutions while keeping teams focused on the right problems to solve, I shaped HMW questions as below:
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How might we give a person an option to ask for career help when they need it?
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How might we empower a person to overcome their career challenges?
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How might we give a person a personalized career guide?
Value Proposition
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Our mentoring platform helps third-culture people
who want to move up in their career, and improve their mental health by finding their best-fit career mentor who defines their personalized SMART goals and related tasks, and gain more self-satisfaction, career and financial improvement and feel inclusive.
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3. Ideate
Sketches
Having brainstormed ideas together, I started sketching out initial ideas for Desktop as users said they look for mentors while working behind the desk. These paper sketches were a quick and efficient method for visualizing the most important task of a user which is to find a mentor and book a session with them.
Task & User Flow
Task & User Flow
4. Prototype
Low-fidelity wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes
Brand name
Having brainstormed names together, I proposed the "Booosty" name. Of course, it comes from the word "boost" as the mission of our company is to empower people to be a better version of themselves. The three "O" letters represent people, and the letter "Y" in the end makes it a cool and friendly brand.
Visual identity
Logo
Color
UI Kit & Design System
Finally, I created a Design System to ensure that the visual design remains consistent in the design process.
To have a unified design, I used the Atomic Design method and:
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Applied the Inter which is a sans-serif typeface to follow the minimal and friendly design.
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Designed an adaptive product, for a desktop 1440px size.
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Chose a 4px corner radius for buttons, cards, and inputs to maintain professionalism while delivering a friendly sense.
High-fidelity wireframes
Home page
Result page
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5. Test
Usability test
After prototyping the initial wireframes, I set a couple of rounds of usability sessions with an overall of 5 users. The main task was to find their best-fit mentor.
Iterations
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Final high-fidelity prototype
Booosty is a platform that connects career mentors to everyone who needs help in their career journey.
The Booosty's focus is on monirity people.
Home page
Result page
Mentor's page
Sign up pop-up
Log in pop-up
Topic selection pop-up
Checkout page 01
Communication tool selection pop-up
Checkout page 02
Payment successfull
Reflection
What I have learned from this project
This project was not only a product design project, but also an entrepreneurship business idea. With the help of business design method I learned the application of design thinking in business and problem-solving.
What I can do next
The time constraints prevented a number of tasks from being included that should be addressed next, such as:
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Evaluating the current website design with multiple methods of testing including Maze software.
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To complete both sides of a platform, I will design mentor’s side too.
What I would do differently
Conducting more interviews with extreme users because it will magnify the problems, needs and also can help me to gain greater empathy for the target group as a whole.
Thanks for your attention
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