ADPList
Redesigned website to improve mentor's experience in mentorship community
My Role
UX Research, User Interviews, Paper Prototyping, Low-fi Prototyping, Systems Design, Hi-fi Prototyping, Information Architecture, Interaction Design
Tools
Sketch, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, System Diagram, Stakeholder Analysis
Duration
13 weeks
Team
Bhumika Sharma, Dennis Baek
Hakyung Yeom, Cassie Li
Location
Human-Computer Interaction Design,
California College of the Arts
Date
March 2022- May 2022
Overview
Revising the mentor's experience to build a more sustainable mentorship community
The goal of this project was to re-designed their existing model. Here, my team and I carried out an end-to-end design process, from research planning, participant recruitment, design of interviews, conducting strategized preliminary and secondary research, and thematic analysis to high-fi digital design solution to leverage the solution within the system.
By increasing the benefits of mentors and mentees on the ADPList platform.
Amazing Design People List is a free platform for designers to build on their skills and connect with mentors by democritising the mentorship.
Product Highlight
Smaller group sessions
Small group session allows mentors to practice and quickly see the impact while having less burden.
Mentors Club
The mentor who wants to host a group session can collaborate with different mentors can find partners in the community.
Quiz for mentees
Improve 1-on-1 communication with mentors pre-requisite questionnaire to help mentees keep organized.
Process
Throughout these 13 weeks, my team and I divided our research and design process into three primary categories:
Double Diamond Process
Discovery and Research
Understanding existing model
ADPList is a global platform to connect designers with mentors who help them uplevel skills and connect them to companies with open roles. ADPList provides a more convenient way for young professionals to seek help from more experienced professionals:

1. Free mentorship
2. Convenient and guaranteed booking system
3. Matching by interest
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ADPList is doing a brilliant job at providing what's best for the mentors but there is an imbalanced ratio between mentees and mentors.
For 200k mentees, it only has 6k mentors on the platform, which makes it a 33:1 ratio.
User mapping
We mapped out our primary target users to understand who are we designing for and what their current needs are.
Our primary users were:
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Mentees
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Mentors
User Interviews 1.0
We recruited people who are already working with ADPList as mentors and mentees. We conducted a qualitative interview methodology to understand the current solution area
and how we can leverage the solution within the system.
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Key Findings:
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The user feedback from the actual users of the existing application was taken and the recurring pain points were:​
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The voluntary essence of this platform caused a lack of quality
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Mentors don’t see any clear benefits on this platform for them.
It is very unpredictable, sometimes mentors reply instantly and there are times when they do not reply at all.
I have a very transactional relationship with my mentees.
How can we improve the user experience by simplifying tasks, delight, reducing friction, etc.?
User Interviews 2.0
We conducted nine interviews to understand this problem in depth from different perspectives. The selected candidates were a mix of graduate students seeking mentorships and professionals who are willing to guide them so that we could juxtapose both viewpoints. We conducted a qualitative interview methodology with the help of “5W” to gain a holistic understanding.
​
​
What
What are people struggling with right now? What do people enjoy most?
Where
Where does the conversation take place; What products are they using?
Who
Who will make a good match?
Why
Why do people want to become a mentor/mentees?
When
Does the cadence matter? How does duration play in?
Affinity Mapping
The next step was to take the collected divergent data from the interviews and restructure it into a cohesive story to bring focus to those insights. This was done by creating an Affinity Map where the categories were made organically by grouping together similar viewpoints through out the process.
User Journey map:
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The next step was to take the collected divergent data from the interviews and restructure it into a cohesive story to bring focus to those insights. This was done by creating an Affinity Map where the categories were made organically by grouping together similar viewpoints throughout the process.
Design Opportunites:​
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Mentors feel difficult to push forward the conversation because mentees don’t know how to be mentees
2
​
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Lack of personal growth
The transactional relationships between mentors and mentees and large group sessions on the platform take away the confidence and it does not push mentors to become a better leaders.
3
Stagnant growth in networking
Mentors want to connect to other mentors for networking or potential collaboration in the future but they are using other different platforms to connect.
1
Time waste in communication
Ideation:
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We used Four Actions Framework poses four key questions to translate insights into well-constructed strategies:
RAISE
What factors should be raised well above the industry's standard.
ELIMINATE
Which factors that the industry has long competed on should be eliminated.
CREATE
Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered.
REDUCE
Which factors should be reduced well below the industry's standard.
Solution Criteria​
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To improve 1-on-1 communication efficiency & personal growth for mentors.
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To build confidence for mentors by leading small group sessions & deepen connections between mentors & mentees
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To provide collaboration opportunities and share resources to enrich and grow the mentor-only community.
Information Architecture:
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The next step was to take the collected divergent data from the interviews and restructure it into a cohesive story to bring focus to those insights. This was done by creating an Affinity Map where the categories were made organically by grouping together similar viewpoints throughout the process.
High-Fidelity Wireframes​
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The next step was to take the collected divergent data from the interviews and restructure it into a cohesive story to bring focus to those insights. This was done by creating an Affinity Map where the categories were made organically by grouping together similar viewpoints throughout the process.
