Brute: A Mentoring Site Case Study
Background
Bullying is an epidemic throughout the world. Every 1 in 3 children report being bullied and unfortunately few take the opportunity to utilize the help offered by councilors, principles, and hotlines, either from fear of negative repercussions or feeling uncomfortable talking about it. In fact, after doing some research we found that only 20% of children ever report being bullied to an adult. Most kids would rather talk to a friend or someone anonymous. That is why I created Brute.
Summary
Brute is a mentorship site for kids who are being bullied. Our goal is to not only connect kids with a mentor who can help them but, also to have that mentor feel like a friend rather than a counselor. Our mission isn’t to stop bullying but to have an outlet for those who are being bullied.
Role and responsibility
My team consisted of two people. Throughout the early stages of the project, we split up research, wireframing, and testing equally. I specifically focused on conducting interviews and gathering information. When it came to designing we split up the wireframing. My teammate did the onboarding and I took care of the navigation bar. I made the Information pages, mission page, and mentorship page. When it came to high fidelity design we split up to design our sites while still maintaining the ability to make any changes we felt necessary.
Research
Research started by browsing the web for other bullying sites. During the research, we found a commercial that Burger King conducted that gave us the idea of a mentorship program. Our first step was conducting interviews to make sure it was user-approved and after talking to the students and councilors I was able to get a better idea of what the users are looking for.
The following questions were asked with slight variations being made when questioning the councilors: Who did you talk to when you were being bullied, would you diffuse a situation if you saw someone being bullied, what stops you from stepping in.
We also sent out a survey for people to take and gathered a lot of information such as when the bullying occurred and what type of bullying it was. All the information from the survey helped us generate ideas and solidified the mentorship aspect of our site.
Our next step was to create a primary and secondary persona. Our primary persona was the mentor who helps the children while the secondary was the child who needs the mentor. After conducting all this research we found out the main MVP and user goals.
Problems And solution
We faced some pretty common problems but our main problems were solved through trial and error and in the end, we found the right solutions, creating a better site.
Navigation
The navigation holds the most vital information for the site. For the problem of navigation, we decided that the best thing to do was conduct card sorts. The first card sort we wanted to know was what to title our different features and the answer to that was what determined the navigation bar. We had a hard time because we didn’t have a page dedicated to becoming a mentor but later decided that we needed to integrate that into the navigation as well. For some reason along the way, we decided to get rid of the page where you learn about mentorship but after doing some user testing we found that it was necessary and added it back in.
Separation mentor and mentee
With two personas we had to figure out the best ways to integrate them in ways that made sense. The “sign up” “become a mentor” and “find a mentor” were all the same steps in our first draft. We found that it was too busy and would take too much time, therefore losing people along the way. After some research and testing, we found that it would be easier for the user if we split up the two. Then we found that the best way to go about it would be to have a gradual integration with CTA for the mentorship program steps. We made wireframes and conducted user testing to make sure that it would be easy and understandable. In the end, we made a seamless transition from the “signup” and “become a mentor”.
Breakthrough
Mentee
Throughout most of the project we call the kids mentees, even though it didn’t necessarily fit the theme and tone of the site. We either had to change the name of it or discard it completely. We decided on the later. After we got rid of the unfavorable title we were able to reinforce the two different registration processes for “Becoming a mentor” and “Finding a mentor”. This was a breakthrough because up to this point everything had still been undecided and shakey. This change was what helped everything fall into place.
Takeaways
I went into this project thinking that it would be pretty straight forward. I found that to be completely wrong. Features I thought would be easy ended up taking twice as long as expected. It was a constant collaboration between me and my partner. Everything in UX is just a lot of trial and error and things aren't always going to work out. In the end, we are designing for the User, not for ourselves. User testing is your friend, do as much of it as you can. Sometimes I had a hard time remembering that and would want to add features that we found through user testing didn't need to be implemented.
Another lesson I learned was thorough with our research. We were constantly having to refer to it for everything. When we had something missing in our research we had to take a break and conduct research. Sometimes it seemed that research either took us a step forward or two steps backward. it can make or break you. But in the end, it was always worth it because it helped us understand the users and therefore create the best user experience for them.
Final thoughts
This was my first project as a UX designer. I think that as far as first projects go I did a good job and I am proud of my work. Of course, there is always room for improvement. I’m sure in a couple of years I will find things that I would change and wonder why I added it in the first place. In the end though I learned so much from this project and am very grateful for that.
