UConnect Mobile App Design
Hackathon Winner
March 17, 2013
College Ready Hackathon
Berkeley, CA
Overview
- Team Edventure: Brittany Cheng, Samir Makhani, Aatash Parikh, Carl Shan, and Marissa Teitelman.
- During a one-day hackathon, we designed and pitched the user interface and experience for UConnect, a mobile peer advising and mentorship app.
Hackathon Goals
- Target one or more student groups: K-12 students and their families; 9-12 high school students planning to apply to the UC system; and Community College transfer students planning to apply for transfer to UC
- Prepare students to apply directly from high school or by transfer from community college
- Focus on mobile apps and games that run on smart phones (based on html5) or text alert capability for feature phones
- Include outcome metrics
Process
- Interacted with mentors and students present at the hackathon to understand the problems we wanted to solve
- From quick user research and our own experiences with mentors in high school, decided to create a mentoring application to connect high school students with UC students who could provide basic advice and mentorship
- Sketched out user flow of mobile app from both mentor and mentee perspective
- Used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as the flat design toolkit, to quickly mock up various screens
- Used InVision App to link screens together into presentable and testable prototype
Final Designs
High school student logs in to the app, connecting through Facebook so we can access basic information and interests. Then, the student selects some pre-suggested interests so we can match them to possible mentors.
High school student is shown a list of suggested college student mentors, paired based on interest, location, and other demographic information. Student can browse and click on mentors' profiles.
High school student can send messages to mentors with specific questions about the UC application process, or other college application and readiness questions. Mentors respond and suggest helpful resources.
