Visualizing and breathing life into remote mentorship
My offerings
Crafted banners and icons for a mobile app curriculum aimed at tech-savvy female mentors
Designed a hardcopy toolkit tailored for mentees residing in rural areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka, facilitating their weekly mentorship calls using their parents’ phones
Designed intuitive app screens for mentor-mentee interactions, covering login, signup and screening stages
Mentee Character Design
Banner Design
Background
MentorToGo, built upon Mentor Together's model, is a distance mentoring program using a mobile app. It connects mentors with mentees, helping them develop important life skills remotely. It aims to provide disadvantaged adolescents in India with access to trained mentors through technology. A matching algorithm pairs mentors and youth, overcoming geographic and social barriers. As a digital career mentoring platform, Mentor To Go aspires to bring mentorship to every corner of India. They've developed screening, matching, mentoring curricula and community support processes to ensure quality mentorship for all. Praekelt.Org was responsible for the technology during the pilot intervention from 2016 to May 2017.
Co-creation
In creating assets for the mobile app curriculum during the pilot phase of the intervention, my goal was to align them with the activities' objectives. Given that mentors and mentees primarily interacted via calls, I opted to develop characters for them. This approach allowed users to catch a glimpse of each other's lives, fostering stronger connections. To ensure the designs resonated authentically and were culturally sensitive, I delved into understanding the lifestyles of both mentors and mentees.
While I had some familiarity with the urban lifestyle, having grown up in Mumbai, gaining insights into the mindset of mentees from rural areas was crucial. With this in mind, I embarked on visits to Halebudunur and Somnathpur in Karnataka. These experiences provided invaluable observations and interactions with potential mentees and their surroundings, which greatly informed the design journey of the curriculum.
Output
Banners, Icons, Curriculum Toolkit, App Screens
Utility
MentorToGo utilized designs across various platforms including mobile apps, curriculum toolkits, presentations, storytelling materials, to enhance user experience and engagement.
Collaborator
MentorTogether and Praekelt.Org
2016-2017, Baltimore, USA
Banner Design
MentorTogether's mentoring framework includes four stages: Connect, Level, Empower, and Evolve. They created a toolkit with activities covering 18 different life and work skills
to help mentors and mentees build strong relationships. My goal was to design banners that matched the objectives of the toolkit and activities.
Connect
The designs focused on the behaviors and actions of mentees.
Empower
The designs used a different illustration style to show the growth in the mentee's individualistic mindset.
Level
The designs depicted mentors and mentees engaging in open and mutual communication.
Evolve
The designs illustrated a mentee’s independence and freedom in making smart choices.
Bringing Designs to Life in the App
The banners and icons were carefully designed to seamlessly fit into the app’s user interface, enhancing the overall user experience. Each banner was displayed to guide mentors and mentees through their journey. Icons were strategically placed within activity modules to provide clear visual cues and improve navigation. Together, these design elements added vibrancy and functionality to the app, making it intuitive and engaging for users.
Designing for Hard Copy Toolkits
Since many mentees lacked access to smartphones, the curriculum was shared as a hard copy toolkit. This included 80 sessions: 40 in Marathi for mentees in Maharashtra and 40 in Kannada for mentees in Karnataka. To ensure usability and scalability, I designed a simple, clean, and easily replicable layout. The banners from the mobile app were incorporated into the toolkit to maintain a cohesive visual identity across formats.
Introducing App Screens: Iteration 2.0
The following app screens represent Iteration 2.0 of the mentorship program, showcasing updated designs tested in new pilot projects. These screens reflect refined approaches and enhancements made to improve the overall user experience. While the design style differs from earlier versions, each iteration is a step forward in strengthening the mentorship process and better serving the needs of both mentors and mentees.
