Background
GaiaConnect is a social impact startup based in France that provides mentorship and resources to people who want to transition to a sustainable career. As an Intern for GaiaConnect, I was tasked with designing their website.
My Roles: UX/UI Designer, Graphic Designer, Illustrator
Understanding our Users
Bringing Our Personas to Life
Because GaiaConnect's intended audience is made up of people in France who would want to transition to a more sustainable career, we defined various user personas and spent time understanding their goals and paint points. Using the personas defined by our team, I illustrated GaiaAvatars to represent the station and goals of each persona. For example, "GaiaPerdu," or, "GaiaLost" is feeling lost in their current job and dreams of a sustainable career, but does not know where to start. "GaiaIntrapreneur," on the other hand, wants to stay in their job, but wants to learn how they can work with their colleagues to begin some sustainable initiatives in their company. Each avatar was sorted into three categories based on an element.
Air avatars are floating as they do not have a defined path. They are in a state of dreaming of and discovering new possibilities.
Water avatars are ready to take the plunge into a new opportunity, career, or field.
Earth avatars want to cultivate something new from the ground up, either within a company or as a founder of a new organization.
Onboarding Flow
The first step in designing a new website for GaiaConnect was to map out what purpose the website had to serve in the user's journey with GaiaConnect. The website's primary function was to facilitate the onboarding process for new visitors who are discovering what GaiaConnect has to offer. The onboarding process starts with a visit to the landing page, where users can access a Typeform quiz that categorizes users into one of our personas. Using an algorithm developed by another team member, users were then provided with an avatar that represents their goals and a set of mentors that they have been matched with based on their career goals, interests, and experience. After receiving their personalized mentor matches, users could pay for their GaiaConnect mentorship package and book their mentorship sessions.
Prototype & Design
Wireframing
Showing the Process with Illustrations
Using Procreate and Adobe Illustrator, I created custom illustrations for the GaiaConnect website to help the user more clearly understand the sign-up process.
Testing
Feedback from User Interviews and Usability Testing of the first version of the GaiaConnect website:
Feedback: Users described a sense of uncertainty about GaiaConnect, citing the lack of real people visible on the website.
Solution:
While illustrations were useful for certain purposes, such as illustrating the onboarding process, using real imagery for other instances increased user trust in GaiaConnect and allowed users to envision themselves in the program.
Solution:
The inclusion of other 'trust boosters' such as reviews from previous program mentees, allowed GaiaConnect to establish more trust with the users. In future iterations of the website, GaiaConnect could include videos of reviews and success stories from previous mentees:
Feedback: The first version of the landing page was described as too long, with too much information.
Solution:
We evaluated which sections of the landing page served a purpose to the user at this stage of their experience. By creating a separate FAQ section, we were able to provide the user access to essential information without overloading the user with too much information at once and too soon in their journey.
BEFORE
AFTER
Conclusion
