Contents

Overview

Problem

Discovery

Design

Conclusion

Start

Problem

Discovery

Design

End

UniLink: Designing a Mentorship Platform for Exchange Students

A mobile app that connects incoming global students with peer mentors to help them navigate academics, culture, and daily life in a new country.

Project Type

Product Design · UX/UI Design · Mobile

Duration

4 weeks

TOOLS

Figma, FigJam, Google Forms

My Roles

UX Research

Design System

Interaction Design

Prototyping

Team

Ruhin Gharai (pm)

Brian Camilo (research)

Me (visual)

Situation

Redefining the first 30 days abroad

Ever landed in a new country feeling totally lost? I have, and I know that studying at a new place should be an exciting adventure, not a mess figuring out how to turn off the fire alarm.

Ever landed in a new country feeling totally lost? I have, and I know that studying at a new place should be an exciting adventure, not a mess figuring out how to turn off the fire alarm.

Ever landed in a new country feeling totally lost? I have, and I know that studying at a new place should be an exciting adventure, not a mess figuring out how to turn off the fire alarm.

Task

Talk to a local first!

More students are choosing to study overseas than ever, but navigating a new culture, language, and daily life without help is rough. Best way to do this is simply to have someone who's been through it to guide you!

More students are choosing to study overseas than ever, but navigating a new culture, language, and daily life without help is rough. Best way to do this is simply to have someone who's been through it to guide you!

More students are choosing to study overseas than ever, but navigating a new culture, language, and daily life without help is rough. Best way to do this is simply to have someone who's been through it to guide you!

expand your network

Action

Match & Book a Mentor

Meet UniLink— your ultimate hack for life abroad. It connects you with a mentor from your future university who's been there, done that, and had turned chaos into an exciting journey.

Meet UniLink— your ultimate hack for life abroad. It connects you with a mentor from your future university who's been there, done that, and had turned chaos into an exciting journey.

Meet UniLink— your ultimate hack for life abroad. It connects you with a mentor from your future university who's been there, done that, and had turned chaos into an exciting journey.

matching for mentors

Results

1 Pitch. 2 Mentors. 3 People. 4 Weeks.

Designed 2 user surveys, conducted 4 user interviews, created 10+ components, and a fleshed-out prototype with 20+ screens.

Designed 2 user surveys, conducted 4 user interviews, created 10+ components, and a fleshed-out prototype with 20+ screens.

Designed 2 user surveys, conducted 4 user interviews, created 10+ components, and a fleshed-out prototype with 20+ screens.

Challenge

Design an app and prove the concept with research for a 4 week long designation

Results

8 out of 8 users feel more motivated and prepared for their upcoming exchange trip after using our app

10 min read

Case Study

please keep scrolling

The problem

No one should have to navigate a new life alone.

Studying at a new country is often perceived as an exciting adventure and opportunity for self growth. But this also means that 1m+ exchange students each year faced isolation in unfamiliar systems, different cultural norms, and navigating daily logistics without familiar support.
Studying at a new country is often perceived as an exciting adventure and opportunity for self growth. But this also means that 1m+ exchange students each year faced isolation in unfamiliar systems, different cultural norms, and navigating daily logistics without familiar support.
Studying at a new country is often perceived as an exciting adventure and opportunity for self growth. But this also means that 1m+ exchange students each year faced isolation in unfamiliar systems, different cultural norms, and navigating daily logistics without familiar support.

How Might We… reduce the friction of navigating a new environment for global students?

How Might We
make it LESS OVERWHELMING to navigate academics, culture, and daily life for exchange students?

…by building a community!

Here are the biggest complaints we collected

We sent out a community survey, collecting 60+ responses over the course of 1 week! This led to:

  • 4 in-depth interviews with past/present/incoming international/exchange students

  • Competitive analysis of existing student support platforms our respondents use

1/ Information is scattered across multiple platforms

2/ Difficulty navigating logistics in a foreign environment

3/ 39% of global students would prefer to just talk to someone

Discovery

This is what exchange students need

Not more resources, not more tools, nor more systems. The best interaction to show the hows is just… talking to a human.

How Might We
make it LESS OVERWHELMING to navigate academics, culture, and daily life for exchange students?

What makes a good "mentor"?

Current resources that offer mentorship for exchange students are 100% local, tight knit in-person communities, and hosted by universities. We want to scale those local events and resources into an online experience, where more people can connect and help each other out!

We mapped out feature ideas and cut scope aggressively based on user impact.

ideation in Figjam

What features will actually help our users?

feature

function

Yes/no?

Reasoning

Q&A Forum

Q&A Page ✅

ask questions based on universities and exchange programs, a tagging feature similar to Piazza

✅

  • students are already familiar with similar features on Quora/Piazza

  • real human answers and a way to track responses

Community Events

Community Events Page ✅

see events happening based on universities, can rsvp, connect to group chat so people are motivated to go

✅

  • channel online connections into real life involvement

  • digitization to socialization

Video Call

Video Call ✅

call someone after matching

✅

  • make users feel more safe to chat with someone real

AI Chatbot

AI Chatbot ❌

answer students' questions about program details and policies

❌

  • Shifts focus from our value as a platform to find first-hand information

  • Risks hallucination & misinformation

Financial Proof

Financial Proof ❌

verify purchasing power and shows financial proof recognized across countries and banks

❌

  • Too many policies to bypass

  • Stretching from socializing app to fintech

Housing/ Roommate Match

Housing/ Roommate Match ❌

swipe for roommates/find people to room with

❌

  • That's a university's job they already got the resources

  • Not a specific international students needs

Emergency Contact

Emergency Contact ❌

one click button to notify local guardian/first point of contact; safety feature for help when you don't have anyone

❌

  • A lot of competitors

  • Other apps already has them

…and here are what those features would look like

onboarding to gather data for initial matching
swipe to match mentors (gamification)
view mentors in a list with filter options (specific search)
messages with prompts to continue connections

Design

Communicate design concept

notes to my team

Information Architecture

By mapping out our user flow and Information Architecture, my team and I were able to figure out exactly how many pages we needed, thus coordinating our tasks better.

information architecture (stakeholder version)
behind the scenes in our flows

Throw ideas away; fast

I like spreading out iterations of my hifis across the design file to see which version reads better from far away.

this is the frame I'm making the hifi of
iterations on component hierarchy

1/ Building a Design System

1/ Building a Design System

1/ Building a Design System

2/ Animating a Logo

2/ Animating a Logo

2/ Animating a Logo

3/ Iterating on the Navigation Bar

3/ Iterating on the Navigation Bar

3/ Iterating on the Navigation Bar

Test with users!

Led heuristic walkthroughs with 8 global students

Focused on finding logic fails and revise based on user needs

user tasks; interview script

1/ Confusing Q&A page layout

1/ Confusing Q&A page layout

1/ Confusing Q&A page layout

2/ Booking icon is hidden

2/ Booking icon is hidden

2/ Booking icon is hidden

3/ Saving an event

3/ Saving an event

3/ Saving an event

Refine and optimize

I led the transition from mid-fidelity to high-fidelity by prioritizing visual hierarchy and clarity. I didn't just 'clean up' the interface; I intentionally restructured the layout to ensure that critical information—like mentor ratings and availability—was instantly glanceable.

Booking screen before vs after
Onboarding flow evolution

Conclusion

Establishing trust between users through connection

The exchange community is incredibly passionate about helping each other. With this app, we hope to connect those already passionate people to those who would love their help, translating those efforts to good use, and be able to help more people out more efficiently!

The exchange community is incredibly passionate about helping each other. With this app, we hope to connect those already passionate people to those who would love their help, translating those efforts to good use, and be able to help more people out more efficiently!

The exchange community is incredibly passionate about helping each other. With this app, we hope to connect those already passionate people to those who would love their help, translating those efforts to good use, and be able to help more people out more efficiently!

How Might We… reduce the friction of navigating a new environment for global students?

How Might We
make it LESS OVERWHELMING to navigate academics, culture, and daily life for exchange students?

Reflections

Our team's initial idea focused on finding housing for international student, but research revealed a broader impacted demographic. Narrowing down to exchange students as our user group let us pivot into a mentorship platform that directly addressed their needs.

I learned that our first solution is not always going to work out, and I should continue to test and research as I create. Don't be afraid to pivot and re-scope a project, as not trying is a bigger crime than failing.

Our team's initial idea focused on finding housing for international student, but research revealed a broader impacted demographic. Narrowing down to exchange students as our user group let us pivot into a mentorship platform that directly addressed their needs.

I learned that our first solution is not always going to work out, and I should continue to test and research as I create. Don't be afraid to pivot and re-scope a project, as not trying is a bigger crime than failing.

Our team's initial idea focused on finding housing for international student, but research revealed a broader impacted demographic. Narrowing down to exchange students as our user group let us pivot into a mentorship platform that directly addressed their needs.

I learned that our first solution is not always going to work out, and I should continue to test and research as I create. Don't be afraid to pivot and re-scope a project, as not trying is a bigger crime than failing.

expand your network

Next Steps

Now that we addressed our primary group of users— exchange students, our next step is to design for our other group of users— mentors! What would incentivize them to participate? What challenges do they face? I believe that by balancing mentorship growth and student support, we can enhance engagement for both sides.

Now that we addressed our primary group of users— exchange students, our next step is to design for our other group of users— mentors! What would incentivize them to participate? What challenges do they face? I believe that by balancing mentorship growth and student support, we can enhance engagement for both sides.

Now that we addressed our primary group of users— exchange students, our next step is to design for our other group of users— mentors! What would incentivize them to participate? What challenges do they face? I believe that by balancing mentorship growth and student support, we can enhance engagement for both sides.

matching for mentors

Acknowledgements

Shoutout to mentors Stefanie Mclaren (Grammarly) , Nick Hoh (Health Tech), and Andy Leyman (Automative) for taking the time out of their day to help guide our project direction, provide industry feedback, and help answer our questions with design thinking! Cannot thank passionate designers like them enough in creating this community that let young designers like me and my friends grow.

Giant thank you to my friend Mary Kay, a professional copywriter, for helping me write and revise this case study.

Most of all, so grateful for my teammates Ruhin and Brian. Without them, UniLink would not have happened.

Shoutout to mentors Stefanie Mclaren (Grammarly) , Nick Hoh (Health Tech), and Andy Leyman (Automative) for taking the time out of their day to help guide our project direction, provide industry feedback, and help answer our questions with design thinking! Cannot thank passionate designers like them enough in creating this community that let young designers like me and my friends grow.

Giant thank you to my friend Mary Kay, a professional copywriter, for helping me write and revise this case study.

Most of all, so grateful for my teammates Ruhin and Brian. Without them, UniLink would not have happened.

Shoutout to mentors Stefanie Mclaren (Grammarly) , Nick Hoh (Health Tech), and Andy Leyman (Automative) for taking the time out of their day to help guide our project direction, provide industry feedback, and help answer our questions with design thinking! Cannot thank passionate designers like them enough in creating this community that let young designers like me and my friends grow.

Giant thank you to my friend Mary Kay, a professional copywriter, for helping me write and revise this case study.

Most of all, so grateful for my teammates Ruhin and Brian. Without them, UniLink would not have happened.

Next Project

Media

BridgeUs

Redesigned the page to view responses from a guided activity

#education #responsecollection

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