Sean’s Legacy: Onboarding
THRIVE OUT LOUD: CONNECTING LGBTQIA+ WITH MENTORS
TIME
FEB 2024-
JUL 2024
TEAM
UXD & CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
TOOLS
FIGMA
FIGJAM
NOTION
ROLE
UX DESIGN
OVERVIEW
Thrive Out Loud is Aimed to Foster Professional Mentorship Between LGBTQIA+ Young Professionals With Mentors
Sean's Legacy, a 501c3 non-profit, is dedicated to offering resources, opportunities, and assistance to the LGBTQIA+ youth community. The organization aims to raise awareness among friends and family about preventing suicide among queer youth.
This mission is to aid minority LGBTQIA+ youth in their academic and extracurricular pursuits, advocate for gender inclusivity in educational institutions and communities, and prevent suicide through the provision of vital educational resources, scholarships, programs, and services through their mentorship platform: Thrive Out Loud.
PROBLEM
How Can We Create a Secure Onboarding Experience to Foster Connections and Guidance for LGBTQIA+ Young Professionals?
Upon doing design audits, my team uncovered numerous design inconsistencies and usability issues within the previous phases’ designs. Sean’s Legacy wants the best for Thrive Out Loud, and these problems would prevent the platform from achieving its goals. This phase is dedicated to making up for design debt and creating a responsive layout to enhance usability.
Example of a design audit
THE TEAMS
I Closely Collaborate Across UX and Interdisciplinary Teams to Deliver Cohesive User-Centric Solutions
UX
Research
Product
Management
UX
Design
Software
Development
Content
Design/UXW
Project
Management
BEFORE
Lackluster and Limiting
The initial designs aren’t “bad” but can use a lot of polishing. Notice the off-putting gray bar at the bottom above the footer, and the “skip” in the top right corner even though the questions are mandatory. Many design choices did not make sense and were not backed up by research.
Some screens had the “select up to [insert number here] option, which can come off as limiting and unaffirming which which is the opposite of the tone we are aiming for.
COLLABORATION AND RESEARCH
We worked closely with content and UXR to improve the previous onboarding question wireframes from the previous phase. They conducted a comparative analysis of identity labels used in questions related to gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity based on ADPList, OkCupid, and TransTech Social.
They found recommendations such as:
-
Allowing users to select multiple responses to increase inclusivity
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Include different options for “no label,” “not sure,” and “not listed” (free text)
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Increase usability through more consistent design and information architecture
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Reduce cognitive load by condensing similar pages
MID-FI
UXD took the suggestions from content and UXR to start building the wireframes for the platform. I worked on the onboarding questions with one other person.
We got rid of the “skip” option since the questions were mandatory. Further, we added subheadings to add transparency and trust with the user by letting them know how this information will be used.
Still, we felt this design could be improved.
HI-FI
Clear, Modern, and Inclusive
We decided to do a drop down menu to reduce cognitive load, it also looked cleaner than incorporating endless checkboxes.
Due to the findings of UXR and content, we added tooltips on all the headings. Not everyone is well-versed on all the LGBT terminology, this will help prioritize inclusivity while being an informational resource.
Per the suggestions of UXR and content, our design allow the user to select as many selections as they please. Also, to improve inclusivity and acceptance, the user may type out their identity when they select “my [] is not listed” (this applies to gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity & language, and industry). This allows people without normative labels to express their true identity.
Mobile designs for the gender identity onboarding questions
RESULTS
Users Felt Included and Safe on Our Platform!
The user experience research team tested out the onboarding questions with possible future mentors on the platform, and found the design to be very inclusive and user friendly. They especially loved the tool tips and found them “useful,” “generally interesting; stopped to read them,” and “very intuitive.”
For the input choice for the onboarding questions, testers “appreciated the range of options,” and “really liked that you can select multiple [options].” Further, participants found the overall flow and deign to be “very clear,” and “straightforward.”
This was amazing news for all the teams, but especially for the future mentees we will support.
REFLECTION
What I Learned
Importance of a design system: We had a huge focus on using a design and spacing system. It was my first experience with it being used so extensively, and it was an amazing learning process. It made everything so organized and uniform. The spacing system especially was a lot to adapt to and deal with, but it looked phonemically in the end.
