Mentorship & Soft Skills Learning App:
Freelance Client Rapid Design Challenge
Mentorship & Soft Skills Learning App:
Freelance Client Rapid Design Challenge
At a Glance
Product Overview
A mobile and desktop app designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis on storytelling and dynamic data visualization.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization.
Roles
UX Research / UX Design / UI Design & Prototyping
Time Frame
1-2 days (12 hours) for mid-fi mobile screens
1 hour for mid-fi desktop screen
Tools
Figma / Pen & Paper / Canva
Project Highlights
Project Summary
A startup founder approached me to create design concepts for a soft-skills development platform aimed at young professionals. The project goal was to communicate the look, feel, and potential features of a future web app to investors and advisors in a pitch deck.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
Principal Challenge
The founder had a strong vision but limited concrete direction. My task was to quickly translate his high-level ideas (“a dashboard with an Oura-like aesthetic” or "sticky like Instagram") into tangible, polished visuals that communicated a captivating product concept.
Constraints:
Limited input and evolving ideas from the client
Extremely short turnaround (first round: ~3 days over Thanksgiving; second: ~1 hour rapid design sprint)
No concrete knowledge of future learning content to design from
Process
Project Summary
Since the product was still at the ideation stage, I began by clarifying the core value proposition—helping users visualize and track their soft skills growth. From there, I:
Brainstormed potential core features such as progress tracking, story pod playback, and reflection journaling
Sketched potential information architecture layouts that created a targeted approach to story engagement and growth
Explored visual directions inspired by Oura and minimalist productivity tools—dark backgrounds, high contrast, clean typography.
Created mid-fi to hi-fi mockups in Figma for mobile and desktop, emphasizing clarity, hierarchy, and an intuitive data visualization layout
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
Brainstorming
After hashing out the core principles of the product with the founder, I set to work on brainstorming relevant features. This was actually the hardest part! There were no "user interviews" – just a target demographic and some discussion of the goals and emphasis of the app. The founder's passion is bringing mentorship to the underserved, and using storytelling as a principal means to impart the same insights and character development as realtime mentorship. Different age groups were tossed out for the app – in previous iterations it had targeted middle and high school students. The current version played with the idea of young adults on the cusp of entering the workforce.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
I began collecting screenshots of products within the educational domain that emphasized skill development data visualization. I also considered products that feature playback (Spotify, Youtube, other Podcast apps).
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
I began sketching some rough wire flows to begin experimenting with the information architecture and a basic user flow. The flow takes users from a dashboard to their personal skills inventory insights to their playlist of story pods.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
I began working on some mid-fidelity screens for the pitch decks. We were able to discuss the dash and skills dash screen to confirm that he liked the direction of the assets before building out the other key screens. Video play screens were next – we wanted to give users options while still helping them know what to prioritize based on their skills assessment.
Users weren't meant to passively engage with the storytelling content, so I made sure to include some place for reflection.
Lastly, I built out a basic user profile screen for the sake of clarifying a potential user type. In this instance, we ended up switching back to a high school student, since the next pitch deck client was a school district. This district also desired a proof of concept for a separate user admin user type. For this user type, I used my own educational background and market research of similar products to justify a change in devices from mobile to desktop.
I was given 1 hour to draw up a concept for a stakeholder meeting. The emphasis is still on data visualization, while giving admins key insights that would help them generate buzz and stickiness around engaging content.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
Outcome
Pitch Decks
The deliverables were featured in the startup’s pitch deck and helped the founder communicate his concept visually to investors. The process demonstrated my ability to:
Work independently with limited direction
Translate abstract ideas into concrete, functional designs
Design rapidly and effectively under tight deadlines
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
Onward
Potential Next Steps
Unfortunately, this product concept hasn't moved forward in the funding and development phase, but it was great to do two "sprints" worth of material. If I had more time with the product, however, I'd love to:
1. Go back and conduct some thorough user interviews of at risk high school students
2. Research more best practices around content stickiness
3. Brainstorm for features that allow for more active engagement with content instead of passive consumption
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
Closing Thoughts
My first "real" client work informs my approach to UX/UI design work, in which I can balance attention to detail with timely and pleasing results. It was definitely the most "chaotic" and disjointed because of the constraints, but also the most exciting. This project stretched my ability to make creative, strategic design decisions with limited input—an essential skill for early-stage product work. It also reaffirmed how much I enjoy transforming “big ideas” into usable, elegant interfaces, and my ability to work efficiently in Figma.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.
A mobile and desktop app designed designed to give the benefits of mentorship and soft skills training with an emphasis storytelling and data visualization. These screens were designed as mockups for pitch decks.