The YMCA Young Adult Learning Program

📂 Project Overview

Timeline

February 26th - March 14th, 2024

The Brief

The YMCA provides a range of development programs from Family Wellness to Youth Civic Engagement. Now, they are adding a program for young adults to teach them tangible life skills to help them be successful in setting up their futures. They want to create a virtual portal that enables young adults around Los Angeles to engage in this program.

How might we create an accessible and friendly portal to engage and empower young adults in learning relevant life skills?

Team and Project Roles

Logan Ahern - Project Manager and Ideation Lead

Caroline Ashman - Style Guide and Design Lead

Kyla Reining - Research and Define Lead

📑 Project Summary

The YMCA sought to create an app to help young adults develop essential life skills. Our team at General Assembly began by researching how young adults currently learn these skills, uncovering that they prefer guidance from mentors and often feel frustrated with unreliable online information. To address this, we designed an article center where YMCA staff could publish trusted content. Additionally, we developed an onboarding system to connect users with the right mentors. After testing, we refined the app by moving the onboarding process to the mentor area, ensuring a more seamless user experience.

🕵🏼 Research

Objective and Approach

Our initial research objective was to investigate how young adults acquire new life skills. To achieve this, we distributed a survey to online Facebook and Reddit groups.

We received 22 responses, and 11 of those respondents expressed willingness to participate in interviews. Within 48 hours, we scheduled and conducted 5 interviews.

Notable Survey Findings

The survey gave us perspective on why and how young adults learn new skills.

Interview Themes

Our interviews provided deeper insights into the behaviors and desires of individuals learning new skills.

After affinity mapping key interview points, we discovered that users exhibit a strong desire to learn new life skills, primarily through interpersonal connections.

🎯 Defining the User

Taylor & Her Problem

From a young age, Taylor learned various life skills through interactions with family members, friends, and neighbors. Currently, Taylor recognizes the importance of self improvement and seeks to expand knowledge through different learning sources.

🧠 Ideation

“How Might We” Statements

I led the ideation phase by generating 12 'How Might We' Statements. These statements aimed to explore potential solutions to the problem.

Out of the 12 statements, our team identified 3 that resonated the most with our users. We then individually developed solutions based on these statements before reconvening to discuss and finalize our approach.

Solutions

We knew the YMCA wanted an app, so we dove into planning what it could offer.

We wanted to cover four main areas: helping users get started, connecting them with YMCA mentors, providing useful articles, and letting them book classes.

To keep everything organized, we decided a dashboard would be key to bringing it all together.

Sketch Time!

As we moved forward with bringing our ideas to life, I focused on sketching solutions for the article page, while Caroline tackled sketches for the dashboard and onboarding pages. Kyla took the lead on sketching the class pages and refining the user flows.

🧑🏼‍🔬 Mid-Fi’s and Testing

Wireframing

After finalizing our sketches, Caroline took charge of crafting a style guide to maintain design consistency, while I concentrated on developing low-fidelity layouts.

Once Caroline finished the style guide, we collaborated to elevate the low-fidelity designs to mid-fidelity and assembled a prototype together.

Testing the Mid-Fi Solutions

After transforming our mid-fidelity solutions into a prototype, we tested it with four users. Their tasks included onboarding onto the app, selecting a mentor during onboarding, locating information on W2s, booking a tax class, and ensuring the class was added to the calendar.

Testing Discoveries

Reflecting and Making Updates

Based on our testing results, it became evident that users highly valued the ability to communicate with a mentor. This aligns with our persona, which emphasizes learning through interpersonal connections.

Additionally, to ensure completion of the onboarding process, we decided to separate the mentor pairing into its own distinct flow. This allows users to answer a few questions, familiarize themselves with the app, and then find a mentor at their own pace.

🙌🏼 The Solution Designed

Hi-Fi Changes

The onboarding process underwent significant streamlining, and each flow received its own homepage for improved organization. Additionally, the dashboard was simplified and selecting a mentor is now entirely separate from the onboarding process.

Prototype Video Walkthrough

Click play on the video to watch me walk through the solutions. You can also view them in written format below if you don’t want to watch a video.

Flow 1: Onboarding onto YMCA

User onboards on to the app by creating a new account and filling out their information.

Flow 2: Selecting a Mentor

Our users seek to connect with a role model or "Mentor," leading them to the Mentor Home Page.

If they haven't selected a Mentor yet, they are prompted to do so by either taking a quiz or viewing a small featured list.

Flow 3: Reading an Article in the Learning Hub

If users wish to acquire knowledge about a specific life skill but lack the time for a class, they can visit the Learning Hub. Here, they can access articles featuring pictures, videos, and external links, catering to various learning styles.

Flow 4: Booking a Class

When users wish to take a class, they can visit the Class Home Page. Here, they'll find categories to choose from or can search for available classes. They can review class details, view the itinerary, select a date, and book the class—all within this section of the app.

📋 Important Next Steps

Test the New Flows

Testing the streamlined onboarding process and the updated mentor flow would provide valuable insights into user reactions. Despite previous negative feedback on the article flows, exploring alternative testing methods could help us assess the effectiveness of the solution.

Build out the Mentor Homepage

Before testing again, we need to build out what the mentor homepage would look like once a user chooses their mentor. Right now it is designed for a brand new user.

💭 Have Any Thoughts?

Please share!

If you have any questions, ideas or opinions, I’d love to hear them below :)

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