OVERVIEW
Hackathon Challenge
To find solutions to help those who are currently unemployed or have lost jobs because of COVID-19, find opportunities to find jobs and work, find resources and support, and connect with potential employers and recruiters.
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My Contribution
Daily Scrum, Design sprints, Brainstorming, Ideation, Conceptual sketches, Story Boarding, Affinity Mapping, User Interviews, User flows, Wire-framing, High Fidelity.
The Team
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"As a team, We believed in empowering women and want to create a social networking platform to help unemployed women connect with mentors."
THE PROBLEM
COVID-19 has worsened the gender gap and is disempowering many women across the nation.
2 million
Unemployed in the USA pre- COVID-19
28 million+
New unemployment claims in march-may 2020
30 million
Total 2020 US unemployment claims
15 million
55% of total unemployment claims are WOMEN
National Women’s Law Center says “Women accounted for 55 percent of the 30 million jobs lost in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics”.
RESEARCH
We surveyed 50 women to understand what do women need most to get back to work. Survey questions
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100% want verifiable referrals
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84% prefer networking
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72% interested in mock interviews
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68% don’t have a mentor
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60% enjoy networking
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Secondary Research was about Job Hires Secondary Research​
We also interviewed 6 Participants and asked them about networking, mentorship programs and job search strategy.
Most of them wanted accountability mentors and referrals, who can guide and support them through the process and help them find the missing skills to find their next job.
“I love networking and I miss it now, I learn more, make contacts, always helped me get my next job.”
-Divyasree
“I wish I had someone who could guide me with resume and direct me in my career.”
-Magda
“Not everyone responds back, when I message them for referral. It is hard to get one.”
-Christina
HYPOTHESIS
SOLUTION
THE SOLUTION
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We believe in women helping women.
We want to create a social networking platform for women that connects mentors, mentees, and other skilled individuals to reach their career goals.
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To provide women a place to connect with mentors and mentees based on personalized skill sets and interests. Women2work serves as a platform to easily connect them.
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Initial MVP will be by Linkedin invitation only
After MVP the key acquisition channels will be
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LinkedIn advertising
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Client Referrals
DESIGN RATIONALS
Key Features
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Help mentees learn: Skill Training Workshops/Activities
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Networking: Connect with Mentors, colleagues and fellow job seekers.
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Mentor Badge: Mentors will receive certified badges they can add on LinkedIn.
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Next Step: We wanted to provide Resource to Networking Events and Workshops.
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Key metrics
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User's needs of the mentees and mentors: referrals, network, and job experience.
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Clear understand of what the purpose of Women2Work is.
THE CHALLENGE
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The biggest challenge occurred when the Business analyst and UX designers had misinterpretation about the product, what the app should do and how the app should do it.
It was important for BA to understand what an app needs to do to fill business needs and resolve business problems. Whereas, for UX designers it was important to focus on the quality of the experience the app user has, asking questions like, what makes this app a pleasure to use?
At this point, we realized the importance of communicating and also remember the business goals and user needs.
DESIGN SPRINTS
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We as a team, together had design sprint sessions.
Design sprints encourage original thinking through experimentation and iteration. Because of the focus on sketching and prototyping, it is possible to explore ideas that would typically be rejected. Prototyping and sketching also reduces the cost of failure.
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Sprints allow us to compress months of work into a few days of focus and productivity.
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HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Landing Page
User Signup
Profile Signup
Welcome Page
Internal Landing Page
Mentor Profile
Mentor Calendly Request
Referral Notification
Accomplishments
We were able to finish our project before the deadline and probably the first one to submit.
We came up with the MVP product and produced infront of jury.
Learnings
Having thought of all the business opportunity incline with the product made us unique from our competitors.
Advantage of working in larger groups is more work in less time. We get different perspectives to solve the same problem.
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Next Step
We couldn't really do usability test.
We would like to explore and design other features like networking, Mentor user flows.
Women Hack The Crisis 2020, My very first virtual hackathon. It was an amazing learning experience. Over 100+ participants, 7 days with one purpose, which is to design and develop solutions to challenges faced by women during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a great pleasure to work with and to lead an amazing team of smart and talented women Tammy Chang, Melody Liu, Kristen Johnson-Oyoo, Runor Agbaire, Laura Berry, Stacy Smith, Jordis Man.
Thank you to The Expat Woman, Nyna Pais Caputi for making this happen and Melody Serra, Ana Grace, Claire Behar for mentoring us.