Viktoriya Kim
Product Designer
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How might we empower the next generation of BIPOC learners feel like they belong in professional settings?
People of color are disproportionately under-represented in educational and professional settings.
We developed a feature for Snapchat users to connect with real insights from under-represented professionals, expand their community circles, and to learn about the potential for their future selves.
View Prototype ➞
During Snap Academies, my team was paired up because we all shared a personal connection to education. We put our heads together to explore different issues, ideate potential features, and shared stories about how we grew up. We realized all of our team members shared similar backgrounds and barriers to higher education because we came from low-income BIPOC families.
We had some initial ideas about how to solve for the issues we discovered in our brainstorm, but we didn't want to make a decision without first meeting with our partner organization, Codetalk.
Codetalk is a digital web technology job training program for low income, underemployed and underserved women. In an intensive 16-week program they provide the tools, training, and support necessary for their graduates to pursue entry level positions in the technology sector. Codetalk's mission is to change the trajectory of their graduates. They want women to enter the technology industry with a deep understanding that they are not defined by or limited to their circumstances.
In our first meeting with CodeTalk we heard a lot of truths that resonated with us deeply. We were reminded that sometimes the biggest barriers to education and finding work are out of our control. Life circumstances can become barriers and can range from having sick family members you have to take care of, paying off financial debt, not having transportation, food and housing insecurity, and much more.
Our team understood that approaching this topic would require sensitivity and understanding that we can't solve for all of these problems. Many of the circumstantial issues that were brought up were systemic. So instead, we honed in on the one thing we felt we could make an impact on; creating opportunities for users to feel a greater sense of belonging.
Finding the motivation to work hard is not the issue. People want to work hard.
School and work are circumstantial.
Many situations can be out people's scope of control and can block them from reaching their full potential.
People need to feel like they belong.
One of the biggest barriers to success is actualizing a seat at the table.
After narrowing our topic, our group revisited our initial brainstorm and prioritized which features would create the most viable product. We were ambitious and initially wanted to add 5 features pitch our idea. However, after the design team split to do the user journeys and a potential site-map evaluation, we realized we needed to narrow down our ideas.
Once the brainstorming and research reached a consensus, the design team (consisting of two members only; Miguel and Viktoriya) took the reigns on creating hard and fast prototypes. We were strapped for time, with less than 4 days to come up with as many iterations as possible. Here is a peek at our process and long lists of notes.
After a few long nights, Miguel and I finalized the prototype to hand-off to the engineers. Here are some of the features we prioritized from our ambitious plans. Click through our working Figma prototype down below to see it in action.
View Prototype ➞
We created a style guide to keep the design language uniform in all deliverables including our wireframes, pitch deck, and mockups.
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