PeopleGrove Platform Redesign – Improving Mobile Usability & Engagement
PeopleGrove is a career development and mentorship platform supporting students and professionals through networking, skill-building, and collaboration. While the platform provides value, users reported difficulty navigating it on mobile, unclear pathways to engagement, and a lack of lightweight features to support ongoing participation.
This project focused on improving the mobile experience through a user-centered redesign — increasing clarity, reducing friction, and helping users connect with opportunities more efficiently.
1. The Problem
User interviews revealed that PeopleGrove’s interface was:
-
Text-heavy and visually dense, making navigation feel overwhelming
-
Missing mobile-first interaction patterns (users didn’t know where to start)
-
Lacking simple notifications or guidance, which reduced engagement
-
Hard to browse or evaluate opportunities quickly
Because career-building already carries emotional and cognitive weight for users, a confusing interface discouraged deeper interaction with the platform.
2. Who I Designed For (Primary Users)
The redesign primarily focused on:
-
Students and emerging professionals using the platform to find mentorship, projects, and networking opportunities
-
Users accessing the platform on mobile, often between classes, meetings, or job searches
These users needed:
-
A faster way to understand next steps
-
Cleaner information hierarchy
-
A sense of momentum and progress when using the app
3. Research Approach
I conducted user interviews across three user types:
User Type
-
Active users
-
Mildly active users
-
First-time users
Purpose of Insight
-
Understand what keeps them returning
-
Learn where interest drops
-
Detect onboarding & clarity issues​
The research process included:
-
20–30 minute structured interviews (virtual & in-person)
-
Observational task walkthroughs
-
Probing for emotional friction points (confusion, hesitation, drop-off moments)
This helped validate that the usability challenges were not visual only — they were rooted in clarity, guidance, and cognitive load.
4. Key Insights
Through synthesis of interview data, several core themes emerged:
Pain Point
“I don’t know where to start”
“I can’t tell what matters”
“Navigation feels slow/heavy”
“Nothing reminds me to come back”
What Users Experienced
Weak onboarding and unclear affordances
Text-dense layout without hierarchy
Too many steps to reach meaningful action
Missing notifications or micro-guidance
These insights shaped the direction of the redesign — the solution needed to help users take action faster, not just browse more comfortably.
5. Design Foundation
Before moving into screens, I externalized the research through:
​
-
Personas – to anchor decisions in user goals and motivations
-
Empathy mapping – to understand emotional context, not just tasks
-
Journey mapping – to identify where the experience broke down and where friction occurred
These artifacts clarified when users felt:
​
-
Confident vs unsure
-
Motivated vs overwhelmed
-
Supported vs left on their own
6. Design Strategy
Through synthesis of interview data, several core themes emerged:
UX Goal
-
Improve clarity
-
Improve guidance
-
Improve engagement
Design Strategy
-
Stronger hierarchy + simplified entry points
-
Light onboarding + contextual cues
-
More mobile-first interactions & feedback loops
The approach was not to overload users with features, but to help them quickly understand:
“Where am I? What can I do here? And why should I continue?”
After defining strategy, I translated insights into low-fidelity wireframes and later into high-fidelity prototypes for testing.
7. Wireframes & Iteration
After distilling the research into user needs and experience goals, I created low-fidelity mobile wireframes to validate structure and flow before visual design. These wireframes focused on:
​
-
Clear entry points for starting a mentorship or project search
-
Streamlined navigation to reduce decision fatigue
-
More scannable content with hierarchy and visual breathing room
-
Gentle onboarding cues to help first-time users understand the next step
​
Once the structure was validated, I moved into high-fidelity mockups that incorporated:
​
-
Refined spacing and typography for readability
-
Improved progression between states/screens
-
Clearer calls to action to support confidence and forward motion
These visual refinements ensured that the redesign improved understanding first, not just aesthetics.​
Home Page/Saved Search Screens
Saved Search /Opportunity Screens
Success Stories / Tutorials & Tip Screens
Tutorial & Tip / Progress & Milestone Screens
8. Usability Feedback
I shared my prototype with the same interview participants to gather targeted usability feedback. The most notable improvements they reported were:
Previous Experience
“I wasn’t sure which action to take.”
“There was too much text.”
“It didn’t feel like a mobile app.”
After Redesign
“I immediately knew where to go.”
“It feels much easier to scan.”
“It feels designed for my phone.”
Users completed core navigation tasks with less hesitation and less mental effort, indicating lower cognitive load and higher confidence.
9. Impact (Prototype Outcome)
While this was a capstone redesign rather than a production deployment, the prototype demonstrated meaningful UX improvements:
​
-
Users understood the platform’s purpose more quickly
-
Navigation friction was reduced through cleaner hierarchy
-
Confidence increased because users could see where to start
-
Flow felt more aligned with “on-the-go” mobile usage
Impact Summary:
Users completed tasks with greater confidence and less friction — moving from uncertainty to clarity in fewer steps.
10. Reflection & Next Steps
This project reinforced the importance of:
​
-
Grounding design decisions in real user feedback
-
Separating information from interaction before thinking visually
-
Designing for context (mobile users are time-bound and goal-oriented)
If I were to continue iterating on this concept, I would:
​
-
Incorporate lightweight personalization or recommendations
-
Test additional notification nudges and re-engagement loops
-
Explore feature visibility for mentorship pairing success metrics
This capstone represents my end-to-end UX approach — from research and synthesis to prototyping and iterative validation.