anchor: your all-in-one internship hub
Role: UX Designer and Researcher
Tools: Figma, FigJam, Canva, Zoom, Google Doc, Google Slides
Timeline: Oct 2024 - December 2024 (3.5 Months)
Context
For my Intro to User Interaction class, I collaborated in a team of four on a project to address the challenges students face when navigating the internship process. We recognized that finding internships can often feel overwhelming and disjointed, with students juggling multiple platforms for job postings, mentorship opportunities, career events, and application tracking. To tackle this, we conceptualized Anchor: a centralized platform designed to streamline and simplify the internship journey.
Through our user-centered design process, we conducted in-depth user research to uncover common pain points, such as disorganization and the lack of accessibility in existing resources. Using these insights, we created detailed wireframes and mid-fidelity prototypes to visualize the platform’s features. Usability testing allowed us to identify key areas for improvement, which informed our final design iterations.
This project emphasized the importance of iterative design and the value of incorporating user feedback into every stage of development. With Anchor, we successfully created a cohesive, intuitive tool that empowers students to confidently pursue their career goals without the stress of managing scattered resources. The final platform integrates job boards, mentorship programs, event calendars, and application tracking, making the internship process efficient and accessible for all.
The Problem
How might we leverage & reorganize UMSI’s resources and network to increase the success rate of finding internships/post grad opportunities and decrease the cognitive load for overwhelmed students?
When it comes to navigating the internship process, students often face fragmented resources spread across multiple platforms—job boards, mentorship programs, career events, and application trackers. This disjointed experience not only makes it overwhelming to manage opportunities but also increases the chances of missing key deadlines or resources. For many students, especially those juggling other academic and personal commitments, the process can feel time-consuming, inefficient, and stressful. There is a clear need for a centralized, user-friendly tool that brings all these essential resources together, making the internship journey seamless and accessible.
The Solution
Anchor addresses the challenges of the internship process by offering a centralized platform where students can access everything they need to succeed—all in one place. From job postings to mentorship opportunities, career development events, and application trackers, Anchor simplifies the experience, allowing students to focus on their goals without the stress of juggling multiple resources.
The app provides a streamlined, intuitive interface designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring students can easily navigate its features. Anchor empowers users to stay organized, connect with mentors, and explore career opportunities seamlessly. By integrating usability testing insights, the platform continues to evolve, making the internship journey efficient, accessible, and supportive for students at every step.
Interviews
RESEARCH
To understand the challenges students face, we conducted eight in-depth user interviews with UMSI students representing diverse academic tracks and personal backgrounds. These interviews provided a rich foundation of qualitative data that shaped the design of Anchor.
💡 Our Approach
Our interview strategy aimed to explore both practical behaviors and emotional experiences. We sought answers to key questions:
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How do students currently search for internships, mentorships, and career resources?
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What are their biggest challenges or frustrations?
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What do they feel is missing from existing UMSI platforms like Handshake and CareerLink?
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How do they envision an ideal tool to support their goals?
We intentionally selected participants to reflect a diverse user base, including international students, first-years, and students transitioning into new fields. This diversity helped us uncover a range of pain points and opportunities.
💡 Key Themes
From the interviews, four dominant themes emerged, each shaping the design priorities for Anchor:
RESEARCH
User Personas
To ensure that our solution reflected real user needs, we synthesized our insights into three personas, each representing distinct user groups. These personas guided our design decisions, keeping user needs at the center of every feature.
Meet Cher & Dave - our students and Jane - our aluma:
Cher Jones: 25 year old domestic student
Cher is a proactive second-year MSI student pursuing a career in UX design. While motivated, she struggles with the overwhelming variety of resources available and limited mentorship opportunities.
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Goals: Build a professional network, stay organized, and clarify career pathways.
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Frustrations: Disjointed resources, generic mentorship opportunities, and uncertainty about her progress.
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Design Implications: Cher’s persona shaped Anchor’s centralized dashboard and tailored mentorship features.
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Dave Gallego: 27 year old international student
Dave is an international student specializing in data analysis. His unique challenges include navigating visa sponsorships and finding relevant opportunities.
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Goals: Secure visa-sponsored roles, connect with mentors, and manage limited time effectively.
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Frustrations: Generic job boards, intimidating networking processes, and time constraints.
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Design Implications: Dave inspired advanced job filters and mentorship features designed for international students.
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Jane Huang: 29 year old MSI Alumna
Jane is an MSI Alumna currently working as a Product Designer at Meta. She recalls the challenges of the internship process and advocates for tools that prepare students for industry demands.
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Goals: Support students with confidence-building tools and improve internship systems
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Frustrations: Internship tools and mentorship opportunities lack depth.
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Design Implications: Jane’s insights inspired industry-standard features and mentorship options that connect students with seasoned professionals.
RESEARCH
Information Analysis
To complement the task flows, my team and I developed Anchor’s Information Architecture to ensure users could easily navigate its features. I specifically worked on structuring the mentorship and group session components, focusing on clear organization and intuitive pathways for users to connect with mentors and join group events. This involved creating a sitemap that prioritized key tools while minimizing friction in the user journey.
RESEARCH
User Flow Diagrams
In the later stages of our research, my team and I focused on understanding the various ways users might navigate internship resources. My contributions centered on developing the mentorship, group session, and referral opportunity features—key components for fostering professional networks, accessing career guidance, and creating pathways for job referrals.
I created detailed flowcharts to map out step-by-step task flows for actions such as browsing mentor profiles, scheduling mentorship meetings, joining group sessions, and accessing referral opportunities. These flowcharts highlighted inefficiencies and opportunities to improve the user experience, such as simplifying navigation, integrating automated reminders, and providing clearer action prompts. My work informed critical design decisions that enhanced the usability of Anchor’s mentorship, group session, and referral tools, ensuring they are intuitive and accessible for students.
DESIGN
Lo-Fi Prototypes
In my lo-fi prototypes, I focused on creating a cohesive and user-centered interface for the mentorship, group session, and referral opportunity features. My goal was to design intuitive layouts that align with the app’s mission to simplify and streamline the internship process for students.
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The Mentorship interface prioritizes ease of navigation, featuring mentor profiles and scheduling tools. A clean calendar layout and clear action buttons ensure users can quickly connect with mentors and effectively manage their appointments.
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For the Group Sessions, I designed an interactive interface to allow users to easily explore, learn more about, and register for small group mentoring sessions. The design incorporates filters to help students find sessions tailored to their academic, skill-building, or networking goals.
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The Referral Opportunities page highlights relevant job postings curated based on user preferences and eligibility. I ensured the design provides clear and concise information while maintaining a clean layout that helps users quickly assess opportunities.
💡 Simplicity and Flow: By prioritizing Nielsen Norman’s principles of visibility and consistency, we created a straightforward navigation flow with clearly defined pathways for user actions.
DESIGN
Usability Tests
Testing Protocol
We conducted usability testing with tasks like:
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Finding and connecting with a mentor.
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Registering for group mentorship sessions or events.
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Applying for jobs through alumni referrals.
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Saving job listings and updating skills on profiles.
Participants
Participants included graduate students from diverse MSI tracks, including MHI, Big Data, Agile Development, and LAKES, recruited through personal connections. Testing sessions were conducted over Zoom (15–20 minutes each) and recorded using Loom. One in-person session was also recorded. Participants interacted with low-fidelity prototypes built in Figma. These observations allowed us to validate design hypotheses before moving into product development, ensuring our solutions aligned with user needs.
Results and Key Feedback
The goal of my part of the usability tests was to uncover challenges and areas for improvement within Anchor’s mentorship and group session features. I designed and conducted tests using a structured script to guide participants through realistic scenarios, allowing them to complete tasks independently with minimal guidance.
For each task, I observed participants’ workflows, noted areas of confusion, and encouraged them to share their thoughts aloud. After completing each task, participants provided feedback on usability, readability, and interface design:
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Usability testing revealed that while navigation to the mentorship and group session features was intuitive, redundant buttons created confusion and increased cognitive load. Metrics tracked included error rates, success rates, and time on task, providing actionable insights to refine the design.
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For the mentorship feature, participants appreciated the detailed mentor profiles but found two registration buttons redundant. Based on this feedback, I consolidated them into a single "Request Mentorship" button in the hi-fi prototype, simplifying interactions and reducing time on task. The hi-fi prototype also introduced dynamic feedback: a green "Registration Confirmed" button appeared upon registration, while cancellations triggered a red "Cancel Registration" button. This consistent feedback system adhered to Jakob’s Law and Gestalt’s Law of Similarity, improving user confidence and reducing ambiguity.
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Similarly, group session registration was streamlined by removing duplicate buttons and implementing a single "Join Session" button. The same dynamic feedback system was applied, creating consistency across features. These changes reduced cognitive load and made the platform more intuitive.
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Final iterations resulted in a 25% reduction in error rates, a 90% success rate for task completion, and a 30% decrease in time on task. By applying principles like Jakob’s Law, Hick’s Law, and Gestalt’s Laws of Proximity and Similarity, I created a seamless, user-centered experience for mentorship and group session features.
DESIGN
Design Iterations
Based on the feedback from all usability testing, we introduced significant design improvements:
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Feed Tab: Replacing the static resources page with a dynamic feed featuring connections and personalized content.
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Mentorship Tab: Consolidated the two registration buttons into a single, prominent "Register" button.
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Search and Filters: Simplified job searches with easy-to-use filters and a prominent search bar, focusing on personalization.
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High-Fidelity Prototypes: Refined visual designs with a consistent style guide, improving usability and aesthetics.
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Referral Cards: Redesigned flows to highlight critical features like referral cards to ensure visibility and ease of use.
Before-and-after visuals of these changes highlighted their impact on usability and alignment with user needs.
DESIGN
Final Design
The usability testing and iterations resulted in a more intuitive and user-friendly platform. The final high-fidelity prototype addressed user pain points effectively and was ready for deployment, promising to enhance retention, engagement, and overall satisfaction.
The final design of Anchor embodies a seamless fusion of design thinking principles and Nielsen Norman’s usability heuristics to create an empowering, accessible, and intuitive platform for MSI students. By reimagining CareerLink, Anchor transforms the student experience into one that fosters connection, clarity, and career readiness.
Style Guide & Visual Design
The visual and interaction design of Anchor reflects a strong commitment to accessibility and usability. User interviews repeatedly flagged resource discovery and navigation as key pain points, with participants describing CareerLink as opaque and difficult to use. Anchor addresses these frustrations by integrating clear navigation paths, reducing clicks, and offering search and filtering options tailored to user preferences. The color palette was carefully selected for its color-blindness-friendly properties, ensuring readability and accessibility for all users. Typography and layout were chosen to minimize cognitive load, with intuitive layouts and consistent information hierarchies guiding users effortlessly through the platform.
The visual design of Anchor further amplifies its usability and accessibility. The color palette, chosen for its color-blindness-friendly qualities, balances complementary hues that ensure high contrast and readability. Typography and layout choices minimize cognitive load by creating a clear hierarchy of information and maintaining consistency across the platform. These decisions reflect a commitment to inclusivity and align with design thinking principles that prioritize empathy and usability.
🎨 Color Palette: With a commitment to accessibility, we selected a color-blindness-friendly palette that balances complementary colors for both aesthetic appeal and usability. This ensures all users can engage with the platform effortlessly, a reflection of our adherence to inclusive design principles.
✍🏼 Typography and Readability: Drawing from design thinking’s emphasis on reducing cognitive load, we chose fonts and layouts that promote clarity, readability, and a sense of ease. Every element serves to enhance usability while ensuring users remain focused and supported.
Click here to view the fully detailed styleguide document.
Color Palette
Typography
Key Features
1. Mentorship Dashboard
Anchor’s Mentorship Dashboard is a cornerstone feature designed to address inefficiencies in alumni engagement. Through a formal mentorship program, students can establish ongoing relationships with alumni beyond one-off coffee chats. This functionality leverages insights from user interviews, where students highlighted the need for deeper mentorship connections and transparency in alumni career paths. Alumni profiles on Anchor include customizable sections where they can specify their expectations for mentees, such as relevant coursework, projects, or skills. This transparency allows students to align their goals and curriculum with industry demands, fostering tailored and effective career development.
2. Group Mentorship Sessions
Interactive tools like group mentoring sessions and real-time chat features foster a sense of community among students, alumni, and mentors. These tools were designed in response to feedback highlighting the isolation many students feel in their career search. For instance, participants noted that networking flexibility and approachable event formats were critical. Anchor accommodates this by offering asynchronous options like message boards and live chats for real-time engagement, ensuring inclusivity for varying schedules and communication preferences.
3. Application Tracker
The Application Tracker streamlines the internship and job application process by providing a cohesive space to track deadlines, application statuses, and employer feedback. User research revealed the fragmented nature of existing systems like CareerLink and Handshake, which often required students to navigate multiple platforms and log in multiple times. Anchor consolidates these processes into a single, intuitive interface, reducing redundancy and confusion. To further address participant concerns about tech industry cycles and deadlines, the tracker includes timeline structures and reminders tailored to internship cycles, offering students clarity and reducing stress.
Interactive Product Demo
Navigate through user flows and interfaces, including the Feed, Mentorship, Jobs, Events, and Account tabs, to experience the platform’s seamless design and functionality.
DESIGN
Project Impact
These thoughtful design choices culminate in measurable impacts. Comments like “Anchor feels like the tool I’ve always needed” underscore the platform’s success in aligning with user needs. By integrating user feedback into iterative design, Anchor embodies design thinking’s emphasis on empathy, prototyping, and testing to create meaningful solutions.
The project offered significant learning opportunities for the team. We recognized the importance of reducing fragmentation in systems and creating intuitive, student-focused experiences. Future improvements could include expanded mentorship features like local job shadowing opportunities and advanced filters for connecting with alumni in niche industries. Additionally, a mobile-first design could enhance accessibility for students on-the-go.
🏆 Alignment with Goals: The platform seamlessly integrates mentorship, application tracking, and interactive elements, delivering on our mission to simplify career navigation while fostering meaningful alumni connections.
⭐️ Usability Metrics: Anchor not only meets but exceeds user expectations for intuitive and functional design.
👁️ Accessibility and Inclusion: Staying true to design thinking’s principle of empathy, we ensured that Anchor prioritizes inclusivity. High-contrast color choices, thoughtful typography, and scalable features make this platform accessible to a diverse user base.
Conclusion
Anchor reimagines the career navigation process, transforming it into a supportive, accessible, and empowering experience for MSI students. By addressing key pain points with innovative, thoughtful design, Anchor sets a new standard for how career platforms can serve students effectively. It not only provides a solution but also inspires confidence and connection in its users, ensuring their long-term career success.
The development process underscored the importance of iterative design and user feedback. By integrating these insights, Anchor evolved into a platform that exemplifies the best practices of design thinking. Future opportunities for the platform include expanding features such as resume reviews and advanced mentorship matching algorithms, as well as developing a mobile-first approach to enhance accessibility on-the-go. Anchor represents not just a tool but a step forward in creating meaningful, user-centered solutions that empower students to take control of their career journeys with confidence and ease.
Special shoutout to my amazing team: Ciani Foy, Sabrina May, and Niket Kamat Satoskar