Sean’s Legacy is focused on increasing LGBTQIA+ representation and identity education as a primary prevention method to reduce suicide among the LGBTQIA+ population. Their Thrive out Loud mentorship platform (currently in beta) connects LGBTQIA+ young adults at the start of their professional journeys with experienced, like-minded mentors. Learn more at https://www.seanslegacy.org/
I was part of the content design team for this project, with the main focus of improving the existing designs and copy for onboarding and profile creation, collaborating with research, design, dev and product teams.
UX Writing • Content Design
Marissa Goodman
Nicole Kim
Allison Brown
Freelance • Feb - April 2024
The primary challenge was to streamline the onboarding expereience to reduce drop-off rate. The previous design separated the matching questionnaire from onboarding, leading to a disjointed experience. Furthermore, recognizing that our audience comprised a vulnerable population and that their information needed to be protected, particularly regarding identity and sexuality, we needed to ensure there were mechanisms in place to provide safety for sensitive information while still encouraging users to provide the minimum required details for creating successful mentee and mentor matches.
To address these challenges the project involved evaluating and restructuring content and improving copy to better reflect the tone and voice of the brand, and express the platforms values of inclusivity, safety and empowerment for its users.
The goal for onboarding was to take maximum 3 minutes, but gather the minimum required information needed to complete a successful match. We integrated the matching questionnaire into sign up, and restructured to flow of questions to group questions about identity together first, and then professional questions second.
Due to age and location restriction it was vital for the product to verify the users fulfilled these minimum requirements before proceeding with the onboarding only to be disappointed they couldn't join. Our aim was for the copy was to clearly state this, while still encouraging users to check back in the future once the program expands.
Existing user research revealed a strong preference among LGBTQIA+ users for more variety and specific ways to identify themselves. We made options multi-select, as well as adding an easy entry form to tag identity labels not listed. Users are also clearly informed of where information will be displayed and why it is being asked.
Each of the identity questions included tool tips to clarify key terms, and further support and encourage users wherever they are in navigating their identity.
Profiles were a bit more complex due to being pre-populated by the onboarding, and the safety concerns of our users. We audited the existing content and designs, and went through many iterations of the profile features referencing research, product, and development constraints, until landing on our final design.
Easy Editing
A straightforward and simple profile editor is key to the success of the platform, ensuring users don't get discouraged or distracted when editing their profiles and complete onboarding.
complete profiles
While profiles are pre-populated, there are additional sections to help foster meaningful connections.
User Control and safety
Being able to see how your profile will look to the public and having control over what is public or not is essential to the safety of our users who may not be out.
Due to the sensitive nature of information provided on the profiles, we wanted to make sure the user's profile wasn't live upon completing the onboarding questions, so we explored different ways to preview and edit profiles.
This exploration had a save draft version so users could toggle between preview and edit modes before publishing, but decided this overcomplicated the process, and didn't follow expected experiences when it comes to other products with profile creation.
Deleting the "save draft" CTA we played around with just having the preview and edit modes before publishing. While this simplified things a bit, it still meant having multiple states of profile creation.
We finally settled on this that banner appears at the top of a new user's profile page, informing them that their profile is not yet live, and disappears once the user hits publish. This version allowed for the user edit within the view of what their profile would look like to the public.
One concern with this design in general trying to include some version of preview mode is adding another point of friction for users who may not want this option, as well as a potential to increase the rate of incomplete profile creation. However, providing alerts or indicators on the user dashboard may mitigate this and is something that should be further tested with users.
The existing design had show/hide toggles for entire sections rather than individual entries. We reconfigured the editing modules, and added the toggles to each individual section in the editing modules, giving the users greater control over what is shown on their profiles.
Sections are not shown on profile when:
• User choses prefer not to respond
• No content has been input for an entry
• And obviously when show on profile is toggled off
We added dynamic prompts to inform the users of empty sections. These prompts are only viewable to the logged-in user and disappear once content is added or that section is toggled off. This made profiles easily editable while avoiding the use of placeholder headings or empty sections.
The profiles are still being designed, but as a content team our main challenge was balancing user's getting an accurate display of their profile, but still encouraging them to fill out sections they hadn't completed.
Our first iteration had editing buttons for every entry and empty entries were lost among completed entries. The final iteration closely resembles the public profile, while gently nudging to complete uncompleted sections. This is a mid-fidelity design that still needs to be explored and tested.
However, this solution could get cluttered pretty quickly if users choose "prefer not to respond" for certain questions in the onboarding flow.
This solution shows how each section would be displayed on the profile, and calls more attention to the user to fill it out.
We ordered the onboarding questions and profile layout based on what we logically thought would be the most important to users, such as having a mentor with similar identity, and sexual orientation that could approach their mentorship through the lens of similar life experience.
However, the research team revealed that focus area and industry were the most important criteria for both mentees and mentors. Reordering the onboarding questions, could help drive the professional mentorship emphasis, and contribute to less drop-off rate. This would also need to be reflected in further profile iteration.
The copy and content successfully appealed to our target audience! Inclusive prompts, input options, identity terms, and definitions made users feel welcomed. In usability testing users regularly called out certain copy and tone that made them feel included and that this was a mentorship platform they wanted to be a part of.
