Explore and ask
Browse mentors, chat, save people and opportunities, and try careers through shadowing and internships.
UX/UI design · Multi-role product · Visual identity · Growth model
Helping high school students
explore careers with real mentors.
Spark connects high school students with professionals who mentor them, with teachers who guide them and with internships they can actually apply to. I redesigned the product end to end, from roles and flows to a brand that feels young and optimistic.
Explore the decisions ↓Problem
A career platform for teenagers felt formal and confusing, and roles weren’t clear.
My role
Sole UX/UI Designer at a product agency: roles, flows, interface and visual direction.
Result
Redesigned for students, teachers and mentors and shipped to production.
My roleSole UX/UI Designer
Research, information architecture, flows, interface, visual direction and handoff, at a low-code product agency.
Users3 roles · invite-only
Students, teachers and mentors. Students join through their high school; nobody signs up on their own.
OutcomeShipped to production
Built on a low-code stack and released after validation with schools.
Spark is an anonymized identity for client work. Screens are redesigned portfolio reconstructions based on my original files, with illustrative people, schools and organizations.
01 / The problem behind the brief
A product for teenagers that felt too formal.
The first version worked, but it was hard to read and harder to trust. Students, teachers and mentors saw similar screens, so nobody knew what was meant for them.
The founder’s brief was simple: make it feel young, colorful and hopeful, and make it obvious what each person should do next.
It had to feel fun for 16-year-olds and still be clear and safe enough for schools to approve.
02 / Three roles
Each role has its own experience.
Access starts with a school code, so every student arrives through an adult who is responsible for them. From there, each role sees only what it needs.
Guide the class
Invite students, see what they are curious about and preview the student experience in a safe demo mode.
Share their story
Real professionals who answer questions and post opportunities from their organizations.
03 / Decisions that shaped the experience
Four decisions
for students and teachers.
Four decisions across the student and teacher experience.
01 / Mentor cards
Starting with people instead of job titles.
Teenagers don’t search for “operations management”. They respond to a person who tells them what their day is like.
- The decision
- Mentor cards open with a first-person sentence, a career path and topic tags, with “Message” as the main action.
- The guardrail
- Filters use plain-language industries with icons, never internal taxonomy. A rotating “mentor of the day” shows students someone new each visit.
- The intended effect
- Students find someone to talk to, and the first message is one click away.
02 / Messages
Help students ask the first question.
The hardest part of messaging a professional is knowing what to say. Many conversations never started.
- The decision
- Suggested questions sit right above the composer, and the mentor’s path and reply time are visible next to the chat.
- The guardrail
- Students only message verified mentors in their school’s network; teachers can see what is being asked across the class.
- Why it matters
- Questions become easier to send, and safer for the school to allow.
03 / Teacher dashboard
Show teachers what their students are curious about.
Counselors had no way to see what students were exploring, so career guidance stayed generic.
- The decision
- A dashboard summarizes searches, top careers and industries, and the actual questions students ask mentors.
- The guardrail
- Teachers see aggregate interest and questions, and can preview the student view in a non-actionable demo mode.
- Why it matters
- Guidance can start from what each class already cares about.
04 / Opportunities
Giving students a next step after the chat.
Talking to a mentor is the start. Students needed somewhere to go next.
- The decision
- An opportunities feed of shadowing days, internships and apprenticeships, filterable by type and distance, with save and apply.
- The guardrail
- Every card states who it is for, when to apply and whether it is paid or earns school credit, before the student clicks.
- Why it matters
- Students can go from a conversation to an application in the same session.
04 / Growth model
Free trials designed around how schools buy.
Schools buy software slowly. Teachers needed time to prove value before a principal or district would pay.
I designed a three-step trial: 14 days free, a second period unlocked by a short survey, a third unlocked by inviting another teacher, then a request link to share with the school. Each step gives the teacher more time and gives the team feedback or a new contact.
When a trial ends, the screen always tells the teacher what they can do next, like inviting a colleague or sharing the request link.
05 / Where it landed
Where it ended up.
I delivered the full product design: role model, onboarding, student, teacher and mentor experiences, the trial and premium flows, and a warm gradient identity built on coral, pink and a sunny accent.
The product shipped on a low-code stack; I left the agency during validation, so I don’t have post-launch metrics to report.
What I would do earlier: test question prompts with real students in the first week. Small copy changes in the chat had more impact on engagement than any layout change.