An onboarding platform built from discovery research, not guesswork
An end-to-end onboarding platform for aspiring and self-taught designers, backed by a governed design system and hands-on mentorship for a global early-career community.
The problem
Aspiring and self-taught designers lacked a structured, evidence-based path into the industry. Meanwhile Mentorled's own product was growing fast enough that inconsistent visual language and interaction patterns were creating real friction between design and development.
My role
I spearheaded research and design for the onboarding platform end-to-end, built and governed the design system it ran on, and personally mentored a global community of early-career designers, collaborating directly with the Director and technical team to keep growth evidence-based.
Research & insights
Discovery studies and usability testing shaped the onboarding platform's structure and pacing. Because I was also mentoring the same community directly, I had a second, continuous research channel most product teams don't: live feedback from the people going through onboarding in real time, which surfaced friction usability testing alone wouldn't have caught.
Process
Research insights fed directly into the design system: a single, governed visual language and set of interaction patterns applied across the platform, reducing back-and-forth between design and development on every new feature.
The solution
A digital onboarding platform, launched and iterated for over 1,000 new designers, paired with research-informed mentoring for 200+ junior and self-taught designers supporting their transition into industry roles.
Impact
Continuous, data-grounded optimization increased platform sales by 60%. The onboarding platform improved the experience for 1,000+ new designers, and research-informed mentorship supported 200+ into industry roles. Complex research findings were consistently synthesized into UX strategies the product team could prioritize against business goals.
Reflection
Mentoring at scale turned out to be its own research method. Teaching the platform live, to the people using it, surfaced product insight that a standard usability test never would have. One thing I'd do differently: formalize that mentoring feedback loop earlier, as a named research channel with its own backlog, rather than treating it as anecdotal input alongside formal usability testing. It was doing real research work months before I started treating it that way.