GO GABA | Re-defining Career Guidance
GABA is a vibrant community designed for medical students and young professionals seeking mentorship, tutoring, and advisory services. The platform aims to foster a young, friendly, and meaningful space where users can build connections, receive guidance, and access resources tailored to their academic and career needs.
When I first joined GABA as an intern, the platform was in its MVP stage, showing potential but struggling to meet user expectations. Many felt it resembled existing social media and networking platforms, lacking the unique, curated content and community-focused experience they were seeking. Users wanted more—a space that not only provided guidance but also delivered personalized content and a stronger sense of community.
Impressed by my performance and vision for the product, GABA promoted me to Lead UX Designer and Product Manager, tasking me with transforming the app into a platform that truly resonated with its users. My role was to elevate the product, creating an experience that offered the quality of community and content that users were seeking. This case study outlines my journey leading the product team, tackling challenges, and driving GABA’s growth through user-centered design.
Lead UX Designer
UI Designer
Product Manager
Project Type
Mobile App Design
Product Strategy
My Role
My Approach
From the outset, I knew that collaboration was key. Partnering closely with GABA’s CEO, a UI Designer, a front-end engineer, and a marketing lead, we dove deep into user research. Together, we uncovered invaluable insights that became the foundation of our design. Our team’s commitment to open communication ensured that every decision was grounded in real user needs.
Customer Insights & Ideation
I introduced a "Job-to-be-Done" framework to the team, crafting ‘artifacts’ that clearly communicated our vision, design principles, and content strategy. This approach not only organized our ideas but also brought a sense of direction and purpose to our design process. With approved proposals in hand, we developed clickable prototypes that allowed us to test and refine our concepts before moving forward.
Product Strategy & Vision
Working closely with GABA’s CEO and C-Suite Executives, we defined a clear product strategy that aligned with our research insights and business goals. We developed a comprehensive roadmap, prioritizing features that would have the most significant impact. I managed production timelines across the team, ensuring that we stayed on track from development to design to marketing.
Planning & Coordination
With our strategy in place, I led the effort to refine user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes. Each iteration was informed by our ongoing user research, and I made sure that every design decision reflected GABA’s commitment to its users.
Design Execution & Validation
Research & Discovery
To ensure our efforts were grounded in real user needs, we conducted extensive research with GABA’s user base, focusing on those who were most engaged with the platform. Our research was guided by three primary goals:
Discover what brings users to GABA and its most valuable features.
Learn about the current user experience and identify areas for improvement.
Explore and analyze user needs for career-related content to uncover gaps in GABA’s current offerings.
After reviewing all the feedback we received during testing, I compiled a list of pain points and requests expressed by our users. Additionally, I analyzed our app analytics to ensure we had a comprehensive understanding of valuable insights needed to elevate GABA’s user experience and address user needs. Key findings included:
Account Creation Barrier: Potential new users were downloading the app but not creating accounts, indicating a gap in how we communicated the app's value. While most apps don’t fully showcase their value on the login screen, our messaging wasn’t compelling enough to encourage users to complete the account creation process
Lack of Personalized Connections: Users were frustrated with random follower recommendations. They expressed a strong preference for connections based on shared experiences, educational background, location, and interests.
Ineffective Guardian Matching: Users shared that one of the main reasons they joined GABA was to find mentorship, tutoring, and coaching at an affordable price, but they wanted a more tailored approach to finding guardians that aligned with their specific needs and goals.
Inadequate Career Information: A large segment of GABA’s user base was looking for career discovery tools and guidance. Users expressed a desire for richer content about different career trajectories, advice from experienced professionals, and reliable information to support their career decisions.
Key Takeaways
Understanding the User
Based on the insights gained from our research, we created three user personas to better understand and address the diverse needs of our users:
Aspiring Professionals: Individuals eager to connect with others and explore potential future careers. They seek networking opportunities and information about various career paths.
Seekers of Guidance: Users who need academic or career-related support. They look for mentorship, tutoring, and guidance to help them navigate their educational and professional journeys.
Experienced Mentors: Seasoned professionals who are passionate about guiding the next generation. They offer mentorship, lead workshops, and provide valuable advice based on their extensive experience.
GABA 2.0 - From Insights to Design
Leveraging these insights, I created new designs specifically aimed at addressing the user challenges we identified. Starting with sketches and wireframes, I translated user feedback into practical solutions. Each design iteration demonstrated our dedication to improving GABA’s user experience, and the following sketches and wireframes illustrate the journey of that evolution.
The Results
Validation
After finalizing the designs, we carried out new rounds of user testing with the following goals in mind:
Pinpoint any remaining pain points or areas where users struggle, particularly in connecting with mentors (Guardians) and accessing curated content.
Determine if users find value in the new content delivery approach, including curated career guidance and mentorship offerings.
Collect feedback on the overall satisfaction with the updated designs and features, focusing on how well they meet user needs and expectations.
Evaluate how effectively the new features improve users’ ability to connect with mentors and professionals that match their needs.
The results were overwhelmingly positive. Users found the new timeline and career exploration pathways intuitive and appreciated the bite-sized content. The ability to connect with professionals and ask questions was particularly well received.
“The career pathways section is so useful because there are so many times where I’m talking to a student and they have so many career-related questions. I want to provide them with accurate information, so I end up googling a lot of their questions, but now, I don’t have to do that because I can just direct my client to that section on the app where they can find all this information.”
- GABA User (Mentor)
Some feedback we received included:
“I’m so excited to see that now we’re going to be able to post our own content. I remember requesting this idea a few months ago during a user test, and I’m pleased to hear this feature has been added.”
- GABA User (Student)
“Oh wow, now I can schedule a 1:1 meeting with someone who’s experienced in the career I’m interested in and I can also get matched with mentors by answering a quick questionnaire!”
- GABA User (Student)
What I learned
During my time at GABA, I worked closely with cross-functional teams, both as a collaborator and a leader. In my project management role I learned to prioritize tasks effectively, ensuring our team stayed focused and on track. By maintaining momentum and keeping everyone aligned with our goals, I played a key role in driving our projects forward.
In my design lead role, I honed my approach to communicating design decisions. Presenting my work to various audiences—from stakeholders to C-suite members and fellow designers—taught me how to articulate complex ideas clearly and persuasively while encouraging collaboration and feedback. At the same time, I stayed committed to advocating for users by listening closely to their feedback during testing sessions. My experience with tools like Adobe XD and Figma allowed me to bring ideas to life through wireframes and prototypes, ensuring that creativity and strategy went hand in hand. These experiences strengthened my ability to make user-centered design decisions that truly made an impact.
