Overview
Six years ago, I started selling hand designed cell phone cases. Using Google searches, YouTube videos and trial and error, I taught myself and started my business, Love Chu Designs. With demand for my cases, I established business contacts overseas and had my designs mass-manufactured. I learn best by doing, and set out to learn both in and outside of school. I learned how to build & design an e-commerce website, engage in social media marketing, increase sales, sell at craft fairs and establish positive customer service. This experience taught me that I am a self-starter who is passionate about creating art, experimenting with technology and running my own business.
Now, as I reflect on my own experience as an entrepreneur, I want to make sure that I continue to give back. That’s why I joined Generation She.
Generation She is a non-profit dedicated to empowering young females to pursue entrepreneurship and build upon their own talents and abilities through makeathons and mentoring. Everyone behind Generation She believes in providing more support for getting women into positions of power. This is something I would have wanted when I was younger, and something I hope every girl can experience in a meaningful way.
Here is our landing page →
Digital Platform Goals
Our Generation She team of 10 designers, engineers and curriculum creators collaborated to build a platform where mentors and mentees could check progress, schedule meetings and find additional resources.
Within the scope of building this platform, I was responsible for the scheduling feature to be used by mentors and mentees.
Design Process
Our design decisions were informed by our vision of the mentorship program and to ease communication between mentors and mentees. We validated hierarchy and placement based on our conversations with high schoolers. I talked to Karen, one of the high schoolers about how she currently schedules things outside of school. Some tools she currently uses to schedule events are Google Calendar and Google Sheets. Finding other people’s availability is the most difficult part, and this led me to ideate on some solutions that would provide specific options. These specific dates and times make it smooth and uncomplicated to find a match between two calendars.
Schedule Design Solution
My initial mockups combined my ideas of a full calendar view with the selection of time based on the day. Users would be able to have their supplemental calendar pulled up and select dates and times that work for them! I chose to use selectable buttons as a way to indicate the range so it’s visual and so it breaks it down into morning, afternoon and evening. Sometimes you know you’re not available on the morning of a day, which would allow you to look right at the afternoon and evening options. Once a mentor submits their availability, then the mentee would be able to view and select from the options that are provided.
Content Strategy and Marketing
Within our team, I also collaborate to establish our online presence on all channels: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We had our first makeathon in March 2019 at Snapchat's headquarters and brought the founders of Sugarfina, Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP Popcorn and Knock Knock as speakers! To market our event, we primarily focused on Instagram as there are about 57 million users on Instagram from age 13 to 17. We built a robust social media calendar plan and had a 300% increase in engagement throughout our posts. It was wonderful to engage with our attendees even before the makeathon! Our second makeathon took place in January 2020 at Lyft's headquarters in San Francisco and brought the founders of Urban Decay and Health-Ade Kombucha with over 250 attendees.
Below are social media posts I designed to promote and generate excitement for our venue, our speakers, our sponsors and the entrepreneurship makeathon.
Learn More!
Check out our website at: generationshe.co
Follow us on Instagram at: @gen.she
