Sojourn
An Educational Program
The goal
How might we design a system that allows students to access quality education when schools and families cannot provide the funds or resources?
Sojourn is a free, accessible, and inclusive education resource that connects high school students to opportunities that help them grow, succeed, and make a positive impact on their lives and communities. The goal is to provide more valuable and quality educational resources to students whose schools or families cannot provide them.
SCOPE:Brand Identity
Visual Identity
UX/UI
Web Design
Social Media
Marketing & Advertising
Design Process
Project Brief:
Covid-19 exposed and harshly perpetuated educational inequalities among students, set many learners back, and deeply widened achievement gaps between minority, low-income, and diverse students.
My goal was to better understand what makes students successful and create a more inclusive and accessible educational program that provides services and resources that traditional public schools or families cannot provide.
Research + Analysis
Ideation + Sketching
Iteration + Prototyping
Final Design
Problem Statement:
Every year, K-12 school systems produce large pools of young people with neither the academic qualifications to succeed in college, nor the education or skills to compete for jobs that would give them financial independence.
A shocking majority of the students who are not properly served by the educational system are either living in poverty or disadvantaged areas, black, hispanic, or come from minority backgrounds.
The problem is that with the effects of economic inequality, disadvantaged neighborhoods, and underfunded K-12 schools, means that a large percentage of youth—particularly those in low-income and racial/ethnic minority communities— face a future with starkly diminished economic opportunities.
Research + Analysis
I asked teachers…
Sketches
Sketching begins with mapping out the first ideas of main navigation screens. Then diving into possible features of each screen. Through this process I’m constantly asking myself how this experience can best serve students specifically, as well as researching what elements are most important and practical for helping students make real progress, and maintain retention.
Wireframes
The wireframing process helped establish what information such as time, days, and location was critical to go on class cards. Important aspects to consider was the placement of each component in terms of hierarchy. I wanted to make sure the best most useful information was presented first and was easy to access. To find this out, I conducted user-research and displayed different screen layouts to see which my participants preferred.
Persona Research
Onboarding
A series of slides begins the onboarding process, so the student can get a better idea of what they get when they sign up for Sojourn.
Learning Dashboard
The learning dashboard is personalized to each user. A crucial aspect of Sojourn is motivating and encouraging students. So, the question is how can use our app to help motivate students?
The tool used on this page is a psychological phenomenon called the “Endowment Effect” which refers to an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an object more if they own it.
The ability to edit and personalize a dashboard gives the user a higher perception of owning the experience.
Intuitive planner designed to help students stay on track.
The planner feature allows students to easily organize their day, week, and month. After a class is booked, it will automatically update in their planner and they are also able to add additional bookings, appointments, or plans.
Reward system to help motivate students and classes that offer professional certifications.
The app follows the user along in each of their classes, so they always know where they are, how much they left, and most importantly how far they’ve come!
Sojourn ultimately would partner with schools and institutions, so their classes could be qualified for real educational credit.
For many students, the traditional school schedule doesn’t work for their situations. Sojourn offers educational experiences that can fit varied schedules.
Networking &
Community
Having access to people you can count on, mentors to look up to, and professionals to learn from is a huge asset to students and helps ensure student success. Sojourn offers a networking system that allows students to connect with these people.
A community of people can also be a major source of motivation. Sojourn connects students to local initiatives and groups that help them engage, collaborate, and stay active!
The Solution:
As described in “A Framework for Developing Young Adult Success in the 21 Century”, what contributes to a students success in a combination of non-cognitive factors such as inner drive, interpersonal competencies, the ability to regulate one’s focus and behavior, and resilience. A students’ academic mindsets, learning strategies, perseverance, and behaviors are also clearly and significantly related to their performance in school.
As a result, Sojourn aims to provide resources, systems, and opportunities that attend to these motivational competencies that are critical to school engagement and engagement in work and life as young adults. This is done by community and local investments, partnerships with organizations, businesses, and institutes, donor funding, and community members to help provide a supportive and empowering inclusive space for students.