NEST app — SnehaShetty

NEST | Bridging multi-generational divide between corporate professionals through mutual upskilling

^{Design & Product Strategy | UX Design | Concept Testing}

NEST is a social networking platform that helps bridge the widening divide between multi-generational professionals with its unique, anonymous approach to soft skills upskilling.

^{MY CONTRIBUTION
Co-led market research, analysis & insights translation. Conducted user interviews with 3 participants. Ideated and defined key principles and features (Anonymity, community and real-time feedback). Conducted concept testing with 3 participants. Designed the visual language, brand identity and UI for NEST app.}
^{TEAM

Part 1: Research, Innovation design & product strategy - Sneha Shetty, Herk Zhao, Nicole Kleinsteuber, Tanushree Kor,

Part 2: UX Design-Self-initiated}

^{PROJECT TYPE
Student project at Savannah College of Art & Des

TIMELINE
10 weeks (2023)

METHODOLOGY
In-depth Interviews, Survey Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Concept Testing, User Scenarios, Affinity Mapping, Empathy Mapping, Value mapping}

^{RESEARCH TYPE
Generative and Evaluative Research (Behavioral + Attitudinal)}

^{THE PROBLEM}

^{“The 37-year-olds are afraid of the 23-year-olds who work for them”}

^{-THE NEW YORK TIMES}

^{There is a widening divide between multi-generational professionals.

Our initial market research uncovered that young people are entering workforce with unprecedented power and challenging norms as employees and customers. This is creating a widening divide with the very people who can help them develop. On the other hand, mid career professionals are in a constant state of fear and stand to lose a lot.
Early-career professionals are increasingly missing out on workplace tacit learning in the form of soft skills due to changing attitudes in the work place.}

^{WHY DOES THIS MATTER?}

By 2030, Gen Z will become the largest segment in the workplace. Together with Millennials, these early and mid-career professionals will comprise the majority of the workforce. Generational divides at the workplace can create measurable cultural and operational friction, costing companies through higher turnover, productivity losses, and decreased employee engagement—all impacting profitability.

^{THE SOLUTION}
NEST (Network Empowering Skills Together) is a social networking service that helps bridge the widening divide between multi-generational professionals by enabling mutual soft-skills development without fear of repurcussions. It helps early career and mid career professionals mitigate generational frictions by fostering anonymous, cross-generational soft skills development.

NEST could potentially service approximately 40 million corporate professionals in the US, helping companies retain talent, improve collaboration, and boost innovation.

^{KEY FEATURES}

^{THE MARKET OPPORTUNITY}

Why upskilling?

To further validate the problem and opportunity space, we conducted trend and market analysis. We ultimately found that the most urgent opportunity with the greatest adoption/growth potential was within upskilling/reskilling.

$345B+

^WW

58%

^{Workforce comprised of Gen Z and Milennials by 2030}

20%

^CAGR

260M

^{Workers need reskilling annually (WW)}

^{THE RESEARCH PROCESS}

Market Research
We began our research by conducting market research. We analysed global and social trends and scanned for opportunity areas and validate market potential through secondary academic articles and business reports.

User Research
Our team conducted a survey and gathered responses from 72 early career professionals and 81 mid-career profefesionals to narrow the scope and validate needs, behaviours and goals of multi-generational professionals. We conducted 12 in depth interviews with 7 early-career and 5 mid-career professionals to understand user pain points, needs and motivations.

^{MARKET RESEARCH GOALS AND QUESTIONS}
Understanding the Social Networking Service ecosystem
What is a Social Networking Service? How is it defined?
How did SNS evolve through the years?
What are it’s contextual use cases? What is the current market landscape of Social Networking Services?
Understanding global macro and micro trends across industries
We analysed trends in the economic, socio-political and technological space. We further broke down trends based on market segments and conducted a comparitve analysis of each segment based on market size and CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate). Understand the strenghts and weaknesses of each market segment.

^{USER RESEARCH GOALS AND QUESTIONS}
Upskilling motivations, needs and behaviors
What areas of do user feel the need to upskill in?
What are the differences in the motivations of early career professionals and mid career professionals in terms of professional upskilling?
How do users currently go about upskilling themselves? What are the resources they use and why do they use it?
What problems do users face when trying to upskill themselves?

^{SURVEY INSIGHTS}

The survey results indicated that both early and mid-career professionals seek to grow their soft skills and see value in exchanging knowledge and information informally.

^{Early career professionals}

^{Mid career professionals}

^{USER INTERVIEW INSIGHTS}

^{Self learning is time consuming}

How can we enable efficient mutual soft skills development for multi-generational professionals?

Users are eager to skill-up, but managing time is the biggest challenge for both MCP’s and ECP’s. Existing market offerings for upskilling typically involve one-way learning services delivered through time-consuming course formats. 

^{Lack of personalized guidance hinders skills growth}

How might we provide contextualized and personalized soft skills development?

ECPs lack clear direction on career growth and upskilling and lack personalized guidance. They find it difficult to keep up with changing job requirements and are anxious about an unpredictable job market. 

^{Users grapple with workplace communication anxiety}

How can we create a safe space for timely feedback?

MCP’s grapple with workplace communication anxiety and find self-learning to be time-consuming. They fear saying the wrong thing at work and find new technology difficult to catch upto. 

^{MAPPING PAINS, GAINS & JOBS TO DEVELOP VALUE PROPOSITION}
We used the value proposition canvas to map pains, gains and jobs for each of our user groups. This further led us to creating detailed user stories helping us understand use cases for a potential social networking service in the upskilling segment.

^{ANALYZING COMPETITORS}

The upskilling market is saturated with B2B solutions focused on hard skills development delivered via a one-directional format.

Through a Blue Ocean Strategy, our competitive analysis revealed the need to eliminate the hard skills focus and enterprise centered solutions, reduce the price, the structured content format and time commitment required for upskilling and create a space for personalized learning through an anonymous, safe and an authentic environment ensured by incorporating best practices from existing anonymous professional social networks.

Competitors : Culture Amp, Linkedin Learning, NovoEd, Crucial Learning

^{VALUE PROPOSITION} We developed our core values after utilizing the value proposition canvas and analysing competitors through the blue ocean strategy.

^{FIGURING OUT USE CASES THROUGH USER STORIES}
^{In order to ideate on features and build the app, we utilized insights from interviews to create user scenarios.}

^{Early Career Professional}

^{Mid-Career Professional}

^{RAPID IDEATION}
Equipped with a direction to start ideation on features after creating user stories, I developed the design criteria through a framework to envision and define the value our users would receive after using our service. Using this as our north star, our group brainstormed ideas using techniques like crazy 8 to come up with ideas. We prioritized our ideas based on their alignment with our core values.

^{USER FEEDBACK & USABILITY TESTING} Considering timeframes and access to users, we decided to conduct a moderated remote & in-person usabality testing with a low fidelity prototype on 16 participants (8 ECPs and 7 MCPs)

^REFINEMENT

Refining the user experience

^{The usability issues and user feedback pointed towards concerns in 3 key areas: Credibility, quality and overwhelming onboarding process.

We observed best practices from other social networks that operate on the trust and credibility of its users and incorporated similar practices into our service.

Onboarding: Not wanting to deter users from using the service before they could test it out, we added a skip option during the onboarding stage so they can access the content on the platform before signing up.

Credibility & quality: To ensure the credibility of the user base, we incorporated mandatory work email based verification system used by Blind. Additionally, rating systems and information about work experience helps ensure the quality of responses.}

The Business Model

What’s next? My next steps for this project would involve a heavier focus on developing the mobile application and desktop platform experience. This would include the development of a design system, brand book and guideline, UX research and design to build an impactful user experience.

Reflections

Embrace redirection:
The decision making process of choosing a saturated market segment vs an untapped sector was challenging. Later, scanning for unmet needs within a saturated market space and developing a radical innovation concept in that space was challenging as well. Continuously iterating and redirecting research is crucial, adjusting course as needed for the project without being afraid to change directions when necessary.

Systemic design thinking This project taught me to view innovative product development through a strategic, the birds eye perspective. I learnt the varied influences of macro level players and a multitude of factors that impact different aspects of a business.

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