For a non-profit empowering underrepresented students
Intro
This project brought together my passion for design-for-good, innovation, and mission-driven work. As part of McKinsey’s pro-bono efforts, I collaborated with a team to partner with a nonprofit and develop a growth strategy that amplifies its impact and scales its reach.
Drawing on student research, I led the launch of a student-centric MVP and crafted a North Star product vision based on student needs. By embedding human-centered design principles, I empowered the team with tools to continuously refine the platform, ensuring it evolves to better support students while aligning with the nonprofit’s strategic goals.
5 min read
Overview
Empowering Over 150K Students with Scalable, Research-Driven Design
To accelerate the non-profit's impact growth, we helped the non-profit transition to a digital platform, amplifying its impact—89% of graduates from its flagship program secure employment or enroll in graduate school within six months.
Through strategic research, experience design, and capability-building, the non-profit gained the tools and frameworks to continuously evolve the platform. The result? A scalable solution that not only enhances career outcomes today but also sets the stage for sustained innovation and growth.
What I did
Value proposition refinement
User testing and student research
Design
MVP User experience (UX), User interface (UI)
Post MVP product strategy
North star student product vision
Scale
Upskill product and design capabilities within a non-profit organization
Outcomes
MVP Launched for 150K+ Students
60% of students with access to the platform
Secured a job or enrolled in grad school within 6 months
100% improved job visibility
More students accessing career opportunities
70% boost
In career exploration and discovery
Non-profit CTO
Delivering a Student-Centric MVP in 3 Months While Ensuring Long-Term Impact
The nonprofit aimed to empower 150K+ underrepresented college students with career support through a digital platform. However, scaling effectively involved addressing two core challenges:
Challenge 1
How might we tailor the selected SaaS platform to meet critical student needs while navigating tight constraints?
While the nonprofit understood student challenges, there was limited insight into how those needs could be translated into a digital platform. With constrained resources and a tight timeline, I led the development of an MVP that needed to deliver impactful improvements while ensuring student engagement.
Key Research Questions I Led to Refine the Digital Value Proposition:
How does this platform differentiate from existing job boards like LinkedIn?
Which student needs are already well-served in their ecosystem?
What gaps remain unmet, and how can we address them to drive success?
Approach
I drove success through direct student engagement and rapid iteration. By continuously gathering insights, proposing changes, validating feasibility, and empowering the team to make critical platform updates, I ensured that student research remained central in every sprint review. Here, strategic questions, blockers, and design directions were refined collaboratively.
Process Wins I Led:
Embedded user testing into agile sprints
Facilitated bi-weekly student testing of new prototypes and live features to ensure continuous iteration.
Led 3 rounds of user testing with 15+ students
Dedicated 15+ hours to refining features that enhanced the user experience.
Coordinated with Pathify (SaaS provider)
Clarified feasibility questions to align platform development with goals.
Facilitated daily 15-minute dev huddles
Resolved blockers quickly through offline collaboration.
Executed hands-on platform adjustments
Made 30+ direct adjustments to free up dev resources.
Challenge 2
How might we create sustainable solutions that drive continuous, student-centric innovation in education?
To ensure long-term impact, the nonprofit needed a scalable vision and internal capacity to evolve the platform post-launch. Without structured frameworks, future improvements risked misalignment with student needs and organizational goals.
Approach
To drive continuous innovation, I developed tools that equipped the nonprofit to scale student impact beyond the MVP:
A future-state journey map
Outlined key phases for long-term platform evolution.
A research-backed value proposition
Guided product development and engagement strategies.
User testing templates
Provided a framework for validating and refining features post-launch.
Read me first
To maintain client confidentiality, wireframes have been modified by removing logos, identifiable branding elements such as colors, and assigning placeholder names. This content is privileged and intended solely to demonstrate my design expertise. All solutions belong to the client. Unauthorized sharing or distribution is strictly prohibited.
Solution
A warm intro
Students often feel uncertain about how the non-profit can continue supporting them after the career readiness program.
A warm, personalized welcome to MyBrake fosters excitement and guides them in using the platform for ongoing support.
MVP
MVP
MVP
Need help?
Connect with your Brake Career Coach
Aligning user experiences with student goals
Students often feel lost in career resources that don’t align with their unique goals.
MyBrake customized widget personalizes their experience, offering relevant tasks, resources, and connections to help them confidently advance in their career journey.
Wave 1
A strong network based on students' interests
Students often seek guidance and networking opportunities but struggle to find events relevant to their career paths.
MyBrake’s Career Community Events connect them with industry professionals and recently hired Fellows, fostering mentorship, knowledge sharing, and a stronger sense of community.
Wave 1
New opportunity alerts based on student goals
Students often miss out on relevant opportunities because they struggle to filter through vast job listings.
MyBrake career community opportunity board delivers tailored internships and job postings, ensuring students quickly find opportunities that align with their career goals.
Wave 1
Success-proof roadmap for achievement
Students need clear, actionable steps to stay on track with their career goals after graduation.
MyBrake’s personalized task list and progress tracker offer structured guidance, helping them stay motivated and accountable in their career journey.
Wave 2
Inspirational success stories
Students are inspired and motivated by real stories from peers who have navigated similar career challenges.
Humans of MyBrake fosters a sense of community by showcasing student experiences, providing relatable role models, and reinforcing that they are not alone in their journey.
Wave 3
Aligning job opportunities to student goals
Students often find it time-consuming and tedious to repeatedly filter job listings to find relevant opportunities.
MyBrake’s Matches widget streamlines this process by automatically surfacing personalized internships and job openings, making it easier for students to discover and act on the right opportunities.
Wave 4
Tracking mechanisms for traceability and accountability
Students often struggle to track progress and stay motivated in their career journey.
MyBrake’s Roadmap Progress and Stats provide clear visuals of achievements, reinforce growth, and encourage engagement. They also enable sharing milestones on LinkedIn to showcase professional development.
Wave 4
“I see this platform as a springboard for my continuous growth and development.”
“This isn’t just a one-time resource—it's something I can keep learning from and stay updated.”
On Giving Back & product stickiness
“I can see myself returning in a few years to support future students.”
“Her expertise in user research and UI design not only produced high-impact wireframes but also facilitated collaborative sessions that refined designs, effectively showcasing the best of our firm’s capabilities.”
McKinsey Digital Partner
“Not only was her work remarkable, but she also helped bring best practices to the their product team and helped upskill them. After Rocio rolled off, the team are still using her templates and structures to continue defining the problems in her style. It was a before and after moment having her on the team.”
McKinsey Software Engineer
“Rocío’s structured and clear presentations earned admiration from both clients and team members, fostering seamless collaboration and strengthening client relationships.”
McKinsey Education Partner
“Rocío’s ability to quickly integrate into the project and take ownership of her workstream was instrumental in shaping the project's trajectory, leading to one of the smoothest launches we have seen.”
Non-profit's Product Lead
3 Takeaways
01. Design flows easily when boundaries are clear
02. Meeting Students Where They Are—From Design to Strategy
03. Embedding user-centric capabilities for lasting impact
01.
Design flows easily when boundaries are clear
I quickly learned about the customization options and discovered that through widgets, we could introduce new functionality beyond the templated options provided by the platform (Pathify). I helped the team realize the potential of various solutions that could better align with students' needs and contexts.
Additionally, I participated in multiple sessions with the customer support team of the SaaS platform leveraged to understand the design playground, then connected the insights with the development team to ensure alignment and smoother implementation.
For the MVP launch, I overcame limited customization options by embedding the nonprofit’s branding into the images, quickly enhancing the platform’s visual appeal. This also addressed key pain points, like clarifying the value proposition and making it easier to find the job board and connect with a coach.
02.
Meeting Students Where They Are—From Design to Strategy
For the MVP, insights from over 15 students in three research rounds identified key opportunities for iterative improvements, ensuring the platform supported student success. Findings included simple, high-impact changes like adding emojis for a more visual experience and capturing core features in the backlog for future development.
Key MVP enhancements driven by research:
Clarified value proposition by strengthening the platform introduction in the hero image
Increased job & internship visibility by repositioning quick links below the hero image
Facilitated career exploration with a “Need Help?” link for instant career coaching—essential for 40% of students uncertain about their next steps
Reinforced university partnerships by featuring partner logos and quick links, boosting university visibility and positioning the organization’s value
03.
Embedding user-centric capabilities for lasting impact
Capturing the future state in the product backlog
What could be next?
Amplifying Human Potential with Smart Tech
As we look ahead, technology presents an opportunity to amplify—not replace—the human touch that makes this nonprofit’s support system so powerful.
By leveraging smart, student-centric solutions, we can create seamless, scalable experiences that empower students in their career journeys. Personal speculations on how technology can amplify impact:
Smart Career Roadmaps
AI-powered but human-guided goal-setting that adapts to each student’s progress.
Predictive Insights for Coaches
Data-driven support that helps mentors and career coaches proactively guide students.
Dynamic Opportunity Matching
Intelligent curation of jobs, internships, and events based on real-time student goals.
No-Code Customization
Tools that empower the nonprofit to refine the platform without heavy dev work.
Blockchain-Backed Credentials
Verifiable career milestones that open more doors for students.
Network-Powered Job Board
A trusted job marketplace that not only aggregates opportunities but also leverages the nonprofit’s alumni and mentor network for warm introductions, peer insights, and real-world career advice.
To unlock this potential, three key research questions emerge:
Human connections
How might we use technology to extend, rather than replace, the personal relationships that drive student success?
High impact coaching
What data signals can help career coaches and mentors provide more timely and impactful support?
Evolving in a fast paced world
How might we ensure digital tools remain adaptable to evolving student needs and career landscapes?
Final Thought
The future isn’t about automation—it’s about amplifying human strengths with smarter, more intuitive tools. By keeping students and mentors at the center, technology can fuel a more personalized, empowering, and scalable path to success.
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