Global Social Impact: Architecting Micromentor’s Mobile Entry Strategy for the MENA Region

Challenge: Facilitate the strategic expansion of Micromentor’s two-sided (mentor/mentee) mobile platform into the MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region. The objective was to establish a high-usability baseline and ensure cultural content comprehension across diverse markets. To support a looming launch date, the project required executing an end-to-end research cycle—from participant recruitment to actionable results delivered—within a strict four-week window.

Impact: My engagement provided Micromentor with a validated roadmap for their mobile expansion. By identifying and resolving critical friction points in the 25-screen onboarding flow, I significantly lowered the barrier to entry for mentors and entrepreneurs in the MENA region.

Role: Pro Bono Lead UX Researcher

 

Background

Parallel to my work at Google, I served as a Pro Bono Lead Researcher for Micromentor, a nonprofit connecting global entrepreneurs. Working in a high-velocity environment, I partnered with their Design and Engineering teams to establish a UXR framework from the ground up. I executed an accelerated research roadmap to validate their mobile app's expansion into MENA, ensuring the product met the specific needs of an emerging user base. I also applied ethnographic principles to identify regional privacy nuances, such as the cultural preference for avatars over profile photos, which was critical for mentor adoption in this particular market.

 

Process

Prototype testing

To validate the mobile experience, I conducted moderated usability testing on three high-priority work streams: Onboarding, Mentor Profile Creation, and Entrepreneurial Profile Building. By engaging with five target users, I identified eight critical friction points. I then translated these findings into strategic design recommendations that the engineering and design teams leveraged to optimize the global user journey.

 

Findings

Onboarding

Insight: Users identified the 25-screen onboarding flow as a major barrier to entry, noting it felt too cumbersome for a mobile-first context.

Recommendations: I proposed a streamlined onboarding strategy to reduce drop-off rates by:

Reducing Interaction Cost: Leveraging native mobile settings to auto-populate user data.

Optimizing Information Architecture: Consolidating related data points to reduce the total screen count.

Enhancing Efficiency: Implementing gesture-based navigation (swiping) to increase user "velocity" through the remaining steps.

 

Maximizing limited real estate

Insight: Prevalent use of smaller mobile devices in the MENA region (e.g., iPhone Mini, older Samsung Galaxy models) meant that the app’s long, single-column lists caused excessive scrolling and poor content legibility.

Recommendation: I suggested increasing UI density by grouping tags (2–3 per row) and reducing padding, ensuring the app remained functional for users on diverse hardware.

 

Accessibility and privacy

I advocated for inclusive design patterns to support a diverse user base. This included the introduction of in-context guidance (such as tooltips) to assist users with varying levels of ability. Furthermore, I identified a need for enhanced identity protection. Based on user feedback regarding privacy concerns, I recommended allowing avatars in place of real-world photos to lower the barrier to entry for privacy-conscious mentors and entrepreneurs.

 

Democratizing Research

To ensure a lasting impact, I developed a Foundational UXR Playbook for the Micromentor team. Recognizing the lack of dedicated in-house research staff, I created this end-to-end framework to operationalize user research within their lean environment. The toolkit formalized the research lifecycle—from hypothesis generation and methodology selection to data synthesis and stakeholder reporting—enabling the team to maintain a sustainable, data-informed product strategy independently.

 

Final Impact

  • Streamlined Onboarding: Mitigated high drop-off risks by delivering a mobile-optimized journey that reduced cognitive load and improved time-to-value.

  • Regional Localization: Ensured market fit for MENA users through specific interventions in privacy (avatars) and hardware accessibility (UI density).

  • Scalable Knowledge: Empowered a nonprofit with limited resources to conduct independent, high-quality research via a comprehensive UXR Playbook.

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