👤 Designing the Mentorpedia Profile System (Inspired by LinkedIn, Built for Trust)

A case study on building contextual, trust-first user profiles for mentorship matchmaking

TL;DR

Mentorpedia was a mentorship platform — but unlike LinkedIn, it wasn’t built to show off achievements. It was built to create connections. We needed a profile system that could balance credibility with relatability — something that helped students feel confident approaching mentors, and mentors feel comfortable offering guidance. So I designed a dual-sided profile system, taking inspiration from LinkedIn, Calendly, and human conversation.

🧠 The Problem

Our platform had two very different users:

• 🎓 Students seeking personalized guidance

• 🧠 Professionals willing to mentor, but with limited time

We needed a profile experience that:

• Made students feel safe, seen, and guided

• Made mentors feel in control, credible, and respected

• Worked more like an introduction + invitation, not a résumé or a cold call

LinkedIn was too formal. Calendly was too transactional. We needed something in between.

🎯 Design Goals

1. Make mentorship feel human — not hierarchical

2. Enable fast mentor filtering based on needs, goals, and topics

3. Help mentors express personality + expertise without writing essays

4. Give students a voice — even before their first session

5. Build trust and clarity before booking

🔧 System Structure

🔄 Dual Profile Modes

• Mentor Profiles

  Designed for discoverability, credibility, and conversion
  Inspired by: LinkedIn + Superpeer + MasterClass

• Mentee Profiles

  Designed for onboarding context, goal-setting, and follow-up
  Inspired by: onboarding forms + community intros

🧑‍🏫 Mentor Profile Components

• Name & Title (with optional designation like “UX at Google” or “Startup Mentor”)

• One-liner Intro (editable hook like “Here to help you land your first PM job”)

• Topics I Can Help With (tag system: Product Strategy, Resume Review, Career Switch)

• Languages Spoken

• Availability Preview (integrated with booking engine)

• Links to LinkedIn, Portfolio, or GitHub

• About Me (with option for audio/video intro)

• Average Rating from mentee feedback

• Testimonial Cards (curated highlights from real sessions)

🎓 Mentee Profile Components

• Name, University, Graduation Year

• Current Status (e.g. “Final Year B.Tech, Exploring UX”)

• What I’m Looking For (goal tags like “Portfolio Review”, “Career Advice”)

• Optional: Personal Intro

• Past Sessions Completed

• Feedback from Mentors

✏️ Design Principles

• Conversational tone — No corporate lingo. Think: “Here’s how I can help.”

• Minimal friction — Use tags, dropdowns, and short bios

• Color-coded trust — Verified mentors had soft green highlights

• Human-first layout — Big photos, whitespace, warm fonts

🛠 Tools & Stack

• Built using Firebase Firestore

• Mentor profiles synced with the booking engine availability

• Designed in Figma, optimized for mobile-first use

• Tags and filters supported via Firestore indexing

• Real-time profile updates with optimistic UI

📈 Impact

MetricBefore LaunchAfter Profile RolloutBooking Conversion (Profile → Book)18%42% ⬆Mentor Completion of Profiles—94% filled within 48 hrsAverage Session Ratings—4.8/5 across 600+ sessionsNo-shows (Mentors)11%3% ⬇Referrals (from profile shares)negligible20% of new users

💡 What I Learned

• A profile is a story, not a résumé — and that story builds or breaks trust

• People don’t want to “scroll and scan” — they want to recognize and relate

• Allowing mentors to sound human made students feel more confident

• Profiles became a conversion asset — not just a data record

🔮 What’s Next (If We Continued)

• Let mentors record 60-second video intros

• Enable college-specific badges for mentees (e.g., “GBU Scholar”)

• Add “most booked for” tag to mentors (like “Most booked for Resume Reviews”)

• Introduce lightweight DM for post-session follow-ups

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn helps you brag.
Mentorpedia profiles helped you connect.

In designing this system, I realized that great profile UX isn’t about completeness — it’s about clarity, comfort, and context. If your profile makes the other person feel ready to reach out, you’ve already won.

🔗 Want to see the profile designs and user flows?
→ Visit amishsri.framer.website
💬 DM me for a walkthrough or Figma preview.