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Designing an Accessibility-First Learning-to-Career Ecosystem for Underrepresented Students

Role : Experience Designer, Content Strategist, Accessibility Advocate

Timeline : 2 years

Scope : Learning Systems, Mentorship Design, Accessibility, Job Platform, Ethics in AI

Tools : Figma, Bubble.io, Miro, Canva, Google Classroom, Google Doc, Notion

Result & Impact

26%

Increase in mentor retention

45%

Student signups for the curriculums

90%

Increase in student confidence in pursuing tech careers

WCAGAA

Accessibility audit passed.

Context & Problem

🧑‍🎓 Student challenge

Neurodivergent learners experienced:

  • Cognitive overload
  • Inaccessible learning materials
  • Unstructured feedback
  • Students learned technical skills but lacked:
  • A clear ethical lens on AI
  • A visible pathway to jobs

👤 Mentor & Program challenge

Mentors lacked:

  • Structured, accessibility-aware teaching frameworks
  • Consistent feedback models across cohorts
  • Programs were operating as:
  • Disconnected initiatives rather than a single pipeline

💼 Organizational challenge

  • SureStart had a strong mission—but no unified experience system tying learning, mentorship, and career enablement together.

Goals & Success Metrics

Goal 1

Improved mentor retention and participation

Goal 3

Increased student confidence in pursuing tech careers

Goal 2

Reusable mentorship playbook

Goal 4

Accessibility principles adopted in content development

Research & Insights

Problem Framing

I worked as a hybrid systems designer across multiple layers of the ecosystem:

  • Designed accessible learning experiences
  • Led AI & ethics content strategy
  • Conducted research on mentoring across neurodivergence
  • Mentored students directly
  • Designed & supported development of a student job platform
  • Championed accessibility-first design practices

My responsibility was not just to “design artifacts” — it was to stabilize and connect the entire learning-to-career pipeline.

Core Design Strategy: One System, Three Connected Layers

Layer One: Accessible AI & Ethics LearningValue

Layer Two: Mentorship Across Differences

Layer Three: Career Enablement (Student Job Platform)

Design Outcomes

Accessible AI & Ethics Learning

Goal: Make complex technical concepts understandable, ethical, and cognitively safe for K–12 learners.

Key Design Decisions

  • Visual clarity
  • Plain-language content instead of technical abstraction
  • Progressive disclosure to prevent overwhelm
  • Ethics-first framing of technology and AI
  • Learning materials optimized for
    Readability
    Reduced memory load
    Visual clarity

Outcome
AI was understood not as “intimidating code,” but as human-impacting systems
👉Students engaged more confidently with complex concepts
👉 AI was understood not as “intimidating code,” but as human-impacting systems

Mentorship Across Differences

Goal: Design inclusive mentorship practices for neurodivergent learners.

Research Focus

  • Communication barriers
  • Power dynamics in mentoring
  • Confidence gaps in underrepresented students
  • Differences in feedback processing

Design Interventions

  • Low-pressure feedback models
  • Structured mentor check-ins
  • Inclusive communication norms
  • Accessibility-aware goal-settingcs in mentoring
  • Confidence gaps in underrepresented students
  • Differences in feedback processing

Outcome
Mentorship shifted from authority-based teaching to psychological safety-driven guidance.
Students reported feeling:
👉More Seen
👉 More Supported
👉 Less afraid of “being wrong”

Career Enablement (Student Job Platform)

Goal: Translate learning into real-world opportunity.

Platform Focus

  • Student job discovery
  • Accessible navigation
  • Confidence-building application flows

Design Priorities

  • Reduced friction in onboarding
  • Supportive microcopy
  • Clear next steps at every stage
  • Accessible interaction patterns

Outcome
👉Students could visualize a real future pathway beyond learning
👉 Career became a continuation of education—not a cliff after it

Reflection & Next Steps

This work fundamentally transformed how I approach design. It taught me:

  • Design is not limited to UI.
  • Design is infrastructure for dignity, safety, and access.
  • And real impact happens when systems—not screens—are redesigned.

This project directly shaped my focus today on:

  • Accessibility-first product design
  • Healthcare and regulated systems
  • Ethical AI interfaces
  • And inclusive career pathways

Next Steps