Experience at work

How the adventure began & what I learned

When I studied at Carnegie Mellon University, I met the founder of TalkMeUp, JJ Xu, a CMU MBA student. In winter 2017, I joined TalkMeUp as their first UX Design Intern until summer 2018, when my graduate capstone project became full-time and occupied most of my day.

My internship at TalkMeUp was a positive and productive experience. Being a full-time graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University made the time management very challenging, but I am glad that I made it through.

At TalkMeUp, not only did I well balanced my coursework and internship work, I learned must-have skills in real-world workplaces:

How to manage multiple tasks with tight deadlines
How to handle time conflicts
How to effectively communicate
How to productively collaborate

A Big THANK YOU to JJ, my direct manager and the founder of TalkMeUp. The valuable mentorship she provided has been very helpful in my later career.

"Yumei was quite adaptive to startup’s fast pace, demonstrating the ability to learn and grow." -- JJ Xu, Founder and CEO at TalkMeUp

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What I did

TalkMeUp has two groups of targeted users: coaches and learners. My work covers both of them.

Worked with the company founder on identifying user needs and product features
Researched coaches and learners’ behaviors through interviews and surveys
Defined user flows for coaches and learners
Designed product solutions for coaches and learners
Created low-fidelity wireframes and hi-fidelity prototypes
Measured and evaluated my solution through usability testings
Collaborated with developers to launch TalkMeUp's initial website. Designed and implemented the website UI in HTML and CSS
Worked with the marketing team on incorporating a usability testing session into Valentine's day social media campaign & guerrilla testing (hallway usability tests for UX)

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