Systemizing Networking for Early Career Professionals
UI/UX Designer
1 PM
5 Designers
MAR 2026 - JUNE 2026
Mobile Design
Identity Systems
Overview
Navigating networking is intimidating for young adults, so we built a tool to support young professionalism with systemized coffee chatting.
These individuals then struggle to build career connections and confidence. The solution combines journal strategies and automated research to help prep for a coffee chat and maintain your growing network.
My Impact
- Owned 20-screen UX (AI recommendations, contact tracking, chat history) for a coffee chat preparation and post-reflection tool targeting early career professionals navigating networking anxiety.
- Synthesized qualitative insights from 59 survey respondents (early career professionals) to inform information architecture and feature prioritization.
Outcome
- 3rd Place Design@UCI Spring Cycle.
Check out the prototype and pitch deck.
Problem
What makes networking feel intimidating to young adults?
With only 2 weeks to conduct our user research, we tried to diversify our audience to capture all perspectives on coffee chat from early-career professionals. Using research from the competitive analysis to understand where preexisting systems shine or fall short, we do some field research with user surveys and user interviews.
“I have a hard time staying in contact with people and knowing what to say. If not a lot is changing on my end, I don’t really know what to update her about…”
“I’ve never felt comfortable enough to reach out to someone for a coffee chat. I’m too scared to talk to people…”
A common theme among responses was: fear & lack of knowledge.
Research results revealed that early-career young adults are anxious about networking and lack the tools to sustain meaningful professional relationships.
Out of our interviewees, 7/10 had no clear system for tracking professional contacts
We wanted to craft a system that empowers its users to make connections and brainstormed different methods for confidence building. It had to have a solid foundation for archiving contacts and important notes as well as help with proactivity by surfacing old conversations.
Solution
brew. addresses the problem head-on with insightful contact management and coffee chat prep/reflection tools.
Our comprehensive contact management feature allows users to keep track of contacts, previous conversations, and important details all within the app. Then, Insights allow users to save personalized notes, advice, and reflections from past coffee chats, making sure that future conversations feel natural and personalized.
Contact List
- Your connections, their info and coffee chat history all in one place for easy access
Coffee Chat AI Insights
- Save personalized notes and key details from your conversations
Key Tip: Notes can help bring up ideas for conversation starters!
We also want to put a large emphasis on our pre and post chat reflection feature. Prior to having a coffee chat, users can view background information and interest about the person they are meeting with. This allows for them to brainstorm personalized talking points and prepare conversation goals ahead of time. After the conversation, users can reflect on their experience through guided prompts and track areas for improvement.
Pre-chat Prep
- View metadata synced from LinkedIn & your notes.
- Guided to ideate learning objectives & thoughtful questions per coffee chat
Post-chat Reflection
- Reflect and take away actionable insights
- Answer guided reflection prompts you can revisit
Process: Identity System
Crafting an identity system for a playfully professional app.
Before any designing was done, we had a brain storm session to capture the app aesthetic.
The final vision board captured a balance of playful and inviting while maintaining a professional maturity.
After my team finalized a mood board. The next step was to capture the product’s tone. I chose blues in combination with warm neutral tones to convey a warm, professional tone.
Process: Logo & Mascot Design
Giving life to brew.
To reinforce our friendly approach, I designed a hand-illustrated mascot to guide user through their networking challenges.
My team and I decided on a simplistic, minimal design that still feels a little hand-drawn to capture the welcoming voice of our app. The bean celebrates every accomplishment with our users!
I used Procreate to hand-illustrate our brew. loading screen. It gave it a personal touch and was the perfect wow-factor during our product pitch.
Process: Quick Access AI Insights
Refining Quick Access AI Insights for Coffee Chats
Using their pre-existing systems, our target audience complained about the difficulty of revisiting information from previous coffee chats.
Coffee chat insights introduced a way to make refreshing from previous chats easier with concise, AI-powered highlights.
- Efficiency: AI Insights existed within a click away from the contact list
- Discoverability: The button didn’t stand out from surrounding UI nor did it signal that it was a shortcut for Insights.
The pattern that user testers were following landed it somewhere on our coffee chat cards, but the initial layout didn’t support adding another button. After enough iterations I landed on a card design that met all the needs.
By adopting this new location for the insights, first time users navigated to “Insights” with ease.
Reflections
Despite the tight timeline of this project, I really enjoyed being able to take the time to hand-craft assets. I learned how to study the world around me and take inspiration from it. I got to pick up new skill sets – I’ve never hand drawn an animation with liquid before, so I practiced by watching a lot of latte art videos. There was no requirement to have an animated logo, but that very detail is what won over so many hearts. It felt so validating to know that the extra effort paid off and let viewers truly enjoy our presentation.
I’ve done a handful of public speaking, but this time I’d have no notes and no mic. I had to practice every transition and every breath to properly showcase what I’d been pouring my heart and soul into for the past 3 months. On pitch day, I was mid-line when I accidentally skipped a few words, but I calmed my nerves enough to recover with a big, bright smile. I’m really proud of myself for conquering that stress, and even prouder of my team, since this was half of us on a project like this for the first time! I’m so grateful for the love and support of this group and I will miss working with them dearly.
