Graduate School Course Shopping Experience

Overview
A highly ranked US graduate business school sought to create a web-based platform that enables graduate students to explore courses and design their 2-year program track by identifying potential academic paths that align with their personal goals and aspirations. Additionally, they wanted to implement a robust innovative bidding program for student class selection.

The Challenge

  • Understanding the student experience: Their program journey, objectives, wants, needs, and pain points.
  • Program cross functional team coordination: Managing research, requirements orchestration, design development and user testing.
  • Optimize graduate program outcomes: Allow students to maximize the value of their class selections. Potentially leading to multiple degrees.
  • Responsive Web Based Interface: Functionality must be available across multiple devices in multiple formats.

Solution Details
Structure and execute an experience research and design program that addresses student desires while meeting the school’s business requirements.

Customer and Service Design Research:

  • Conduct Interviews and idea-generation exercises.
  • Develop End-2-End and Lifecycle Journey Maps.
  • Map Ideas and Key Customer Touch Points to the Student Journeys.
  • Evaluate and Prioritize Ideas.

User Interface Design and Development:

  • Develop responsive User Interfaces delivering new capabilities.
  • Assess impacts on current student experience and business processes.
  • Deliver a responsive UI, providing common experiences across multiple devices.

Experience Artifacts

  1. Task & Student Life Cycle Journeys
  2. Key Touch Points Identified
  3. Compelling Stories with Desired Outcomes
  1. Capabilities Needed to Achieve Outcomes
  2. Responsive User Interface that Delivers Key Capabilities

Key Outcomes

New Capabilities Delivered Via a Web Based Responsive UI

4 Week Program
Team Alignment | Idea Generation, Evaluation & Prioritization | Compelling Stories Strategic Innovation Road Map

1 Aligned Vision
Focused project vision aligning
key Business and IT stakeholders

6 Cross-Functional Teams Aligned
Business and IT cross-functional teams sharing a “Common Understanding”

15 Compelling Stories Developed
Desired capabilities and benefits expressed, validated, and impact assessed

1 Responsive Web-based UI
Delivering common experiences across multiple devices

My Role: Direct and manage user and business process research, collaborated in the development and configuration of responsive UI, and testing of service design and responsive UI integration.

Team Structure

Design Team Roles:
*One person may perform multiple roles.
Program Navigator, Digital Strategist, UX Researcher, Interaction Designer, Visual Designer, Client, and Client Partners.

Tasks:
Research, ideate, and design proof of concept (POC) and draft minimum viable product (MVP).

Development & Delivery Team:
Project Manager, Platform Architects, Developers, Linguists and Testers.

Tasks:
Deliver and deploy the POC.

Wireframes to Visual Design
Slide between
(before) wireframes and
(after) application of visual design