Enterprise User Experience in Higher Education

Enterprise
User Experience
in higher education

Hi there
I’m Rick Dzekman
Connect with me @rickdzekman
Read my articles & tech notes: www.rickdzekman.com
4

Who am I?
UX lead for Deakin’s new Student Management project
I’ve worked as a UX Architect, Project Manager and Digital
Project Consultant for a range of companies:
Universities: ICMS, ANU, Charles Sturt & Deakin
Other industries: banking (NAB), infrastructure (UGL, Leighton), government (ASIC, DEC)
I’ve written articles on UX Design, Project Management,
Business Architecture & Artificial Intelligence
see: www.rickdzekman.com

This presentation
This presentation is divided into 4 sections
1. Digital disruption
2.Why UX matters
3.Examples of UX (from small to large)
4.Enterprise UX structure

1.
Digital disruption
and understanding your consumer

Eastman Kodak Company est. 1888

Kodak timeline
Kodak scientist invents
the digital camera
Kodak files for
bankruptcy
Kodak actually starts
selling digital cameras
“The pressure to rethink the business didn't seem that great.
There was no crisis. It wasn't until 2001 that film sales dropped
... hope was that Kodak might be able to slow the shift to digital
through aggressive marketing.” *
* http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-11-26/mistakes-made-on-the-road-to-innovation
1975
1991
2001
2012

Who’s next?
Plenty of industries are on the cusp of great digital disruption
Transportation
Entertainment
Print media
Travel
Education?

“It doesn’t matter what product or
service you sell. You must understand
what problem you are solving or need
you are fulfilling for your consumer

Università di Bologna
est. 1088 CE

Disruption in higher education
Can a 1000 year old industry be disrupted by modern technology?
To answer that we can ask ourselves these questions:
Does the industry produce expensive parchments with
prestigious crests on them?
Or does it teach people in-depth understanding of complex
areas of expertise?
What problem do universities solve? What need do they fulfil?

2.
Why UX matters
to disruption in higher education

What is UX?
“Human Computer Interaction” or HCI is what
we called UX in the 90s
Now User Experience is about shifting our
attitude about software
Focus on creating the best possible experience
from our users’ digital interaction
UX is data driven, tested and repeatable

Digital disruption
In the last 12 months I have done the following completely online:
Learned Spanish
Caught up mathematics from calculus to abstract algebra
Took several Machine Learning, Big Data and AI courses, some
from big universities like Stanford and MIT
Read studies and research papers on User Experience
published entirely online (not necessarily in journals)
Interacted with communities and people I’ve never met to learn
more about UX, Big Data and AI

What do students want?
Students are getting use to a learning experience
that is:
Uniquely tailored to them
Simple and seamless
Intuitive
Mobile
On demand

Can we ignore them?
Students may continue to pay for higher
education in spite of a poor digital experience…
But with so much disruption coming, is that
really sustainable?
We can get ahead of it by focusing on their
digital user experience to improve the overall
student experience

How does UX help?
By putting the user at the forefront of our project
plan we deliver a positive experience which will:
Entice students to study here
Reduce the chance of discontinuing
Increase the chance of recommendation
Improve the quality of education, increasing
employability (and ultimately endowments)

A famous example
In 2008, UX designer Jared Spool did a usability
project for Amazon - changing the way their
checkout process worked.
The simple change to a button and the business
process behind it lead to a 45% increase in sales -
$300M annually

A personal example
In 2014 I was the Project Manager and UX Architect
for the ICMS online application form and website.
The result?
More online applications in 6 weeks than the
entire previous year
Additionally: students would actually complete the entire application
process on their mobile - something unheard of the year before

3.
UX by example
from small -> large

Overview
We will look at the UX process from small changes to the design to
big changes in process and how we use data.
Smaller issues lead to what I call "micro-frustrations" - little
inconveniences that add up to cause disruption to end users
In the middle we have business process improvements, user
flows and communication that make things simpler
At the big end we look at the most innovative ideas in the
industry and how they can change the landscape

Mini usability example
Placing labels to the left of a
form forces the eye to zig-zag
down the page leading to eye
strain and frustration.
Eye movements called
“saccades” are also slow
using this layout
Labels above the form input
are easier on the eyes and
quicker to read
Learn more in my presentation “designing usable forms”
http://www.slideshare.net/RickDzekman/designing-usable-forms

Functionality issues
When building Deakin's online application form we had various
document uploads with some issues:
Uploads document -> page reloads -> user scrolls back down
(tested with actual potential applicants)
We created an anchor that dropped the user back down to where
they were on the page before hitting upload
On re-testing users went through uploads without a problem

Lack of clarity
Setting up an enquiry management system. Users would submit
their enquiry and then:
The default next page gave them the ability to follow up with
additional comments
Almost every user thought they hadn’t finished filling out the
form and that this was more questions to fill out!
Recommended adding a simple “Thanks for your enquiry” to
reduce the wasted time of both staff and customers

Using the right words
Do your students know what "progression", "census date" and
"academic standing" mean?
Do you use industry jargon rather than plain English?
Do you tell students why you collect information?
In one instance, during usability testing we had students
wonder why we collected this personal information?
When we added help text that explained we needed to report
that info to government students were happier

Combining pages
When building the Deakin Applicant portal the default config of the
system left much to be desired:
Users had one screen for seeing their in-progress applications
and a separate one for responding to an offer
We found a way to put all the information on one screen and hid
the other screen by simply never linking to it

Removing a process
One client I worked with was generating a lot of reports
I asked what one of the reports was for?
They would use it to create a list of customers to email
I suggested that the same system that generated the report
automatically send the email
That "couldn't happen" because of data integrity issues
Fixing the data integrity issue took less man hours than the
manual processing of reports done on a weekly basis

Notifications and dates
Do students know the important dates?
Is there a way to tell when they've missed a deadline? Or do
things just start going wrong?
Do students not read their university emails?
Do you provide notifications about important things - with an
action they can perform?

Design consistency
Does every system, site and app have the same look and feel?
The same colours, fonts and layout?
Is it easy to tell what is clickable/tapable no matter what
system you use?
Can every service be accessed on mobile?

Mobile
Does every service even work on mobile?
Would they rather use an app? Would they prefer multiple apps
or one? Have you asked them?
How do you book rooms or get around campus? What about
access a timetable?
Do you have a mobile strategy?

Social
Is there a consistent social media presence?
How many social media channels do you have?
Are they all branded consistently?
Are they all written with the same voice?
What’s your social strategy?

Big data
You have enough data to predict whether a student is at risk of
failing a class before they even enrol. Do you address it?
Can you use machine learning to predict when a student might
discontinue? Can you intervene without seeming creepy?
Can we recommend units to students based on interest or
career goals?
Do you know what questions students ask at different times of
the year? Can you answer them before they ask?

Multi-screen and no screen
Can creative uses of technologies make the university a more
exciting place to go?
Can students take advantage of having multiple screens?
What about virtual assistants?
What about virtual reality, smart watches and drones?

4.
Enterprise UX
and how to structure it

UX Honeycomb
Morville's Facets of User Experience Refined?
http://www.jamesmelzer.com/morville-facets.html

UX Activities
To achieve the things discussed so far - on both the small and large
scales - there are many UX roles and activities involved:
Research
UX Architecture
Interaction design
Front-end development
Testing
Analytics

UX design cycle
Research
UX
Architecture
Design
Testing
Build
Analytics

Important considerations?
Do you have centralised UX research? This way every project
and every team works off the same fundamental understanding
of your end users.
Do you use prototypes? Including low fidelity prototypes (e.g.
wireframes)?
Are prototypes tested on actual users and shown to
stakeholders for approval before the build?
Do you base decisions off of data or hunches?
Do you have analytics for everything?

Communication
Does your communication strategy include everything:
from how to format emails for the most possible devices
to what voice to use when writing posts for social media?
Do you minimise the use of jargon? And test to see if students
understand the jargon you are using?
Do you send notifications with actions the students can
perform, or pester students with large blocks of text?

Standards
You surely have brand guidelines, but do you have accessibility
& usability guidelines?
Are you trying to be WCAG 2.0 compliant for accessibility?
Is there a standard format for usability research to be
conducted? What about waivers? What about pre-approved
incentives for participation (e.g. vouchers?)
Do you enforce the use of analytics and tracking on all
platforms?

Centralise UX
For best effect across the university a centralised UX team provides
the best benefit. Centralisation can take many forms:
As a shared service - like marketing or PMO
Advisory - providing advice and research to all projects
Collaboration - a way for cross-functional teams to collaborate
Review - usability testing / review of systems
Resourcing - providing resources and/or recruitment advice
Or some combination of the above

“
User Centred Design is not just a
software development approach but a
dedication to putting the consumer first

Thanks!
Any questions?
You can find me at @rickdzekman on twitter

Enterprise User Experience in Higher Education

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