EnterpriseUser Experience

in higher education

Hi thereI’m Rick DzekmanConnect with me @rickdzekmanRead my articles & tech notes: www.rickdzekman.com

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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 & DeakinOther industries: banking (NAB), infrastructure (UGL, Leighton), government (ASIC, DEC)

🔸 I’ve written articles on UX Design, Project Management, Business Architecture & Artificial Intelligencesee: www.rickdzekman.com

This presentation

This presentation is divided into 4 sections

1.Digital disruption2.Why UX matters3.Examples of UX (from small to large)4.Enterprise UX structure

1.Digital disruptionand understanding your consumer

Eastman Kodak Company est. 1888

Kodak ad c. 1900

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

The digital graveyard

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 mattersto 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

ICMS Home page

ICMS Applicant Portal

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