Service Design — UX for Consumers… and employees

Designing a warm, welcoming, and informative onboarding experience for Visiting Scholars at Pratt.

Client

Pratt Institute

ROLE

Service Designer

UX Designer

EXPERTISE

Co-Design facilitation

Product Design

Timeline

4 weeks

What service are we designing?

Each year, Pratt welcomes visiting scholars from around the globe… but the onboarding is chaotic.

Lots of departments, not enough clarity

4-6 departments at Pratt are involved in onboarding a scholar, but its a long process, and can get very unclear on which department is responsible to do what.

Ambiguous responsibilities

Depending on what department they'd be working under, the responsibilities of a scholars can change. However, there are certain common expectations that aren't made clear to the scholars unless asked.

Scholars feel an intense culture shock in NYC

New York is a world of its own - making anyone susceptible to culture shock whether the scholar is from a different city, or a different country.

How did we solve these?

These solutions ensure the scholars are "eased in" to the onboarding process.

Prevents information overload

There's a total of 3 solutions proposed for scholars, helping them ease into the process with each stage, instead of bombarding them with information upfront.

Leads to smooth onboarding for both parties

There are 2 solutions aim to help hosts and other departments better coordinate throughout onboarding.

The easier it is for Pratt to carry out the process, the easier it gets for scholars to go through onboarding.

Co-designing with scholars and hosts

To understand what hosts and scholars need, we conducted 2 different co-design workshops - one to understand the people involved in each step, and one to understand the biggest questions scholars had during onboarding and the answers that hosts had.

Solutions

Stage 1: Warm up to the onboarding process with a welcome package.

Designed for (and with) scholars at Pratt.

The welcome package will be the first physical piece of information that scholars receive when they are accepted to research at Pratt.

Built from a co-design session with scholars, this idea is meant to ease scholars into the onboarding process.

Personalized, warm, and welcoming

A welcome letter drafter personally by the Scholar's host, this letter will serve not only as a welcome pointer, but also as a "table of contents" for the welcome package.

Easing in to the process with "easy to digest" information

The information in the welcome package will introduce scholars to the procedures ahead, along with point of contacts for each part of the process, and color coded documents based on topic.

Checklists (helps stay on track)

One of the popular user feedbacks we got throughout the designing process was that scholars like having "checklists" physically in hand to stay more organized throughout the process.

Solutions

Stage 2: Establish communications and dive deeper with a series of emails.

Establishing communications

Emails are the main mode of communication between the scholars and anyone at Pratt.

Goes deeper into the process

Emails give more detail into the process than the welcome package, included with documents, links, and anything else helpful.

Points to (spoiler alert) the website

Emails point scholars to the Pratt.edu website wherever necessary, and helps pin-point specific public information.

Email matrix (who sends out what, and when?)

For the folks at Pratt, we suggest an email matrix which is sort of a "manual" instructing the clients on when to send out what email, and who would be sending it out.

Solutions

Stage 3: Get standard, clear information through the Pratt.edu website.

The "holy grail" for information

Detailed, organized information publicly available on the Pratt.edu website. Due to the sheer volume of information, this is the last resource that scholars are introduced to.

Easy to implement

Pre-established procedures and templates make this website recommendation quick and easy to implement. The clients were set up with the files required for this intervention which they can simply bring to the Pratt PCOMM department to refine and publish.

So how will all these steps be tracked? — we recommended a project management tool!

Helps both parties stay on track of onboarding

The ownership matrix, email matrix, and the checklists combined — the project management tool would help clarify responsibility, timelines, and the tasks in general.