UX Researcher
Bentley Undergraduate Onboarding
What did we do?
My research team helped the Bentley administration understand where incoming freshmen were struggling with the onboarding process through analysis of IT tickets and interviews with faculty and students.
What effect did it have?
Our findings and recommendations led to a new administration role for onboarding.
What would I do differently?
I would run the study when incoming freshmen are onboarding, rather than during the fall semester. I would use diary studies with targeted interviews.
FigJam Affinity Map
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Client: Bentley administration as part of a graduate class
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My role: UX researcher on a team of 4 researchers
Challenge
Bentley knew that the experience of undergraduates during onboarding was not supporting their needs well. New students have an overwhelming number of tasks to complete before starting their fall semester, with incomplete tasks potentially blocking their ability to start their university education.
Our objective: to understand the student perspective on the onboarding experience and provide the Bentley administration with actionable recommendations for improvements and identify areas for future research work.
Process
We spoke to Bentley staff, interviewed new undergrads, and explored IT tickets
Interviews with Bentley Staff
We met with stakeholders within the IT department and the Executive Director of Onboarding and Student Orientation from Student Affairs to understand the onboarding process and identify additional information that was available.
For greater ease of interpretation, I created this diagram based on what we learned.
May
June
July
August
Cafe Studies
Two of our team members spoke with 23 students during 10-15 minute conversations in the student center to better understand their onboarding experience and inform the script for our upcoming long-form interviews.
In May, students pay their deposit, and get access to a constantly updating checklist of tasks.
In June, they have a math placement test and an essay for writing placement, and must do tasks relating to housing and the health portal.
In July, they register for classes and submit a photo for their ID.
In August, they complete various self-paced onborading information modules, pay their bill for classes, handle health insurance, and move in on campus.
In-depth Interviews
We spoke to 13 additional students in hour long zoom sessions. None of the students from the cafe studies were able to make these sessions, unfortunately. We asked them to describe anything which stood out to them from their summer onboarding experience and their current experience with Bentley tools, and to share their screen to clarify their comments.
Coding & categorization to support comprehension and cross-referencing
Cafe Study and In-depth Interviews
We coded 23 cafe studies and 13 hour long interviews in Dovetail - a qualitative analysis tool - and used FigJam - a whiteboarding tool within the Figma design tool - for affinity mapping of these codes into 6 major themes:
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Digital habits and tools
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Devices
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Process Fragmentation
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Bentley Connect Checklist
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Workday
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On campus information resources
FigJam Affinity Map
Tickets from IT
We reviewed and coded 642 tickets from the previous summer into 13 codes to better understand where students were struggling in the moment.
Top 5 ticket types by month
Numbers of tickets by category
The two biggest issues were Account access and authentication and email account setup. Account issues and authentication - including lost passwords and access to Bentley platforms like BentleyConnect, Microsoft office, and Workday - were the most severe until August. Both Account access and authentication and email account setup were directly related to the Process Fragmentation category from our student interviews.
Email account setup was the second biggest issue in May with some lingering issues in June and August. This email was used as the single sign on (SSO) method across the Bentley ecosystem, meaning getting students using this email as early as possible was vital.
BentleyConnect was where the onboarding checklist was located and those issues peaked in June, suggesting that students were relying on this checklist to complete their onboarding items. BentleyConnect was one of our 6 categories from our student interviews.
Workday issues were broken into a few different categories: accessing it was part of the Account access and authentication category, incorrect information and trouble with Workday onboarding items were part of the Workday category, problems registering for or paying for classes were part of the Scheduling and registration and Payments categories, respectively. Workday was another of our 6 categories from student interviews.
Main Findings: Non-obvious onboarding tasks, difficulty using unfamiliar tools, difficulty finding on campus resources
Finding onboarding tasks
Through interviews and analysis of IT tickets, we confirmed that students were struggling to locate the full range of tasks they needed to complete.
“It was an issue of me having to figure out what credentials I need to use for whichever platform and which passwords I set up. Because there's several different passwords... the admissions portal uses a different password to the actual Bentley [email] ID. So that was a bit confusing.”
- FIRST YEAR STUDENT
“For sports, I needed more medical stuff. [The health center stuff was in Bentley Connect’s checklist, but] for athletics it was just an email and it just told you the things that you needed.”
- FIRST GENERATION STUDENT
Logging in to complete onboarding tasks
Students were also struggling to understand how to log in to the various web portals to perform onboarding tasks
Learning new software
Students also needed instruction on how to use Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Scheduler, and Workday
“I think the biggest thing would just be like please teach us how to use it. That would be super cool. It was interesting that we had all this orientation stuff, and none of it was how to use the orientation stuff.”
- FIRST GENERATION STUDENT
Locating instructional sessions
“Upperclassmen were emailing you about sessions on time organization, schedule organization, how to use outlook, etc, to help students assimilate better on campus. I feel like that's what they didn't have as well, and that's why they're doing this currently. The University itself did not offer any of those services.”
- FIRST YEAR STUDENT
Finally, they had difficulty learning about on-campus instructional sessions for things like time and schedule management
Recommendations
Finding onboarding tasks
To support finding the full range of tasks students needed to complete, we recommended ensuring the checklist is complete, understandable, and not repetitive by performing a entry-point audit to identify gaps and repetition in the checklist and working with content design to clarify checklist items.
Logging in to complete onboarding tasks
To support greater ease in logging in to the various web portals, we recommended reducing the number of different logins required, clarifying which portals require separate passwords, suggesting students bookmark various portal links, and introducing students to using a password vault so they can save portal sites and any unusual passwords.
Learning new software
To help students new to Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Schedule, and Workday, we recommended putting together explicit instruction for student tools through consultation with the upperclassmen currently providing help to freshmen, ideally in the form of videos or in-person instruction. We also recommended creating easy-to-find links to tools like Blackboard that are otherwise difficult to locate.
Locating instructional sessions
To help students find campus resources to support their transition to college, we recommended consulting the same upperclassmen to identify gaps in university offerings and in how those are disseminated to students.
Our work resulted in a new position to support onboarding, information simplification, and better support for parental aid
Outcomes
Bentley approved a position to help support student onboarding.
Student Affairs planned to simplify information for new students through an online, interactive resource rather than a static information guide.
Student Affairs was working on creating a parent portal for the onboarding tasks and making communication more consistent to leverage family members and other supporters as partners in the experience.
I am really grateful for the insight your work has provided as we move forward
- EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ONBOARDING AND STUDENT ORIENTATION