UX Researcher
Bentley Undergraduate Onboarding
Client: Bentley administration as part of a graduate class • 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.
Executive Summary
Context
The Bentley administration wanted to understand where students were struggling with onboarding with the goal of identifying ways to improve the experience.
Through interviews and analysis of IT tickets, we confirmed that they were struggling to locate the full range of tasks they needed to complete and to understand how to log in to the various web portals; needed instruction on how to use Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Scheduler, and Workday; and had difficulty learning about on campus instructional sessions for things like time and schedule management.
To support locating the full range of tasks they 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Bentley administration created a dedicated position to support onboarding as a result of our efforts.
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
Learning from Students
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 students in hour long zoom sessions. 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 and used FigJam 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
Main Findings: Fragmented onboarding process, difficulty using unfamiliar tools, difficulty finding on campus resources
Our three main findings were problems locating the full range of tasks they needed to complete and understanding how to log in to the various web portals; using Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Scheduler, and Workday; and learning about on campus instructional sessions for things like time and schedule management.
Process Fragmentation
This included no single source of truth for completing onboarding tasks, poor awareness of which tasks would not instantly complete, and a large number of portals for completing onboarding tasks.
“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
“Most of my communications were like 'Hey, I I swear I set this in' and they were like, 'No, you're good. The system just sucks.'”
- FIRST YEAR STUDENT
“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
Our recommendations for process fragmentation were:
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ensure 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
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simplify access to the various portals and provide clarity on which portals require separate passwords
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Recommend bookmarking various portal links and using a password vault early on, so students can save the portal sites and any unusual passwords.
Help using digital tools and finding on campus resources
This included using new tools such as Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Scheduler, and Workday and learning where to find help and support on campus.
“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
“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
Our recommendations for help using digital tools and finding on campus resources were:
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put together explicit instruction for student tools and on campus resources through consultation with the upperclassmen providing help to freshmen to identify areas that need more explanation
-
creation of video or in-person explanation of how to use tools like Excel, Outlook, Blackboard, College Scheduler, and Workday
-
include links to tools like Blackboard that are otherwise difficult to locate.
“If they just committed to one application, or they created their own where everything was centralized through the whole process, it would be extremely easy for every user.”
- FIRST YEAR STUDENT
“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
“My orientation leader was a great help. They kept in contact with me even after orientation. They come and visit our FDS class a lot and I see them around a bunch of campus events and giving tours and stuff all the time. We talk to each other often.”
- FIRST YEAR STUDENT
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