By Heather Zimar, Managing Editor, Journals and Publications, AACRAO
Stanford University enrollment and learning experience design leaders Johanna Metzgar, Shilo Trionfi, Pritasha Solomon, and Kate Brennan presented ideas for driving learner success through staff effectiveness in their session “Driving Student Success Through Staff Development: Transforming Stanford’s Onboarding & Learning Resources for Staff & Advisors.”
Metzgar shared that when she started in her role at Stanford seven years ago, there was a need to improve the everyday user experience of students and staff. “We had a need to modernize our systems and radically transform the way we deliver our services,” she said.
Metzgar built a seven-member user experience and design strategy team. The team members are highly specialized in their fields and experienced in registrar and student services functions. “These are people who are designers and dot-connectors,” Metzgar said, adding that they have been charged with solving everyday problems.
Brennan said that in the beginning, the team identified their most important users and what their roles were in the registrar's office and the other offices in their portfolio. Users included operational staff, advisors, and student services staff across all schools and departments. “We did a whole lot of listening,” Brennan said. “We also did some very intentional user research where we identified the gaps and opportunities.”
The team found that staff had too much on their plates, which was leading to stress, burnout, and turnover. “We were failing to deliver the support to student services staff and advisors that they need and deserve, and it was resulting in a high-cost problem for our university,” Brennan said.
“There was a critical need to shift to a more tailored investment [in our staff],” Metzgar added.
The team implemented five actions to improve the user experiences using human-centered design, which Solomon explained is “all about putting the person first, getting yourself into the shoes of your user, and making sure that the solutions are tailored to their experiences.”
- 1. Adopt a user mindset
- “We are talking about students, staff, faculty,” Trionfi said. “This action is all about getting curious and building empathy up front. We do this by thinking about divergent and convergent thinking.”
- 2. Know your audience
- “This is about knowing that your audience’s needs are unique and diverse,” Solomon said. “It’s a deep dive into your audience, getting on-the-ground data (focus groups, surveys, interviews, for example) from the users’ perspective.
- 3. Co-create and collaborate
- Trionfi said this action is about building early buy-in and shared ownership. This means involving the people who will be using the solution right from the start. “We like to say building with and not for,” she said.
- 4. Seek continuous feedback and iterate
- Feedback drives continuous growth and improvement, so this action requires consistently using metrics from surveys, workshops, and pilot tests to adapt to changing needs. It creates feedback loops and lets staff “test drive” new initiatives.
- 5. Bring everyone along
- The key to this action is to practice transparent change management and explain the “why” behind the change. It includes using varied communication channels (emails, newsletters, and Slack, for example). It is important, the presenters noted, to give people a lot more time to adjust to what the change will be.