Case Study: Access Tufts

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my role: creative lead, UX research, front end development

Overview/Background

Tufts University is a large and decentralized organization, which can add a layer of complexity to one’s job. In order to accomplish routine tasks staff must often navigate multiple disconnected organizations, systems and processes. Information is scattered and it is difficult to know where to look for help. Our team we aimed to simplify and centralize access to a broad range of services and information from organizations such as HR, Finance, and Operations.  We hoped to make administrative tasks easier so that staff can focus on their goals.

Research

We reached out to staff members from the various organizations within Tufts to determine where to focus our efforts. Staff were asked to assess specific factors, such as frequency of use and complexity, of certain tasks in order to determine their potential value and effort. Our research resulted in a list of 60 potential tasks for version 1 of Access Tufts. Users were then recruited to participate in open and closed card sorts to help determine the information architecture. Staff and stakeholder interviews were conducted in order to better understand the more complex tasks and business processes.

Execution

We adopted an Agile approach for design and development.  The design team, with myself as lead, created user stories that established functional requirements served as the basis for individual sprints. User stories guided the UI design which was then field tested with target users and iterated upon based on feedback. We developed storyboards to communicate the desired experiential workflow for more complicated processes, like digital supervisor approvals. We worked closely with the development team to integrate separate back end systems under a unified UI. While our team developed the core components of Access Tufts we partnered with other organizations within Tufts such as Digital Publications, Data Management, and Tufts Support Services in order to bring additional job related content that would provide value for our users.

Results

After delivering a functional prototype during the Fall of 2015 we successfully secured funding necessary for a full production system, which is currently underway.