Challenge
At WGU, students pursuing teaching degrees are required to apply for Field Experience, a program in which they work in a school setting alongside a licensed teacher. At the time, applicants received little to no visibility into their application status after submission. As a result, Field Experience staff and Student Mentors received a high volume of status-related inquiries.
The goal of this project was to reduce inbound support communications while improving transparency by giving students clear, real-time visibility into their application progress.
Project Details
My Role: Senior UX Designer
Platform: Web
Team: Project Manager, Engineers, Education Stakeholders
Project Field: Field Experience Student Management
Outcomes
The result of this work was a 78% reduction in communications regarding Field Experience to staff and mentors.
Wireframes
I began by creating wireframes using my Field Experience template files to help stakeholders quickly understand the structure and direction of the experience. While I produced additional concepts, these were the versions I ultimately presented for stakeholder review.
My first priority was defining the phases of the application and confirming whether the process had clearly documented, consistent steps. This required several working sessions with stakeholders to clarify which stages were meaningful for students to see and which could be automated to reduce manual workload for the Field Experience staff.
I also consulted with the UX Design team to determine whether existing design patterns or workflows addressed similar needs, ensuring I did not introduce an unnecessary or inconsistent experience. At the time, no established pattern existed, which gave me the opportunity to define a new one.
High Fidelity Designs
At WGU, roles were specialized, so I partnered with our UI Designer to create a look and feel aligned with the global design system. Stakeholders responded positively to the workflow I presented and collaborated with me to develop copy that clearly explained each step in the process. Ultimately, we streamlined a lengthy and complex application experience, giving students up-to-date visibility into their application status while freeing Field Experience staff to focus on higher-priority work.
