OnboardEase
OnboardEase is a platform for organizations with dynamic workforces to onboard employees.
It systematically presents organization-based and role-specific knowledge while offering a simulated workspace for new employees to practice and learn their work.
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- Team
- Christy Fang, Chun Hin Tsang, Sylvia Zhang (myself), Vito Fan
- My Role
- UX Researcher, UI/UX Designer
- Tools
- Figma, Miro
- Duration
- 3 Months
Context
MeaningfulWork's operational challenges
MeaningfulWork is a startup that connects volunteers with non-profits.The company's frequent employee changes necessitated efficient onboarding . However, the complex operational tasks made the onboarding process time-consuming.
How might we streamline the onboarding process to accommodate frequent employee changes and help employees effectively learn new tasks?
Discover
Analyzing onboarding process
To identify opportunities to improve the onboarding experience, my team created journey maps of the new employee and the manager. I mapped out the emotion and thoughts of the new employee by asking my teammate to roleplay as an intern and think out loud.
User journey maps revealed that new employees found onboarding overwhelming due to the lack of a big picture of their responsibilities. Additionally, the cognitive load was heavy as they had to navigate between multiple platforms.
Co-Designing with managers and employees
To promote innovation and ensure intended users' needs are met, my team hosted a co-design workshop with managers and interns from MeaningfulWork's team. I led the planning of the workshop, choosing and adapting activities based on our goals. The workshop was structured to bring out creativity in participants.
Besides leading the participatory activities, I also summarized insights from the workshop:
- New employees seek quick access to reliable knowledge, while managers also strive to offer digestible learning materials that is accessible for everyone.
- Dense information and non-linear processes poses challenges for employees in retaining information during onboarding.
- Managers hope to foster an open environment where new employees can better provide feedback and communicate their needs.
Define
Narrowing down the focus
While we gained multiple insights from interviews and workshops, we could not manage to address all the issues within the scope of our project. We chose to put the need for an open environment for communication aside since that can be achieved by adapting existing communication platforms. Therefore, the design problem was reframed to:
How might we design an onboarding experience that provides a systematic view of knowledge and simplify navigation for new employees to overcome challenges of overwhelming information and non-linear learning processes?
Develop
Initial Concepts
Inspired by the pre-existing UX design of digital products to onboard users, I proposed the idea of a simulated workspace for employees to step through their learning tasks with visual guidance.
Another concept of helping employees to understand the team's operational structure was developed by my teammates.
Feedbacks
Based on feedbacks from our instructor and the MeaningfulWork team, we decided to make two major changes:
- Combine the two concepts into one.
- Add features for creating and updating learning materials.
I built the interface for updating the onboard guide. It met MeaningfulWork's need for ease and flexibility in onboarding.
Deliver
Final solution
After incorporating feedback, the final product, OnboardEase, landed as an aggregated learning guide that creatively presents technical knowledge. With a simulated workspace, it enables new employees to familiarize themselves with tools and processes without being anxious or confused. It also enables easy editing of onboarding materials.
New user journey
Warm Introduction
New employees receive a link to the learning guide during the onboarding meeting with the manager.
Upon logging into OnboardEase, they are greeted and directed to learning materials.
Overview
New employees enter learning modules and gain an overview the responsibilities and required skills of their role.
Employees can learn at their own pace and review when necessary.
Step-by-step Learning
With the hands-on task simulation on OnboardEase, the new employee can easily follow the tutorial and practice their tasks in one place.
This reduces their anxiety about making mistakes and saves the hassle of shifting between video tutorials and operation platforms.
Adding New Tutorial
OnboardEase allows easy documentation and updates of training materials.
This saves managers to repeat the same procedure every time a new employee joins the team or a horizontal movement takes place and keeps training materials up to date.
Reflection
Co-designing as a way to research and innovate
From this project, I not only learned how to plan and run a participatory workshop but also had a taste of co-design methods. Unlike interviews and surveys, the workshop encouraged active participation, leading to more user-centred and contextually relevant solutions and fostering a sense of ownership and commitment.
Missing MVP
Since what we created was a mockup and MeaningfulWork did not have the budget to develop it, a substitute approach was needed for them to achieve the same interaction flow. We could have researched existing platforms and designed a minimum viable product that is ready to be used by MeaningfulWork.
In my future practice, I would like to provides more opportunities for users to dive into the design problem and create the solution. I will also take my client and target users' resources and capabilities into account when delivering the product.