Illinois Webcon 2018 Most of our clients in higher education believe they know what their external audiences experience when they're trying to engage: apply, enroll, donate, etc. But it's about more than knowing the steps. It's about seeing it from an outsider's perspective.

1. We do WHAT?
1
A Higher Ed Customer Experience Audit

2. Ashley
McQuaid
Senior Information
Architect
Pete
Gaioni
VP of Strategy &
Account Services

3. method+imagination
● Boston-based digital agency with a passion for UX
● Serving higher ed since 1992
● Acquired by RDW Group in 2004
● Broad, national higher ed client base
○ Community colleges. State. Ivies. Grad. Undergrad.
○ ... and healthcare, not-for-profit, publishing, K-12
iFactory

4. Agenda
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
Here’s what we’ll cover today.
WHAT & WHY
What a Customer Experience Audit is, and
why it’s valuable
CASE STUDY
Take a detailed look at one client’s audit
process and what we found
START YOUR OWN
Learn how to get the ball rolling at your own
institution

5. EXPER
IENCE
WHAT & WHY

6. A customer experience (CX) audit is the analysis
of a customer journey for the purpose of
minimizing “friction” and increasing conversion.

7. Pete walks into a
college visitor’s
center...
TYPESOMETHINGHERE

8. ...and reported the experience back to the client, who said,
“We do WHAT?!”

9. High school populations are declining,
with a large drop projected for 2025.
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
Source: The Boston Globe
For small, private colleges, fewer students means more worries

10. Enrollment will increase in degree
granting postsecondary institutions
2014-2025... but at <1/2 rate 2000-2014.
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
Source: The National Center for Education Statistics
Total enrollment in degree granting postsecondary institutions

11. Did your view of the college’s
reputation or brand identity
change as a result of the
interactions you had with them
during the college selection
process?
Source: Longmire & Company
Pre-Enrollment Service Study: How customer service
delivery during the recruiting cycle influences
enrollment

12. To what degree did the service
you received from the college
influence your college selection
decision?
Source: Longmire & Company
Pre-Enrollment Service Study: How customer service
delivery during the recruiting cycle influences
enrollment

13. 100% of our clients
get feedback in our discovery surveys
about problems that have nothing to do
with their website.

14. Admitted writing students at Columbia College of
Chicago often found themselves in the wrong
program due to a confusing matrix of majors,
programs and schools.

15. Santa Barbara City College, one of the country’s
top CCs, found prospects were left on hold for 10+
minutes without explanation, before being sent
to an answering machine.

16. PROSPECT
ADMISSIONS
APPLICATION
MAIN
WEBSITE TELEPHONE
FINANCIAL
SYSTEMS
IN-PERSON
VISITS
Customer journeys span
multiple brand touch
points & systems
Even if your main website is the only channel your
redesign scope will touch, you should prepare for
everything a customer might encounter.
EMAIL

17. Our CX audit
aims to:
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
ENHANCE UNDERSTANDING
of your customer’s experience on their
journey, and identify any points of friction
along the way
RECOMMEND IMPROVEMENTS
that minimize friction in order to facilitate
conversion, minimize funnel dropout, and
improve customer satisfaction
PROVIDE ALIGNMENT
for your team, so that you may prioritize and
implement recommended improvements

18. It borrows from
proven techniques:
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
EXPERT/HEURISTIC REVIEW
This family of tactics are well-established
methods of finding and fixing show-stopper
UX issues quickly
HANDS-ON COLLABORATION
Convening people from different parts of an
organization to solve a problem collaboratively
fosters alignment + shared sense of ownership
FOCUS GROUPS + USABILITY
Seeing actual users in action and drawing
out their thoughts can provide invaluable
context to understanding their experience

19. What does our CX audit actually look like?

20. Ummm... a bit of usability with a pinch of
mystery shopping?
TYPESOMETHINGHERE

21. So Pete met with Ashley... and iFactory’s
CX Audit for higher ed was born.
TYPESOMETHINGHERE

22. Analytical
Report
iFactory’s combination of an expert review and
cognitive walkthrough, accompanied by a
comprehensive written report.

23. Facilitated
Team Session
A live session for your team to walk through your
prospects’ journey for yourselves.

24. Recruited
Participants
Directly engaging students and other audiences to
walk through your prospects’ journey.

25. SEE IT IN
PRACTICE
CASE STUDY

28. Flagler College’s
Audit Process
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
RESEARCH
Learning about Flagler’s users and the
institution’s pain points, and selecting the
tasks themselves
CONDUCT
Performing and recording the tasks we
selected
DIGEST
Sorting through all of our findings and
discovering recurring themes
SHARE + USE
Compiling a report for sharing with
stakeholders and informing the direction of
the project
Flagler opted for an analytical report, which could be
easily shared with stakeholders later in the process.

29. RESEARCH

30. Discovery
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
STRATEGIC QUESTIONNAIRE
Project drivers; the team’s likes and dislikes;
basics about our key audiences
DOCUMENTATION, ANALYTICS, AND
COMPETITOR REVIEWS
Understanding the full picture; evaluating
trouble spots
INTERVIEWS AND FOCUS GROUPS
Qualitative feedback from students, faculty,
staff, and senior leadership
AUDIENCE SURVEYS
Quantitative feedback from students,
parents, and alumni

31. Here’s what we learned.
TYPESOMETHINGHERE

32. Flagler was concerned with a small number of
accepted student drop-offs, and wanted to find
out what they could do to alleviate the problem.

33. In addition, current students talked about how
hard it had been to get an idea of what it was
like to live at Flagler.

34. I wish I had known more about what life would
be like at Flagler, in this beautiful location."
Flagler Student
"

35. [The current site] was really hard to
navigate...finding dorm pictures was really hard.
There was so much info on St. Augustine, but not
on [your] living situation."
Flagler Student
"

36. Personas
Built on our discovery findings, personas helped us
keep track of what Flagler’s prospects want, and what
Flagler wants to communicate to its prospects

37. Ready, Set...
1
Find out exactly how much it
costs to go to Flagler.
2
Find out what Flagler is like and
start an application.
3
Get settled as an accepted
student.
We settled on 5 groups of tasks—called journeys—to
evaluate as part of our audit.
4
Complete common tasks for
current students.
5
Complete common tasks for
guidance counselors.

38. CONDUCT

39. ...Go!
● Recording my screen
allowed me to complete
tasks organically
● Afterwards, I reviewed all
the recordings to take
detailed notes to use for
faster reference when
compiling the final report

40. In keeping with our discovery findings, most
issues centered around student housing and
accepting an admissions offer.

41. Accordion
Fatigue

42. Pricing Clarity

43. “Admitted
Students Day”
Conundrum

44. Technology for
New Students

45. “Please fill out
this form and
email back to
me.”

46. “Please fill out
this form and
email back to
me.”
???

47. DIGEST

48. Recording tasks
resulted in piles of
information.

49. Recording tasks
resulted in piles of
information.

50. How do we make it all actionable?

51. 3
2
1
For each issue,
we assess:
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
THE ROOT CAUSE
Is it a language problem? Does the content
need to be laid out differently? Is a piece of
the interface not intuitive?
THE SEVERITY
Can it be fixed with a simple change to one
page? Do multiple pages need new copy?
Will pages have to be restructured?
THE THEME
Is this issue similar to others? What do they
have in common?

52. Recurring Themes
1. Cross-promotion and content hierarchy
2. Using clear and specific language
3. Clear pathfinding
4. Giving appropriate priority and context to media
5. Improving readability
6. Appropriate use of expandable content & FAQs

53. Severity Levels
Keep on the new site
Can be solved with minimal content adjustments
Stopping points that require structural changes,
or changes spanning multiple pages, in order to
solve them

54. SHARE + USE

55. Who needs to
use this report?
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
THE FLAGLER WEB TEAM
Absorb all the nitty-gritty details
EXECUTIVE STAKEHOLDERS
See the trouble spots at a quick glance
CONTENT AUTHORS
Know what to look out for, and then focus
only on what’s relevant to them
THE IFACTORY TEAM
Have a benchmark to drive the redesign
process

56. Our analytical report consists of 4 key segments.
THEMESAT A GLANCE TASK
BREAKDOWNS
The meat of the report; every
journey is outlined in
step-by-step detail and shows
the severity level of each of
our notes
Provide authors with
guidance around common
problem areas, without
them needing to read the
entire report
Shorthand quickly
demonstrates where the
issues are
DELIVERABLE
ROADMAPS
Demonstrate how
subsequent deliverables
will make use of the report;
provide reassurance that
anything that can be
addressed, will be
addressed

57. At a Glance

58. Themes

59. Deliverable Roadmaps

60. Task Breakdowns

61. HOW TO
DO IT
START YOUR OWN

62. Get the Ball
Rolling
TYPESOMETHINGHERE
1 WHAT WILL YOU TEST?
2
HOW WILL YOU USE YOUR
FINDINGS?
3 WHAT METHOD WILL YOU USE?
Here’s what to think about to get an experience audit
started at your own institution.

63. TYPESOMETHINGHERE
1. What will you test?

64. What will you test?
● Do you already have a hunch about some problem
areas? What do analytics tell you, if you have them?
● Do any individual audiences (guidance counselors,
community college transfers, etc) seem to have
particular difficulty interfacing with you?
● Are there simple questions about which you
frequently receive phone calls, which you could be
presenting more clearly on your site?
● Is there something special about your school that you
don’t feel you’re communicating effectively?
1

65. TYPESOMETHINGHERE
2. How will you use your findings?

66. How will you use your
findings?
● Do you want an understanding of the whole journey, to
then focus on what your website can solve?
● Are you reconsidering any third-party platforms that
you use, such as admission application systems or
student intranets?
● Are you hoping to change your internal culture?
2

67. TYPESOMETHINGHERE
3. What methods will you use?

68. Analytical Report
+
● Allows quick, impactful wins on priority issues
● Shareable + repeatable
● Easily cross-reference problems over multiple
processes
● $ (avg. $2k/scenario)
-
● No users, less natural
● More focused on finding problems and their fixes
than on gauging user perception

69. Facilitated Team
Session
+
● Cross-functional epiphanies
● Empathy for users + colleagues
● Quick wins + systemic governance changes
● $$ (avg. $3k/scenario + travel)
-
● No users, non-naturalistic
● Hot seats ---> heated debates
● Logistics

70. Recruited Participants
+
● Real users explain thinking
● Broad view, few preconceptions
● Recordings add empathy + impact
-
● $$$ (script + facilitate + recruit)
● Logistics
● Broad view has less detail about the cause of
problems and how to fix them

71. QUESTIONS
ANSWERS
Q+A

72. THANK YOU@ifactoryboston