Digital transformation: Rhodes Scholars student portal
Lightful is a technology company powering social and environmental change through smart software, tailor-made technology and digital skills training.
I moved to this role as a I wanted to widen my UX experience beyond a large, corporate financial organisation. Lightful was a small start-up based in Brick Lane working with non-profit companies. I worked for their consultancy arm on a number of projects.
Working with the Rhodes Trust was a wonderful experience as it allowed me to completely redesign their online portal to be used with upcoming, current and past students.
Unfortunately I didn’t stay with Lightful to see the completion of this project. What follows is an overview of some discovery techniques I made use of to start building out the new portal.
Context
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford. Their online portal is used to support and inform prospective, current and alumni scholars. The portal they had was old, unused and not fit for purpose. The stakeholders wanted to refresh what they had and introduce new features ensuring the portal would become integral to every scholar.
Team setup
A small, lean team: Project manager, Scum lead, Dev and myself.
My role
Research / Wireframing / Design / Test / Development
Ways of working
Lean UX design methodology
Tools used
Sketch, Invision, Salesforce components
Key challenges
There were three distinct end-users of the portal; each with different wants, needs and objectives
End users were at different stages of their lives and internationally based
There was no plan to spend money on content creation - there was an expectation that it would ‘just grow’
Competitive analysis was difficult as alumni portals tended to be ‘closed’ sites
Limited time given to spend with end-users
Different wants and needs from stakeholders and end users
Approach
We tackled this project using lean methodology, working in two-week sprints. As with any new project a number of key stakeholder meetings were held in which we uncovered problems the current portal was experiencing - as well as identify potential opportunities for the new one.
Discovery
This was a large project and I was the sole UX’er on it. The stakeholders were protective of the end-users (the scholars) and permitted access was limited. I had to ensure that I made the best use of my time with them.
Interviews
I embarked upon this project having conversations with multiple scholars, both present and past. Ensuring I had a script to hand I was able to discover what they liked about the portal, what they didn’t (and why) as well as uncover ideally what they would like to see.
The information gathered during these interviews was used two fold - as well as providing insight into what was liked and not liked by the end-user - they also enabled me to draw up personas of the end user, serving to remind both myself and others, who we were designing for.
User testing
Each sprint I would a new portion of the portal, create a lo-fi clickable prototype and then conduct in-person user testing at Rhodes House with various scholars. Designs would then be updated in line with feedback and then presented back to the team as a whole for further review.
Findings
It became clear that these scholars were very keen to ensure that they used the right tool for the right purpose and they didn’t really believe that one platform could fulfil all their needs.
They were also wary of embarking upon discussion or debate online as they were nervous that one day in the future their views may no longer be ‘correct’.
Lean UX method of design
Adopting a lean methodology to UX creates a user-centred approach that forces product teams to rapidly generate and test ideas in the real-world to find what works. This prototyping model speeds up the UX design process and minimises waste.
The product owner divided the project into short bi-weekly sprints. Each sprint was focused around a new feature. I would design and prototype each new feature and then go to Oxford to test with end-users. After drawing up the findings I would then share the insights and latest designs with the team.
Overall design
I opted for a design similar to Linked In. My thinking being that a user could request to receive information from either people / societies / admin as per their request. With minimum effort their page would looked refreshed on each visit.
Lessons learnt
Original portal 
Updated versionI found myself as a sole UX’er within the company at this time. I was enthusiastic and keen to take on the role. However, in retrospect I was lacking in a number of key skills that a more senior designer would have had in their arsenal.
Stakeholder management: whilst able to ask questions, document findings and set about designing I believe I was lacking in stakeholder management skills. As the project got underway I focused on the end-user and didn’t bring the key stakeholders along as I ought to have done.
Pitching and selling my ideas: I should have been more bold in holding research reviews to ensure stakeholders understood the findings and were on board with the ideas I was moving forward with.
Create a research plan: I didn’t have time to research and test everything! I should have created a research plan upfront and got this approved by the team, thus saving some time and stress.
Viewing all key stakeholder requests as an ask: I ought to have been smart enough to see them as a frustration and set about alternative ways to ease this. I ought to have been stronger in defining my goals at the start of each sprint along with understanding why the stakeholders wants differed so much.