Skills Based Transcript (SBT)

This case study focuses on discovery, leadership, ideation, and collaboration. As a member of a new product team, I was tasked to design and lead the conceptualization of the Skills-Based Transcript. The SBT is a career insight tool for students that they may share with others.

This product fits into a larger Comprehensive Learner Record where these skills show up when a student applies to a new job. A skill from the SBT could be pulled into the CLR for job applications that match their skillset.

*Both the Comprehensive Learner Record and Skills-Based Transcript were put on hold due to an organizational shift at the company. We got through wireframing and were asked to pause before testing with students.

01. Strategize

It was important to partner with my Product Manager and come up with a plan where everyone felt empowered. We set up one-hour sessions where the team could define what SBT was, explore the features we needed and what features were a dream. Finally, we wanted people to get excited to be a part of the design process. We met twice weekly for an hour focusing on mobile-first designs.

02. Define

Through looking at our programs we found there were approximately 70 Skill Groups and 210 Skills earned by a student.

Through information gathering with our Stakeholders, we defined the Skills Based Transcript as:

A collection of skills verified by WGU based upon courses, credentials or certifications students have completed.

WHY build a SBT?

• The ability for students to share progress with employers and colleagues in real-time.

• To allow students to gain insight on top skills and skills that needed to improve.

• Help set up students for job applications and how to sell themselves in their preferred market.

• Give students a place to view the accomplishments they have achieved.

03. Empathy Exercise

After we defined what we were creating as a team, I had the team do an empathy exercise as if they were a WGU student in their third term - one term away from graduation. What were concepts they wanted to see? We focused more on what students wanted function-wise over visual.

Once the team had time to think about their wants we shared what the features we were most excited about. After that, I grouped similar features and titled them focusing on what the MVP for this product could be.

04. Sketching Exercise

We reviewed the groupings for what the MVP might include and took the team through a sketching exercise. It was important to take a mobile-first approach to ensure this product only included necessary features without feeling the need to fill a desktop view.

05. Combining Wireframes in Sketch

Looking at each of the sketches I called out a few concepts the team liked - tiles and the ability to switch to list view, search, where and when a skill was learned, and nesting starting at skill group or certificate to the skill. I added in a badge for Top Skill to give students insight on marketable skills along with how many times they received the skill. Top Skills could use AI and Machine Learning to help predict what courses the student might want to take next, or which ones would stand out most as marketable skills.

We met with stakeholders to share our wireframes and how we got to them. I walked them through the idea of tiles and list view for skill groups and certification. They liked the overall flow but to see a design that would be more useful and engaging for students to come back to - a big call-out was adding a section for Courses since it was terminology they were most familiar with.

06. Next Iteration

Taking the designs a step forward I looked to other apps for inspiration for look and function. Delivery apps such as Postmates, Grubhub, and Doordash have a horizontal scroll while browsing in addition to vertical. With the horizontal scroll, the thought was that the first tile from a category you are selecting from would either be the top course, certification, or skill group you most recently earned.

Feedback gathered from our second demo with stakeholders was exciting once we added in Courses. Talking through intentions to use Artificial Intelligence to collect data on market trends and student success.

08. What Worked Well

• Collaboration - it was important to get both stakeholders and our product team involved at the start of discovery. Miro worked well for our remote team and a great resource to come back to.

• Ideation - my product manager and I pushed boundaries within designs to create something that would fit into modern trends and empower our students. I encouraged teammates to be bold in their thought process so we could create something purposeful and inventive.

09. Moving Forward

We were getting ready to test with a group of students and were told to stop the process. When the project starts up again I would test with users and collect feedback on mobile interactions.