The graND

commencement
Improving the ND Graduation Experience Using Design Thinking
Nishtha Kaushik
Design Brief
● Challenge Framing

How might we make the graduate student graduation better?

● Who are your target users?

Graduate students enrolled in professional degree programs

● What are the expected outcomes?

Increased social media engagement by students on graduation related content

Inclusion of post-graduation feedback forms to facilitate two-way communication
Increased participation by students in alumni networks
Design Brief
● Success Metrics

Social media reach increase

Feedback form response rate
Alumni event RSVP rate

RESEARCH PLAN:

● Contextual Interviews: 2 recent and 1 future graduates from the Mendoza College of Business
● Social Media Poll: 21 responses received in an Instagram poll targeted it at current or recently graduated
graduate students in the US
● Usability Testing for ND Commencement website (2019): The 1 current student from the contextual
interviews went through the commencement ND website and I asked them about their experience after
Secondary Information

Graduation at ND - Steps Provided by Tracy Freymuth, Director of Graduate Business Programs

1. Early January - Communication with students begins

a. Emails from registrar's office explaining the process of graduation and steps students need to take
b. Emails from the Graduate business programs office about ordering Caps & Gowns, and
announcements

2. February - Communication
a. Nominating your fellow students for awards
b. Recording correct name pronunciation through an application that students will be sent a link to

3. May - Graduation time

a. 3-4 hour rehearsal friday before commencement so students are comfortable on the day
Secondary Information
● Key things for graduation that are conveyed during rehearsal
○ Students arrive on graduation day at 8:30am, 1.5 hours before the ceremony starts
○ The ceremony is 2 hours
○ Staying in order is key - otherwise the student might not receive the right diploma
○ No storage at the ceremony location
○ Families arrive at a different time and through a different entrance
○ Families don't always have the option to decide where they sit.
○ MBA graduation is combined with EMBA and potentially a couple other programs
 Contextual Interviews
- Graduated May 2019
- MBA/MSBA candidate
- Undergrad from ND
“I wish there were more diversity group
activities, like the undergrads have”
“The venue was too big and my parents
had to move around to take pictures”
- Graduated May 2019
- MSA candidate
“I have a big family from Texas and the
college sent detailed information about
family only in March. All the hotels were
booked by then and my family had to
get an AirBnB quite far”
- Graduating May 2021
- MBA/MSBA candidate
“My parents will be flying from India and
I hope that they don’t face any trouble
due to language differences”
“I will be doing most of the research to
ensure that my parents are comfortable”
Ethnographic Research - Social Poll

METHODOLOGY:

● Posted on Instagram on Monday evening

● Shared with recently graduated (within 3 years)
students with a professional Master’s degree
(MBA/MSBA/M.Acc/MSA/MFA etc)
● Received 21 responses within 24 hours
● Not limited to Notre Dame Students. Other
universities included : University of San Francisco,
San Jose State University, Georgetown University,
Washington University in St. Louis, Vanderbilt
University
● However ~71% respondents were from ND
Social Poll - Quantitative Findings

Most common words/phrases by frequency were:

Social Poll - Qualitative Findings

● Most people’s experience was marred due to logistics issue:

Family arriving late, not receiving enough information on time,
not knowing enough about the ceremony process in time etc.

● Some people mentioned the venue/location. However most

added that if they received the information early and clearly
enough, it shouldn’t be an issue.
Ethnographic Research - Web Usability Testing
METHODOLOGY:

● 1 current student asked to navigate through the

website to find the information they may need for
Graduation ceremony
● I recorded the student’s screen navigation and left
the room
● This particular student had described his pain
point as: Concerned that his family might not find
the right resources & He would have to do the
research himself
● I also asked the student what he was Thinking,
Feeling, Doing, throughout the process

● (Video attached in the assignment deliverables)

Ethnographic Research - Web Usability Testing

User quotes after the experience:

“The website navigation is hard, especially if I was to send the links

to my parents

I can’t figure out where Purcell Pavilion is and how to get there?

The map isn’t helpful AT ALL

Does this improve as we get closer to the ceremony?”

Redefined Statement

“HOW CAN WE MAKE THE ND GRADUATION EXPERIENCE BETTER

LOGISTICALLY?”
- Focus on providing clear, understandable instructions well in advance
- Aligning scalable resources to provide better preparation for the actual graduation
day
- Using space design and digital enablement of current resources to optimize the
experience
User Persona Frustrated Frankie
● Current grad student at ND, 25-30 y/o
● Lives off campus & looking for a full-time, high paying
job, Out of state student
● Busy schedule, so she didn’t get the time to explore the
campus too much
● Relies on college emails to discover information
● Very tech savvy, uses InsideND ALL THE TIME
● Didn’t bring her car to ND, walks to class in the
summer, carpools with roommate in the winters
● Parents live out of state as well, planning a visit for
graduation
● She’ll book the hotel through AirBnb or hotels.com.
● Right now can’t find reliable information to convey to
her parents and reduce their anxiety about graduation
User Persona Frustrated Frankie
● Prefers direct, detailed information
● Also has some specific questions about how many
guest and guest rules etc that are not usually conveyed
via email
● Is anxious because she might not have time in
March/April to go through everything and coordinate
that late
Ideation

● ND Commencement app/web-app
● Interactive application to address specific student needs without having to scale
up staff effort
● Some parts can be moderated/controlled by students to provide peer-sourced
information in an aggregated fashion
Prototype (visual)

Home Page:
● Features an interactive QnA approach instead
of asking students to search and hunt
● Provides intuitive, limited options to choose
the common items
● Can be easily scaled as information
requirement and demographics within these 4
subsets (undergrads, grads, doctorates, and
other programs) are similar
Prototype (visual)

Inner Page 1:
● Intuitive options reduce navigation time
● Drop down menu is comprehensive and can
be scaled easily
Prototype (visual)

Program Specific Page:

● Codifies rules/traditions by program
● Can be scaled because some pages can easily
be duplicated with minimal effort
● Provides clearer instructions for programs
with very specific requirements (Divinity and
Theology or Esteem program)
● Links are clearly navigable visually instead of
being embedded in text.
Prototype (visual)

FAQ Forum:
● A Reddit style Question forum which auto-
populates with questions through a form.
● The form can be sent out early in
January/February. The questions can be
upvoted/downvoted by students and faculty
can prioritize information on that basis
● Over time, questions may also be grouped
into categories - international students/guests
with disability/guests with support animals
etc.
Prototype (visual)

Interactive Map:
● Instead of generic interactive map, this map
features the bookmarked locations such as
graduation venue, specific entry and exit gates
for students/guests/ stage location within the
venue (to identify spots for photographs)
● The map can easily be scaled using the
existing ND interactive map
Proposed Testing for the Prototype

● This prototype can be tested for grad students for one of the smaller scale events
to check for effectiveness:
○ Can be tested for immersion trip/interterm
○ Can also be beta-tested on a smaller program (MBA, one-year MBA) to establish success metrics
and benchmarking
○ User data from beta tests can be easily incorporated when scaling the app to a larger student base
Thank You
Nishtha Kaushik
Innovation & Design
8 AM Session