THE CHALLENGE
Onboarding a new customer is technically complex and takes a long time. The team felt that they are letting customers down as librarians would often find themselves confused and frustrated with the process.
MY APPROACH
The first step was research. Speaking to users who have recently been through the OpenAthens onboarding was the best way to understand where to pain points really were. Next, I needed to share the research insight with my team and facilitate ideation session to come up with prioritized ideas for improvement. Finally, I put together the Onboarding guide which helped set user expectations ahead of the onboarding. The Onboarding guide was an easy win with an immediate positive impact on the users’ experience.
USER RESEARCH
To get a better understanding of the wider context in which OpenAthens customers go through the product onboarding I visited academic and public libraries in the UK and in the US. I had conversations with university IT teams, system librarians and the OpenAthens implementation partners to gain a better understaning of the issues with the onboarding process.
SHARE RESEARCH FINDINGS
I used a storyboard to share the research findings with my team. This helped build empathy and inspired action during the project.
USER JOURNEY MAP
The research helped understand and map the onboarding journey and identify opportunities for improvement.
FACILITATE A DESIGN SPRINT
The OpenAthens onboarding is a lengthy complicated process and I wanted the team to come up with as many ideas for improvement as possible. Some ideas were outright crazy but they helped us shape the vision for the service. Others, like the onboarding guide, were quick wins I could take forward right away.
THE OUTCOMES
The onboarding guide is a step by step explainer of what does the OpenAthens onboarding include. The guide helped set users expectations and also made it clear what resources we expect them to dedicate to setting up the product. The guide has helped us align processes between OpenAthens and our product implementation partners and is now a main point of reference as far as onboarding goes.
