WEB
CRM for
Experts
ABOUT THE COMPANY | UPGRAD
upGrad is an online higher education platform providing industry-relevant programs delivered in collaboration with world-class faculty and industry.
MY ROLE
Product Designer focused on delivering User Research insights, Concept Development, UX flows and UI designs
DURATION
4 months (2021)
TEAM
Product Designer
Product Manager
Engineering Manager
Overview
I tried to understand the current system where stakeholders were working. There were Four different interactions happening between the learners and experts (Mentor, Student Group Coach and Career Coach). Experts help the learners in their career journey by conducting one on one or group sessions to guide them. Mentors make sure learner's study goals are fulfilled & they are able to finish their course seamlessly.
There was no tracking available in the system on which person has given what feedback. Industry mentors were hardly aware about the progress and the status of the learners. There was no one way to schedule or cancel meetings and giving feedbacks. A lot of work was done manually. There was a need for stakeholders to be on the same page so that work work can be streamlined from various stakeholders perspectives.
Problem Statement
How can we develop a platform that facilitates effective communication between experts and learners, enables experts to reschedule meetings within a specified timeframe, and provides a centralized platform for all stakeholders to access and manage information?
CRM for Experts
An all in one platform for our experts (Mentors, Career coaches, Student Group Coaches (SGC)) and operations to track and manage all the information about events and learners.
The Process
Project Goal
Who will be the users?
External Users - Experts
Student Group Coach
Student group coaches guide and support students in their learning journey through interactive group sessions
Career Coach
Career coach supports the students by guiding them through their career journey. The sessions are held 1:1
Mentor
Mentors support students throughout the course . The sessions are focused on overall development of the student.
Apart from Experts, there will be internal users as well like Admins from the upGrad team. In addition to the expert actions, they should be able to manage resources, event details, availability of experts, reminders and manage mappings.
Understanding the users
14
Interviews (Online)
-
These interviews allowed us to gain a comprehensive understanding of experts' current experiences and how they navigated the inconsistencies in the system.
-
Prior to our platform, they were using multiple tools such as Excel, Mentornity, and Docs for various tasks.
Tap to zoom in the pain points
“ I want to be able to reschedule or cancel a meeting at my convenience without experiencing delays. Currently, I have to go through a third person to make these changes, resulting in unnecessary back-and-forth and dependency ”
“I can’t track the progress of the student over time. I want to view the previous feedback to monitor their growth effectively”
Insights - What do the experts need?
The research data was collected and analyzed by both myself and the project manager. In our meetings, we documented findings, identified platform phases and determined next steps. Regular meetings with the project managers, internal team, and engineering manager played a vital role in iterating over ideas.
Set self availability
The mentors should be able to set their availabilities so that they are not overbooked in multiple cohorts
Schedule Calls
Experts should be able to schedule or reschedule the calls if it doesn’t work out due to some reason.
Learner details
All the details should be in one place so that the expert doesn’t juggle between multiple resources
Calendar and feedback
Events should be enhanced for clear information while enabling the expert to give feedback effortlessly
Communications
Updates via notifications will be helpful to boost user engagement and complete required tasks
Feedback to learners
Expert should be able to view the feedback of learners to track the progress
Information Architecture
The system's architecture provides a clear framework for organizing projects into phases, making it easy to manage. Each section within the architecture has its own set of functions and branches, carefully designed to offer key functionalities with minimal user effort. The goal is to streamline the user experience by enabling efficient access to the required features, all within a few taps.
Design System
As this was my first experience as a lead designer for a core pod project, my design manager and I recognized the need to develop a design system for core products. This design system would serve as a comprehensive library of core components, distinct from upGrad's existing design system which primarily caters to learners.
The goal is to ensure design consistency across all core products, offering components specifically tailored to the use cases of internal teams.
Guiding principles of our approach
Consistency
It is inspired from the parent library to create consistent experiences throughout the core platforms.
Universal
Common components have been created from the parent library for scalable product development.
Usability
We aim to create simple, delightful experiences that enable our teams to serve customers with equal passion.
A glimpse of the system
Heading with breadcrumbs
Web Application Shell
Two-line list
Notification
Sidebar Grid layout
Solution
All the details in one platform where features are intuitive and designed to save time and work in an efficient manner with no hassle of referring to different sheets, platforms or admins.
They can edit their availability by going on specific date if they want.
Availability Management
Expert can add timings to their calendar according to their availability for the week.
Personalized Calendar
Experts have the ability to access both a calendar view and a detailed list view of all meetings (past, present, and upcoming ones), along with student and meeting details to get the context.
Experts can view their booked events in this calendar along with the agenda of meeting, people involved and relavant details.
Feedback to learners
With contextual reminders, experts will be able to fill the feedback for each student after every meeting.
They can also refer the previous feedback to track the progress of the learners.
Rescheduling at own convenience
The request will go to an admin who will approve the request of rescheduling the meeting
Notifications are categorised according to the type of event.
Communication Management
Reminders of tasks to keep the users engaged and to complete required tasks
What did the users think?
I along with the PM conducted user testing with the stakeholders including admins (internal upgrad employees), mentors, career coaches. All of it was conducted online and lasted approximately 30 minutes.
Resume View Option
During 1:1 sessions, having a resume view option in the meeting details page would be beneficial as it enables a quick assessment of the candidate's background.
User Friendly
A clean interface and user-friendly operations make onboarding easier for new people
Refresh Meeting Link
Adding a refresh button within the calendar management tab would allow for the activation of the meeting link in case it has not been activated on time.
Convenient Meeting Rescheduling
I like the convenience of not having to email or call individuals to reschedule my meetings.
How did it perform?
Adopted in 20 cohorts benefiting over 600+ experts
28% increase in feedback completion rate form
30% effort saved for feedback reminders
Learnings
Handling a project of this magnitude as the only designer was a new experience for me:
1. Collaborating with diverse teams such as product managers, mentors, business, data, and operations, I learned to align various perspectives on a single product, ensuring all team goals were fulfilled
2 .Maintaining regular meetings and conducting feedback sessions early in the process proved to be crucial.
3. Involving many stakeholders led to changing project scope. Setting boundaries and communicating adjustments allowed timeline shifts and team alignment.
