New Product Design
Problem
Higher Education Institutions must remain accredited in order to grant degrees and receive federal funding. The accreditation process involves data collection, oversight, evolving standards, and dozens of collaborators working together for years.
The end result is a massive report that gets submitted to an accreditor for review. The importance of this report can’t be overstated as student, faculty, and staff jobs can be on the line. Institutions need a tool to manage all this information and assemble their report.
Goal
Design Watermark’s flagship accreditation product from scratch by:
Researching in-market competitor solutions
Uncovering and solving usability issues of internal heritage products
Developing research-based artifacts for ongoing use
Collaborating with Product and Engineering to provide a timely, lovable solution
Research
Since this was a 0 to 1 product, I did a ton of research to inform the following artifacts and final designs. My research efforts included:
University Administrator Interviews
Competitor Analysis
Internal Product Analysis + Heuristics
Examining Regional Accreditation Templates
Artifacts
Task Analysis
User Journey (abbreviated)
Jobs to be Done
Iterations
Report Writing Workspace
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Supporting Evidence Library
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Final Screens
Report Home
Export Settings
Create Report Website
Customize Report Template
Outcome
Dozens of institutions have maintained their accreditation status using our product since the launch of this module.
We have scaled it to work for over 50 accreditor templates, as well as any custom templates a client creates on their own.
“We used the Self-Study tool for our last SACSCOC accreditation cycle. We invited people to consult on it, and reviewed it all in the system. It worked perfectly. ”