Delivering world class digital student experience one step at a time
The higher education sector in Australia has grown at around 5% year-on-year since 2000 and now contributes $30 billion to the country’s GDP. One of the driving forces in this sector over the past two decades has been Navitas NVT (ASX), the Australian born, tertiary education provider.
Navitas provides ‘pathway’ programs for students to enter the established higher education system by fast-tracking their learning in smaller, more focused groups. These pathways are provided to both domestic and international students for higher education destinations here in Australia as well as the UK, USA and Canada.
As a true disrupter in this space, Navitas have an unrelenting passion for improving the student experience and a multi-disciplined approach to problem-solving that required us to join the team and help drive the ‘Digital Customer Experience Change Initiative’ set out by their CEO, David Buckingham.
Deep customer research and qualified user testing is absolutely key to finding the right problem.
Patrick McKibbin - Head of Customer Experience IT – Navitas
Engaged as their Digital Customer Experience (DCX) partner, our team set about understanding the complexities of the organisation and the subtle nuances of the student cohort through an initial, multi-college design research phase. This included data analysis, 1-on-1 interviews and an ethnography study that uncovered key student insights and touchpoints around which to ideate.
Problem statements were the kick-off point to drive a series of co-design workshops that included project teams, stakeholders and students helping to ideate broad solutions for sentiment testing.
Post sentiment testing, a number of “Quick win” streams were implemented immediately while others moved into broader engagements that included feasibility assessments, deeper qualitative research, prototyping/customer testing, product pilots and full-scale implementations.
The richness of qualitative data to garner deep human insights should not be underestimated.
Customer immersions
User research can take many forms including ethnographic studies, 1-on-1 interviews and contextual interviews.
Deep Customer insights
Mapping research data was key to finding rich customer insights that wouldn’t be found through other more traditional research methods.
Refreshed Problem Statements
Arriving at clear problem statements was essential for directing the complex issues that are often pulled in multiple directions within large organisations.
A structured creative approach ensures successful outcomes drawn from multidisciplinary teams. See what tools and processes we have employed with the Navitas team.
Cracking Complex Conundrums
We use varied and adaptable ideation tools to help decipher problems.
Co-design Workshops
Co-design workshops were an essential way to include students, stakeholders and subject matter experts to drive viable, feasible and desirable creative outcomes.
Double-Diamond at Work
Convergent thinking ensures that clear solutions and outcomes move forward into the prototyping phases of the program.
It’s not simply the choice of technology that’s important but moreover it’s how, when and by whom it’s implemented that really determines its success.
Engaged Stakeholder Team
The DCX program was initiated from within the IT department at Navitas. However, success was driven through an engaged and empowered team of 70+ stakeholders across the entire organisation.
Moving to Prototype
The subsequent phases of this engagement included a number of technical prototypes, many of which have now gone on to become full-fledged pilots programs and scaled across the broader business.
Result Listing
70+ pax. stakeholder engagement
A multi-billion dollar conglomerate requires careful stakeholder management to balance scope and competing agendas
19 problem statements isolated
The student research uncovered 19 distinct areas of improvement of the DCX journey
5 live prototypes
Taken through to early prototype and/or feasibility assessment stage
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