Context
I worked with my team to design a chatbot answering FAQs for prospective students who want to apply for UW Comm Lead graduate programs. The chatbot is launched on the UW Comm Lead Website. The project also won the Design Award at Comm Lead Screen Summit 2022.
The User
Our target users are prospective students of Comm Lead graduate programs. Our deliverables help them:
Get answers to a wide range of FAQs 24/7.
Grow interest to join Comm Lead programs.
Problem Statement
The information that prospective students need while applying for graduate school is spread out across multiple Comm Lead and UW websites, making it difficult to locate the answer to a specific question and causing trouble for their application
Design Question
How might we design a chatbot experience that allows prospective students to get FAQs answered 24/7 and have access to the resources and help they need?
My Role
Product Designer
My Team
2 Product Designers
2 UX Researchers
1 Product Manager
Tools
Figma, Tidio
Competitive Analysis
We first compared 18 available chatbot options in the market. Then we screened 5 chatbot products and compared their prices and features, and finally decided to use the product Tidio.
Why Tidio?
Affordable price (we have a budget limit of $5000 annually)
Support buttons & text input
Customizable chatbot
Easy to install (Wordpress compatible)
Straightforward interfaces
Efficient customer support
Secondary Research
We conducted secondary research to understand the user’s context and needs.
Sources:
Comm Lead website Google Analytics data.
Youcanbook.me appointment information and FAQs from faculty Heather.
Prospective Comm Lead research and survey conducted by UW instructor Misty Weaver.
Key Findings:
Pages related to Admission and Degree Requirements are most viewed by users.
32% of users are international students.
Most FAQs are related to Admission and Degree Requirements. Among Admission questions, international students are concerned about questions related to STEM and visa eligibility.
Online Survey
We ran an online survey to further understand user needs and their experience using a chatbot.
Key Findings:
60% of users prefer selecting questions from a menu than typing in questions directly.
Information that users frequently have trouble finding on the website include: Opportunities After Graduation, Student Experiences and Faculty & Staff, etc.
Users want more distinct personality for the chatbot.
Persona
Based on research, I created 2 personas, one stands for the needs of domestic prospective students and the other stands for the needs of international prospective students.
Basic Structure of the Chatbot
User Flow
Combining all research findings, I mapped out the complete user flow of the chatbot.
Usability Test
After creating the design demo in Tidio, I worked with researchers to run usability tests.
Background & Participants:
4 domestic and 6 international current Comm Lead students.
All participants have used chatbots before.
Participants were given an instruction sheet for the unmoderated test and submitted an online survey in the end.
Key Recommendations:
Smoother navigation (less scrolling up, follow-up questions, options to return to menu, etc.)
Add an event calendar section
Visual design be more in line with UW branding
Design Solution
Find Answers to FAQs Easily
Students can get access to a variety of FAQs easily, including Admissions, Degrees, Fees & Financial, Career Opportunities, Events, etc.
Get Directed to Useful Resources
Some questions are more complex and require more information. In those cases, students will be directed to a different UW websites for reference.
Get Contact Info for Future Need
Students will be provided a variety of contact info of the program to get further assistance if needed.
Style Guide
Impact
The chatbot is launched on the UW Comm Lead Website and will save 80% of email workload for program advisors during application season.
The project won the Design Award at Comm Lead Screen Summit 2022, the annual student project showcase at UW Comm Lead graduate programs.
Reflection
All participants from the usability testing are current students. Current students were all prospective students once, so their insights are definitely valuable. But if we had more time, I hope we also recruit some real prospective students. In that way, we could learn different perspectives and collect more useful data.
Based on user preference, we first created a chatbot that supports people to select questions from a menu. This is the optimal decision we made considering factors such as time limit, budget, and engineering effort. But for the future iteration, we could also support type-in queries to make the experience more personalized.
