Effective onboarding
HESI Compass is a review course designed to help nursing students prepare for the NCLEX. The course is facilitated by external program instructors, with support from Elsevier's Customer Success Managers who assist with course setup and implementation.
Client
Elsevier
Team
Nursing and Health Education
Category
Product
Year
2022
The problem
Instructors often encounter challenges navigating HESI Compass. They’re responsible for onboarding students and managing course setup, resulting in a significant amount of time spent learning the platform independently. With access granted only at the start of the semester, they face tight timelines to familiarize themselves with the system, which can impact their confidence and readiness to implement the course in their classrooms.
Business impact
Customer Success Managers reported a significant increase in support requests from instructors struggling with HESI Compass. This lead to repeated training sessions and redundant presentations, stretching CSM resources and impacting their ability to support other clients effectively.
Restrictions
I had a limited window of time to deliver. A solution was needed within 2 months, realistically leaving about six weeks for further research, generating opportunities, designing, and delivering. With the product team's engineering capacity fully allocated, building an in-product solution or internal feature wasn’t an option.
Goal
Help instructors feel confident and prepared when implementing HESI Compass into their classrooms.
Approach
01
Research
I conducted contextual interviews with instructors and customer success teams to identify pain points in the onboarding process. I also examined onboarding experiences from cross-industry platforms to identify effective strategies and best UX practices.
02
Design
I designed an in-app guide using the 3rd party tool Pendo to provide a step-by-step tour of key features, helping instructors easily navigate HESI Compass. The guide included interactive and concise instructions that helped build familiarity with the product. My research allowed me to identify six major touchpoints, which were highlighted in the tour to reduce information overload and enhance learnability.
.png)
03
Iteration and feedback
I facilitated monthly cross-functional team meetings to gather feedback and opportunities for refinement. Customer success teams tracked key success metrics such as question redundancy and implementation efficiency, ensuring we could continuously improve the onboarding experience.
Solution
The implementation of an interactive in-app guide, along with removing access restrictions before the semester, empowered instructors to familiarize themselves with the course. This not only boosted instructor confidence but also significantly reduced administrative time for both instructors and Customer Success Managers.
