Eliminating student loans through digital storytelling
Dartmouth’s Presidential Commission on Financial Aid (PCFA) & DALI Lab
My Role
I worked on this project for its last 10 weeks in DALI. I was tasked with redesigning an exisiting prototype of the website, looking at enhancing the overall UX, UI, and interaction design, while integrating feedback from the rest of our team and our partners.
Skills
Interaction design
Rapid prototyping
Usability testing
Team
3 Designers
2 Developers
1 Animator
1 PM
Tools
Figma
Webflow
Time
Mar-June 2022
Context
Background
There’s increased need for financial aid at Dartmouth
Dartmouth experienced an increase in student need from the pandemic. Eager to match financial aid packages of similar schools, Dartmouth had a deficit of:
$148 million
To be need-blind for all undergraduates
$57 million
To eliminate student loans from financial aid packages
Problem
But alumni aren’t donating as much...
Previous research on the project found that many alumni believe that donations go solely to the college’s administration rather than students in need, causing them to not want to donate.
To solve this problem, my team collaborated with high-profile Dartmouth alumni working alongside the college president on the Presidential Commission on Financial Aid (PCFA) to develop a digital platform addressing this issue. We were working on the project for its last term in DALI so the pressure was to deliver and ship a product our clients love!
Opportunity
HMW
Educate alumni on how they can make a difference through donating?
PCFA: Shape the Future
Solution
Highlighting the positive impacts of increased financial aid, our website tells the story of how a student’s life can be changed with more aid.
Design Process
research/Test
Why aren’t alumni donating as much?
In order to create a story with high emotional impact, we used user research and personas from previous work on the project to understand the perspectives of our audience. This research divided our users into 2 main groups:
Younger and uninterested
Went to college recently
Unhappy with college admin
“I’m not donating because I don’t want to give to the administration.”
Older and uninformed
Went to college a while ago
Happy with college admin
“I didn’t realize financial aid made such a big impact until working for Dartmouth.”
What has been done so far? Looking into the previous product:
The previous team of designers had already created a draft of the website. We started on the project by doing an emotional analysis of their story, looking for pain points and soliciting feedback from our clients:
Define
Identifying points of improvement with clients
Our clients wanted the product to feel more engaging and uplifting, rather than depressing. They were also unhappy with story inconsistencies, like the use of different stock image models to show Tim, an uneventful climax, and lack of potential reach among alumni. So, the other designers and I narrowed in on these 3 key areas of opportunity:
Areas of opportunity
1. More context on financial aid for older alumni
Our partners and previous terms’ research suggest that older alumni might not understand current financial barriers for college.
2. Highlight the role of alumni in financial aid packages
Our young and uninterested persona group assumes that their donations won’t impact students. We need to show them how they can impact students like them.
3. Mention more Dartmouth experiences to expand reach
The current story focuses a lot on one club, which may be isolating to alumni who weren’t active in it.
Ideate
HMW
Increase the impact of Tim's story?
After identifying our opportunities, the other designers and I started iterating on the story. These were the ideas we came up with that got approved by our clients to improve the storyline:
Design Decision
Jusification
Expand on Tim’s family
Go into more detail about who Tim’s family is and their struggle to pay for college
Provides our older alumni with more information on why Tim’s family can’t afford college, helping them build empathy for his family.
Raise the stakes
Make what Tim has to sacrifice bigger and more meaningful than a club.
By making Tim give up something he’s always dreamed of, we show how alumni donations can make a difference in student lives.
Create a happier ending
End the story on a positive note by showing what Tim would do if he had more aid
This would be shown through highlighting difference experiences he could now take part in, touching on more Dartmouth experiences alumni may relate to.
Prototype
Expanding on Tim’s family
First, to help alumni better empathize with Tim, we gave more context to his family and their struggles to pay for college:
Original
New
As we made these changes, we got feedback from our clients weekly. These are the changes they loved the most:
Humanizing Tim’s parents
We gave Tim’s parents names and jobs to show who they are and how they work to support his college education.
Showing their home
To better contextualize where Tim is from, we used a photo of a hypothetical neighborhood.
Text accessibility
We improved text accessibility with a white paper-textured background under black text.
Raising the stakes
Then, to make the story more impactful, we created a storyline where Tim has to give up more:
Original
New
Our clients liked this new direction and helped us with come up with the right wording to maximize the impact of the climax. This version makes our users feel the importance of proper financial aid by:
Tim’s sacrifice
Tim now has to give up on his dreams of being a doctor instead of being in the DOC.
Color to signify emotion
We made this section darker to signify the sadness Tim feels for giving up his life’s passion.
Continuity across screens
We used a real Dartmouth student instead of stock photos to improve story continuity.
Focusing on the good
Finally, we created a happier ending to motivate alumni to donate.
Original
New
Our clients loved this positive depiction of Dartmouth. This new version helps users connect more with Tim:
What Tim can do with more aid
We pivoted to show Tim's improved life with more financial aid, highlighting the positive impact of increased donations for all students.
Highlighting more of Dartmouth
To connect with alumni, we expanded the 'Dartmouth Experience' section to evoke fond memories and encourage them to give back.
TEST
Key performance indicators
We carried out 3 in person usability tests on a group of graduating Dartmouth students who fit our young and uninterested persona. Our metrics for success for testing were: customer satisfaction, authenticity, and ease of use/accessibility:
66
Net Promotor Score
100%
Thought Tim seemed authentic
66%
Thought navigation could be improved
Here’s what students had to say:
“I’ve definitely met students like Tim during my time at Dartmouth... This is really well done.”
”The story is really engaging, but I wonder if some users would get tired of scrolling, maybe other navigation options would be helpful.”
“I love the Dartmouth experiences section, it makes me happy to see Dartmouth like that.”
Adding a navigation system
Following feedback from testing, the other designers and I devised a navigation system. Unfortunately due to developer time constraints, this didn’t make it to the shipped product
Shipped product & impact
Roughly a month after our launch, PCFA announced that through they accomplished their goals to:
Become need-blind for all undergraduates
Eliminate student loans from financial aid packages
REFLECTIONS AND NEXT STEPS
Reflections
This project will always have a special place in my heart because of its impact and being my first client facing project! This project helped me not only grow as a designer, but also a valuable team member and collaborator. I learned how to:
Communicate with developers and stakeholders:
This was my first design project working with developers and stakeholders. I learned about what goes into bringing a project to life, how to bridge the gap between stakeholder expectations and developer capabilities, and gained confidence in presenting design decisions and justifications, making me a strong team player.
Learned how to work on a team with a tight deadline:
Working in the final 10 weeks of the project taught me the importance of balancing collaborative decision making with the ability to make independent decisions when necessary. With guidance from my mentor, I became more confident in making my own decisions and knowing when to go to others.
Improved my Figma skills... A LOT:
I went from 0-60 joining this project as a new designer in DALI lab, but by learning from my mentor and teammates I was able to master how to create components, use auto layout, mask groups, and many, many more (though basic looking back at it now) Figma skills!
Next steps for PCFA could include...
Usability testing on the website rather than the prototype looking specifically at interaction design/transitions between parts of the story
Implementing navigation to help users move through the website rather than just scrolling and to give them an idea of how the website is structured