THE
GUIDED
PATH

The Guided Path is a multimodal experience crafted to students and parents through the financial aid application process.

PROJECT INFO

CLIENT

Student Financial Services,
Georgia State University

ROLE

Design, develop and debug

DURATION

2018 – 19

DESIGN TOOLS

Slider Revolution, Sketch

OVERVIEW

THE GUIDED PATH BEGAN AS WITH THE GOAL TO ENHANCE THE OUTCOMES OF STUDENTS SEEKING FINANCIAL AID

The vision for the new student financial services website at Georgia State focuses on clarity. The financial aid application process is burdened with industry jargon, multi-agency requirements, deadlines and dependent actions, which can easily create unnecessary consumer stress through information confusion.

IMPETUS / MOTIVATIONS

Georgia State’s Vice President of Student Financial Services (SFS) came to the university with a robust behavioral economics background. His goal to apply this practice to all of the SFS communications systems motivated to rethink the previous exploration model of information architecture. The new approach would integrate into the journey-based strategy SFS would use to architect their next iteration of student communications.

CHALLENGES

LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH SLIDER REVOLUTION

MANY TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS

BOILING DOWN COMPLEX LANGUAGE

APP-LIKE MOBILE EXPERIENCE

To achieve this required using a tool I had minimal experience with and pushing it beyond the manufacturer’s intended purpose to deliver a polished app-like experience that would make completing the necessary tasks to apply for financial aid easier. This was no easy task and I enjoyed every minute of the long nights and early morning I spent researching and development needed to make the first version work on phones and tablets. Working around the technical limitations on the tool worked to our benefit, forced us to refine our steps even further than what initially planned. The adage certainly proved right, design truly thrives under restrictions.

THE SOLUTION WAS TO CREATE AN IMMERSIVE, JOURNEY-BASED FLOW WITH CONCISE INSTRUCTIONS AND ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR STUDENTS AND PARENTS.

INITIAL CONCEPTS / WIREFRAMES

INSPIRED BY APP ON-BOARDING

VIDEOS ON EACH JOURNEY SLIDE

CAROUSEL-LIKE PROGRESS BAR

GESTURAL-ACTIVATED ELEMENTS

MOBILE

Guided Path - Learn - V2 — Journey slide concept

Guided Path - Summary - V2 — Summery slide concept

Guided Path - Help - V2 — Help overlay concept

DESKTOP

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.20.38 PM — Journey slide concept

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.20.13 PM — Summary slide concept

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.20.20 PM — Help slide concept

IDEATION / PRODUCTION

THE FIRST PROTOTYPE

REFINED THE INITIAL CONCEPT

TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS INSPIRED INNOVATION

ADDED GESTURAL NAVIGATION

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.00.40 PM — Title slide

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.00.53 PM — Journey slide

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.01.03 PM — Resource slide

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.01.12 PM — Journey slide with scrolling text

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 5.01.23 PM — Help overlay

As I learned how to use Slider Revolution, a very robust product designed to produce interactive banners, I quickly learned the limits of even this most capable tool. Technical limitations (like the inability to scroll vertically) were the catalyst that resulted in a cleaner design and made the content center focus. This also helped us further the goal of making the instructions as lean and efficient as possible. Slide status was now indicated via a radial progress bar. Instead of navigational arrow buttons, users could now swipe backward and forwards.