Inclusive Design Research
A research study utilizing our Employee Resource Group (ERG) members that are student facing to understand how we as a university are being equitable and inequitable to our diverse student groups.
Why?
Realized there was a lack of awareness around student inequities, culture, and uniqueness.
Wanted to better represent our students in meetings and in UX team designs.
It is a university initiative to increase equitable access and retainment:
Students of color enrollment (FY21 27% , FY25 40%)
4 year undergraduate completion for students of color (FY21 36% , FY25 45%)
The Format:
Partnered with Stakeholder to co-lead the workshops.
Met individually with 4 ERG Groups for 2 hour workshop sessions.
Used Miro for majority of workshops- led to some tech discomfort and lack of participation/engagement. This gave us great insight that we need to offer
Each group had varied discussions surrounding equity, inequity, systemic barriers, and discussing designs for our new learner platform.
Stakeholder and Team Deliverable:
The audience of this slide deck was executive stakeholders, developers, product owners, and business analysts.
To ensure that everyone would be able to understand the data, I included a definition and acronym key which was language which supported the members from the groups we spoke to. We didn’t want anyone to feel unaware or go off of their own biases on certain terminology to promote inclusivity and equity.
Findings:
Students (and staff/faculty) need moments where they can be celebrated and heard for their unique differences, strengths, and contributions.
Students should be able to decide what information they share with staff/faculty members.
Inequity occurs with our students due to a lack of understanding their backgrounds and identities.
Many systemic barriers happen before WGU but still impact student’s learning experience and sense of belonging.
We have opportunities to impact change - both large and small to support our students, staff, and faculty.
Feedback:
I put together a survey to understand how participants enjoyed the workshop and what we could do better next time.
Overall, participants were excited to be heard and to be advocates on behalf of their students. Next time we do this type of workshop, I would try to extend it an additional hour to give participants more time to talk and talk more in the workshop on how we can implement some of the changes.