(Growth UX) Gradescope - New Onboarding Experience Increases Growth & Retention

ℹ️ All research files, workflow diagrams, prototype, and final mockups are removed to protect the company’s confidential and proprietary information.

What is Gradescope?

The Gradescope product allows instructors and Teaching Assistants (TAs) to grade all of their tests, quizzes, and assignments more efficiently. Additionally, Instructors can also review their course analytics to track student performance.

Definitions:

• Basic Tier – A free Gradescope account, owned by an individual, without the features included with the Institutional Trial and Institutional License
• Institutional Trial – A Gradescope account, owned by an individual, that includes all of the features of the Institutional License for a limited time
• Institutional License – A bulk license, owned by an institution, that provides accounts for all of its members with premium features
  

Problem

After Gradescope was acquired by Turnitin, the product transitioned from a direct-to-instructor model to an institutional license model. The former model had a basic tier that gave no incentive for institutions to upgrade Gradescope to a paid institutional license. Synthesis of video interviews confirmed that instructors were confused about the why and how for getting their institution to commit to a paid license with Turnitin because there were no indicators or time limits on free access, leading to untapped sales opportunities for the company.

Collaboration

I led conversations with product managers to define onboarding improvements and product direction based on key activation metrics. I later aligned with the marketing team, along with experts from Gainsight, to ensure the solutions were feasible within existing constraints and iterated based on feedback from product.

Challenges

The initial product goal from the Gradescope team to have instructors of Gradescope act as sales advocates themselves led to significant pushback from other members of the UX team, including the UX vice president. This misunderstanding was due to Turnitin's unfamiliarity with how Gradescope worked in the past before acquisition as the rest of Turnitin's products are sold at the institutional level rather than directly to the instructor as it was in the past. This misunderstanding had me consider leaving the project over to marketing per the advice of another UX colleague. However, I still thought there would be a way to have UX be a part of this project, so I thought it was necessary to schedule a group meeting between Gradescope's product managers and the vice president of UX for the goal of establishing alignment between Gradescope and the UX team. What resulted from that conversation was clarification of the role of the instructor as the self-advocate who partners with the sales team to get institutions to purchase a license rather than the individual instructor becoming a sales advocate.

Results

New experience led to the increased usage and paid institutional licenses Turnitin demanded to meet key business objectives.

Lessons

• Led my first UX workshop to brainstorm ideas with stakeholders for a more medium-sized project
• Gained exposure to Gainsight PX, a product for generating usage reports and creating in-app engagements
• Utilized the power of custom HTML and CSS to better align Figma designs with the final product

My Role

I was the lead UX Designer who used the following methods to successfully receive full buy-in from stakeholders within an agile environment:

• Analysis of User Research
  
• Workflow Diagrams
• Wireframes
  
• Final Mockups
• Implementation in Gainsight PX using HTML + CSS

Stakeholders

• Product Managers
• Developers
  

Tools

• Figma
• Google Docs
• Gainsight PX

Timeline - Phases

• Foundational Deliverables: January 2023 – February 2023

• Development & Release: May 2023 – July 2023
  

1

Challenges

• Overcoming Inflexibility – It was determined at the original scope of the onboarding flow, that would assume customers would walk through the entire experience of Gradescope in one sitting, would not align with what customers expect from the product during our UX workshop
• Unfamiliar Platform – I had to quickly learn Gainsight PX, a customer analytics platform I had never used, but was another opportunity to use my HTML/CSS knowledge to make the engagements in Gradescope look exactly like the Figma designs

2

Discovery

• Competitive Research – compiled examples of effective new/returning onboarding flows from other applications in Miro that showcased established guidance and tutorial experiences that were lacking in the current onboarding experience
• Led Identification of Knowledge Gaps – watched 5+ hours of recorded user interviews and identified five critical customer blockers:
  
  • No Guidance – lack of effective onboarding flows which would allow new users to learn new features at their own pace
  • No Incentive – lack of incentive for basic (freemium users) to upgrade to an institutional license because the basic tier was as useful as the paid tier
  • No Deals – lack of help to direct satisfied customers to become advocates who get their institution to purchase an institutional license
  • No Flexibility – users need tutorials broken down into small chunks to encourage more growth by giving users the power of choice. The power of choice refers to the user being able to decide which features they would like more guidance on
  • Do Not Disturb – Gradescope users love the ability to grade assignments quickly without anything getting in the way of that process. Our users want to save time, not add more time
• UX Workshop – I conducted a UX workshop with product managers to influence design direction towards addressing customer pain points, and brainstorm new ways to incorporate mini tutorials and banners into the Gradescope UX to engage users and increase growth

3

Ideation

Based on the decisions made during the UX workshop, early wireframes and final mockups included the following to address both customer pain points and business goals:

• Don't Lose Access Warning – When the user visits the Analytics page, a new in-app notification appears warning that they will lose access to this key data once their institutional trial expires. The notification also has a button to bring the user to more information about the Gradescope Advocate Program and how to connect with the Sales team to get their institution to upgrade to an institutional license
  
• Flexible Tutorials – When a tutorial is launched, the user has the option to go through each step, or close out in the middle should they decide the tutorial is not necessary for their needs
  
• Institutional Trial Banners – The institutional trial banners were designed to be noticeable to get users' attention with a button to learn more about the Gradescope Advocate Program
  

4

Impact

• New onboarding experience successfully contributed to a measurable increase in trial-to-paid conversions
• Successfully raised more awareness of the Gradescope Advocate Program with a clearer demo tier account

The Don't Lose Access Warning drove a 62% click-through rate on the Analytics page, with 28 of 45 users clicking to learn more about the Gradescope Advocate Program within the first month

Flexible tutorial design achieved a 90% completion rate, with 901 of 1,010 users clicking through all three steps of the onboarding carousel

Copyright © Nathan Nasby