Link to Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oEalbYF_cXlHMs63vVafJUaSUY6SAej1uhp51M8N6tg/edit?usp=sharing

Customer/User Job-to-be-Done or Problem

As an Institutional Researcher or Marketer, I want to access and use skills data without needing either in-depth knowledge of the subject material, or the aid of my academic team.

As a Program Owner or Faculty Member, I want to confidently make the correct selections so that I can get actionable insights into how my program aligns to market demand.  

Value to Customers & Users

• Immediate Valuable Information

  • Selecting Program Benchmarks is currently a hurdle all customers must get past to receive any useful information.

  • Delivering useful, credible information without asking the user to make any changes or selections  greatly expands the usability of Skillabi data across multiple groups.

  • Having familiar, reliable data to set the stage for new information can help users feel more comfortable with the information presented.

• Easier to Understand and Make Data Selections

  • Selecting Program Benchmarks also intimidates users with how opaque the information presented can be. 

  • Adding a friendlier, easier-to-understand experience will improve user experience and the insights they receive.

• Clearly Highlight Valuable Data

  • Removing distractions from the main value driver on the page will ensure a focused, consistent experience for users, especially those new to the tool.

Value to Lightcast

• Increase use and trust in the Market Alignment data provided by Skillabi

  • This will support retention efforts as customers will be able to easily roll-out information to different groups at the institution and decrease resistance from users like faculty. 

• Improve Skillabi demo quality

  • Improved matches and ease of use during demos will better highlight the potential value and lower some barriers to getting buy-in across an institution, increasing sales opportunities.

Target User Role/Client/Client Category

• Faculty Members or Program Owners who are intimidated by, or find it difficult to select Program benchmarks

• Marketers or Institutional Researchers who want to get actionable insights without substantive faculty involvement. 

Delivery Mechanism

Users will see the impact of this change on the Market Alignment page(s) of Skillabi. Changes will take effect upon release and the goal will be to improve the general workflow and information available to the user on that page.

Success Criteria & Metrics

How will you know you’ve completed the initiative? How will you know if you’ve successfully addressed this problem? What usage goals do you have for these new features? How will you measure them?

• The Market Alignment experience will be more approachable and applicable to new users.

  • Measure by Adoption of our core features via Pendo

    • Baseline: 37.7% - Target: 50%

• Market Alignment becomes stickier with users.

  • Measured by feature cohort retention in Pendo

    • Baseline: ~20% 6 month retention - Target: 35% 6 month retention

• Reduce number of and frequency of trainings requested of Account Managers

  • Measured by interviewing account managers who have onboarded accounts before and after this change to gauge the experience difference.

Aspects that are out of scope (of this phase)

N/A

Solution Description

The goal here is to provide immediate information to the user without requiring analysis from them to even get started. From there, users will have the option to dive deeper into skill based insights.

1. The default option when loading the Market Alignment page will be a “benchmark” containing a pre-generated list of Lightcast Occupations pertaining to the CIP code of the program in question. If there is no assigned CIP code, it will instead default to the normal state of the top skill based matches. 

   1. This will deliver, to users, valuable information in the taught vs sought charts right away. The information will be pertinent and can be reasonably trusted by any user regardless of their familiarity with the program material and outcomes. 

   2. This will allow users to react immediately and use skills data rather than focusing on what benchmarks they might choose and if the matches are “correct”.

2. For those users with an interest in diving deeper, the various Benchmark Options will still be available, but will be moved to a dedicated page instead of a modal. 

   1. The current modal is getting quite complex as we add options and doesn’t allow much space to guide users through the options.

      1. Much of the information and jargon will be unfamiliar to many users, especially among faculty. 

      2. Having more room and explanation to aid users in picking benchmarks for their program will change the narrative from trying to pick the “right” options, to empowering users to explore a variety of insights.

3. Remove the “Courses That Could Add Marketable Skills” section. This feature is rarely used and distracts from the overall point of the Market Alignment page. Keeping the page focused helps users understand the main value and reducing the content  eliminates the risk of overwhelming users.

Early UX (wireframes or mockups)

Still working on this and will hopefully enlist the help of our designer(s) during Q4-2022.

Non-Functional Attributes & Usage Projections

This also represents an opportunity to improve the overall accessibility of a complicated page according to the WCAG 2.0 standards.

Dependencies

Requires CIP to GOT and/or CIP to SOC crosswalks. CIP to SOC is available via API already and CIP to LOT for v6 is planned to be released on Nov. 16th 2022.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

No

High-Level Rollout Strategies

• Initial rollout will be to all customers with an in-tool Pendo Guide to accompany it. This will help guide users through the new workflow.

• Individual stories in this epic will be placed behind a feature flag to prevent partial implementation causing confusion.

• The release to production will come after an announcement in the “headlines” of our Product Update to inform sales, support, marketing, and other interested parties.

Risks

• A poor implementation may result in more complexity not less.

• There will be a slight learning curve for our existing customers that will impact their workflows and require them to relearn some parts of the tool.

• Using CIP code matching more visibly may give the impression of less innovation in the tool.

Open Questions

• What is the best design for the experience we are looking to provide?

  • Will be exploring this and hopefully with some input from design.

Complete with Engineering Teams

Estimated Costs

Direct Financial Costs

Are there direct costs that this feature entails? Dataset acquisition, server purchasing, software licenses, etc.?

Team Effort

Each team involved should give a general t-shirt size estimate of their work involved. As the epic proceeds, they can add a link to the Jira epic/issue associated with their portion of this work.