Michael Clark

ACORN: Transforming Student Services at U of T

Project Overview

I led the research and design of the University of Toronto’s student services platform to serve 100,000+ students through human-centred design.

Role: Senior UX Designer → UX Manager
Scale: Academic, financial and everyday life services provided to 100,000+ students
Core Problem: Legacy systems causing widespread frustration and inefficiency
Solution: ACORN, a user-friendly AngularJS web/mobile-responsive student services platform
Impact: Increased usability scores by 122%, halved enrolment times, achieved WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility
Team: Design (8), Development (12), Business Analysis (6), QAT (3), Comms (2), PM (2)
Timeline: 2013–2015: initial design and development; 2016–present: ongoing enhancements
Budget: $15,000,000 over 5yrs the NGSIS (Next Generation Student Information Services) program of 90+ services, of which ACORN is the marquee product

The ACORN dashboard in an early iteration showing an overview of a student’s activities for the day, as well as current academic and financial statuses with prompts to take next steps.

Challenge & Context

The University of Toronto faced critical issues with its outdated student services infrastructure, causing systemic issues:

Business Problems

  • Fragmented, outdated student services
  • High support ticket volume
  • Inefficient administrative processes
  • Poor mobile compatibility
  • Non-compliant with AODA accessibility laws

User Pain Points

  • Complicated course enrolment preparation
  • Stress during peak enrolment periods
  • Manual course/program code entry
  • Cryptic error messages, jargon terms
  • No guidance for avoiding/resolving issues

The university should be more responsive to students’ needs… They should listen more to students.

—1st year Faculty of Arts & Science student

Solution

I defined and enacted a three-part philosophy to create ACORN (Accessible Campus Online Resource Network):

  1. Nurture a culture of ongoing community engagement and robust research
  2. Develop shared understandings of actionable insights across functional teams
  3. Hold to the design principles that ACORN will be timely, personalized, and helpful

ACORN’s Key Features

  • Personalized dashboard of current and upcoming academic, financial and student life priority info
  • Responsive interface for desktop and mobile use
  • Guided task flows to improve course discovery, planning, enrolment and management
  • Natural language search with typeahead and assistive tech enhancements
  • WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance validated through end-to-end 3rd party testing

Timeline & Key Milestones

  • 2013: Project kickoff and foundational research
  • 2014–2015: MVP development and desktop launch
  • 2016: Mobile-responsive platform launch
  • 2017: WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance
  • 2018–2020: Major feature rollouts including GPA Calculator, Financial Planning, and Student Well-Being tools

Process & Methods

I directed a comprehensive approach combining inclusive research, iterative design, and continuous validation:

Leadership Impact

  • Scaled design team from 3 to 8 members while establishing core practices for design and research
  • Led transition from waterfall to dual-track agile, reducing discovery and feature delivery time
  • Managed relationships across 14 university divisions and 3 campuses to align priorities and resources
  • Developed comprehensive design system that increased UX, Dev, QAT and Comms teams’ velocity

Research Approach

  • Established 1000+ member Student Advisory Team for continuous feedback, test data
  • Combined quantitative analytics with qualitative user research to identify priorities, pain points
  • Used journey mapping and service blueprints to align complex cross-functional processes

Human-Centred Design

  • Established weekly design critiques and collaboration rituals across 30+ team members
  • Built Figma-based design system that reduced design-to-development handoff time, supported communications and QAT staff re: conventions
  • Implemented continuous user feedback loop through co-design sessions and community outreach
Results from an early student card sort exercise that helped determine ACORN’s content structure
ACORN’s bounce rate dropped by 82% compared to its predecessor. More students accessed the system
successfully and found the information they needed.
Google Analytics data showing device resolutions accessing ACORN, used to inform supported devices and usability considerations
Posters that were distributed to promote joining our Student Advisory Team ahead of ACORN’s launch
Some of the personas we used during ACORN’s initial design efforts, e.g. Jennifer the Ambitious who was a straight-A student in high school but struggled when she transitioned to university
Jennifer’s user journey map, illustrating her first-year struggles and subsequent recovery with the help of supportive services and her good choices about her future
A business process map as my team worked through how students, Accessibility Services, ACORN, CIS, faculty, and Test & Exam Services would all collectively provide the service of accessible exams for students.
An opportunity canvas. I would often use canvases of different sorts ahead of working sessions with PMs and other functional leads (e.g. each fills it out individually and then compares notes collectively) to clarify our assumptions going into a major phase of work and also to identify and begin to address problems (from conceptual to functional).
A user story map for the initial and subsequent releases of a new GPA calculator product, initially only public but then eventually also integrated with an identified and authenticated student’s information.
Along with all manner of low and medium fidelity sketches and wireframes, I led the creation of a Figma-based design system for the appearance, functionality, and content of our new products and services. This living resource helped speed up and clarify the workflows of designers, developers, QA testers, and communications staff.
Design iterations based on prototype test findings ensured that our time would be invested in building the right solutions and building them well (e.g. ensuring compatibility and usability with the smallest smartphone our analytics data showed was popular with our student users).
I used tools like rudimentary whiteboard sketches and paper prototypes, as well as Figma and Axure RP-based functional prototypes to evaluate core task flows and overall usability (e.g. a responsible dashboard layout seen on a paper prototype of a tablet).
I designed ACORN to maintain feature parity across its desktop and mobile contexts while optimizing each design for its primary anticipated use cases (e.g. quick location and time-sensitive checks on mobile, elaborate planning on larger screens)
A snapshot of a whiteboard after an extensive sketching session where I had been thinking about where and how to maximize awareness of the new ‘enrolment cart’ feature.

Impact & Learnings

ACORN created lasting change in how U of T delivers student services, setting new standards for educational platforms in accessibility and user experience.

Key Result Metrics

  • 50% faster enrolment process and 82% lower bounce rate
  • System usability score increased from 37 to 82/100
  • First fully mobile-responsive and WCAG 2.1 AA compliant platform at U of T

User Impact

  • “This is a huge step forward from the current system” —Student feedback
  • Transformed student experience from “built for registrars” to “built for students”
  • Created sustainable framework for ongoing student engagement and platform evolution

Challenges

  1. Community frustrations with outmoded UX inconsistent with popular online services
  2. Baseline test results and support ticket #s showing high failure rates in core processes
  3. Student expressions of negative experiences during their time at U of T (e.g. moments of frustration, confusion, fear, depression, etc.)
  4. Complex project work involving contributions from numerous disciplines, but with different perspectives and vernaculars
  5. ACORN is anticipated to evolve over a 10yr+ lifespan, but in currently unknown ways – how to ensure consistency and cohesion?

Solutions

  1. Transparency and engagement with interest holders re: meeting contemporary must-haves
  2. Design approach emphasizing usability KPIs (e.g. prototype testing to vet improvements)
  3. Research informing personas, journey maps; used to drive priorities, decision-making (e.g. improving identified pain points)
  4. Collaborative practices to enhance shared understandings, ideation, problem-solving
  5. Design for the present and future by creating a design system guided by sensible heuristics re: using existing and creating new elements

Strategic Insights

  • Cross-functional collaboration and continuous user input were critical success factors for this complex service design
  • Infrastructure stability and transparent communication proved essential for maintaining user trust
  • Design system development enabled consistent evolution across a large-scale platform
  • Next time:
    • Would stagger infrastructure and front-end overhauls to reduce technical risk
    • Would implement enhanced load testing for critical systems (e.g., IdP login surges)
    • Would communicate before/after metrics to interest holders to demonstrate positive impacts

ACORN simplifies students’ lives so they don’t miss steps. Our goal is for students to be engaged with the University experience, not figuring out the administration.

—Lucy Fromowitz
Assistant Vice-President, Student Life