SmartStart
SmartStart is an innovative AI-powered tool designed to facilitate seamless onboarding for new employees and provide continuous support throughout their career.
My Role:
UI Design
UX Design
Platforms:
IOS, Mobile
Desktop
Year:
2023
Background
I participated in a design hackathon where I was grouped with a team of 5 people from across capabilities such as strategy, product, engineering, and experience. We were given 5 different problem statements to chose from and we collectively decided to solve for the task, "Accelerate our SPEED capabilities through generative AI."
With the release of ChatGPT, the world is buzzing about the potential impact generative AI can have across a number of different areas. We were asked to focus on building a solution that incorporated generative AI into how we work to help us deliver our work more effectively.
"Accelerate our SPEED capabilities through generative AI"
Brainstorm
Brainstorming Session
S
After choosing a prompt we discussed different ideas that we may focus on to solve for our problem statement. We came up with ideas such as "Simplify process for staffing to find billable work for people", "Better search engine", "Help retrieve past projects to make sales pitches faster." After many ideas were juggled back and forth we landed on the solution of creating an AI powered onboarding and learning buddy.
MVP
Idea name SmartStart
Idea: AI powered onboarding buddy
Keep track of onboarding requirements
Tag expertise or questions to people
Keep track of billable work for promotion
Navigation guide for getting to pages and resources
AI for onboarding new employees
Recommended trainings based on feedback
Simplify process for staffing to find billable work
Listing for service desk/IT support resources
Better search engine - describe what you are looking for
Self paced onboarding process (instead of in person/live learning)
Recommend people to network with based on interests etc.
Describe what you are looking for to use for sales/client pitches
Self paced onboarding
Recommend trainings
Research
The companies current Start program for new hires is great, but it can go further. Additionally, the new hire checklist and learning paths cover the first 90 days after hire, but according to Gallup, “New employees typically take around 12 months to reach their full performance potential within a role.” Through the use of Generative AI, the current onboarding process can be augmented and extended to improve employee experience and decrease the time it takes new hires to be fully productive.
From this research we gathered that many newly hired employees are overwhelmed by the onboarding process and finding necessary resources due to information and required tasks being spread out across multiple unfamiliar systems and locations within those systems.
The Process Behind the Solution
Ideation Session
To begin we did a brainstorming session where we categorized the user goals, needs, motivations, and frustrations. We then created a storyboard with 4 different phases. Finally, we put stars on the areas we wanted to focus on moving forward.
John Alex
Put yourself in the shoes of John Alex, a recent college graduate starting his first full-time job. On his first day, he's overwhelmed with the number of tools and systems he must learn. He struggles to find resources and trainings and is overall feeling stressed navigating his new role.
User Persona
Needs
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Access to resources and trainings
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Clear goals and objectives
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Easy and simple onboarding experience
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A better understanding of professional development and growth plans
Demographics
Age: 22 years old
Education: Bachelors degree in Business
Hometown: Florida, US
Family: Single
Occupation: Early Careers/College Grad
Motivations
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Achieving success in the role
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Growing professionally
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Becoming a valued contributor to the team and the company
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Learning new skills and processes
Frustrations
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Navigating the new work environment and culture
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Feeling overwhelmed with so many tools introduced on the first day
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Unclear goals, objectives, and expectations
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Not having access to feedback and advice
User Journey Map
Prior to commencing wireframe creation, we generated a user journey map outlining John's engagement with the existing onboarding procedure. This enabled us to identify areas that required improvement in order to enhance user experience in our upcoming product.
Proposed Solution
Based on the research gathered our solution is to create an AI generated bot that will be used to streamline the onboarding process for new employees.
Benefits
Our product, SmartStart will help new hires, like John, feel more confident and supported. Our AI-based approach ensures that the training and support are personalized to the individual needs of each new hire, making the learning process more efficient and effective and helping people thrive. We can create a future where new hires like John feel more confident, capable, and prepared to succeed in their new jobs.
Value Proposition
Our solution will deliver personalized onboarding programs, job resources, and training recommendations to new hires and employees throughout their careers
Success Metrics
We will measure success by an increase of 50% in on time completion of required trainings, compliance requirements, and competency assessments, and a 20% increase in number of new employees who are satisfied or highly satisfied with the onboarding process.
Product Demo
SmartStart offers a personalized and engaging onboarding experience that addresses the unmet needs of new hires by providing trainings, resources, checklists, and many more features based on their role.
Accesssibile
As a new employee seeking a smooth onboarding process, John logs into his employee learning platform to explore the new feature, SmartStart. Within moments, he discovers the AI generator and launches it.
SmartStart can be accessed at anytime from the bottom right corner of your screen
SmartStart greets John with a customized welcome message that offers two options: to either browse through the most commonly used buttons for early-career professionals or type a personalized question.
Personalized
John is able to search for a checklist to follow Day 1 of starting his job
Engaging
SmartStart engages John with its customized answers based on his role. This keeps John invested in the onboarding process, and features such as, save prompts for future use, encourages ongoing engagement. This ensures new hires feel supported, valued, and motivated to succeed.
SmartStart enables John to store the prompts it generates for future use
John can quickly locate links
Continuous Experience
SmartStart allows users to quickly move from the AI generator into the learning portal. Through this we created a seamless interaction that is able to remember where you left off no matter what platform you are using.
John is able to quickly move back and forth from where he left off using the SmartStart generator
John receives a celebratory message after completing a task
As John interacts with the system and completes tasks, he is rewarded with celebratory messages that mark his progress and encourage him to continue using the tool. These positive reinforcement messages serve as an incentive for John to stay engaged and motivated throughout the onboarding process.
Gamification
As John completes tasks the list will automatically check off the completed tasks giving him a sense of accomplishment and further motivating him to continue using the tool.
Convenient
Once items are completed they will be crossed off and John's progress will be saved
Product Design
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SmartStart is a unique experience that doesn’t just cover the onboarding process but will stay with an employee for their entire time at the company.
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It will provide assistance and recommendations far beyond administrative tasks and questions.
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It is not meant to replace any of the current solutions used by the company, but rather integrate seamlessly with all of these solutions and resources.
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SmartStart would make tedious resource search and sometimes frustrating process a thing of the past by doing the searching for the employee based on natural language inputs.