Duration

2017–2020

Role

Chief Creative Officer, NextThought

Design Team

Shane Jensen, Samuel Chinchilla, Madison Kay

Introduction

The Student Financial Center and Award Letter project is one of many steps within a student's academic career that The University of Oklahoma asked us to help them create. To pull this solution together, we deeply integrated within the university's web of different departments and technology (fragile processes and fragmented legacy systems cobbled together over decades). It required us to coordinate efforts with representatives from Bursar Services, Financial Services, Information Technology, MoneyCoaches, and Web Communications—under the sponsorship of the Office of Administration and Finance. 

I coordinated efforts to collect insights from students and staff, define the problem space and requirements, discover opportunities, design and sell the solution to all stakeholders, and then support the development and delivery of the final product—on time and exceeding expectations!

Objectives

Educate students on important financial topics and develop and maintain a strong awareness of their financial status. Provide timely notifications and alerts to changes in their financial status—new awards, charges, refunds, missing documents, etc. Connect Students to helpful resources (financial success plan) and appropriate personnel (MoneyCoaches) throughout the university. Provide a centralized location to access services that were formerly fragmented across various university departments. Save countless person-hours and material costs ($30,000) every time award letters are mailed out. And do it better—digital award letters are living documents and are always up to date with the latest numbers.

Student Financial Center

The Student Financial Center brought together three campus offices: The Bursar, Financial Aid, and the new MoneyCoach program for one seamless student experience.

Award Letter

We broke down intimidating financial topics and university jargon into a simple, relaxed communication with helpful call-outs and supporting explainer videos.

RELATED PROJECT

Financial Success Plan

At the end of the award letter, students are encouraged to create a Financial Success Plan and meet with a MoneyCoach.

Direct Costs Details

A detailed line-by-line breakdown of a student's Direct Costs along with helpful links to more information.

Gift Aid Details

Detailed information, status, and maintenance requirements for student's Gift Aid.

More of the System

The system is full of lots of helpful details and resources to help you stay on top of your financial tasks throughout your academic career.

Notifications

Notifications to alert students of missing documents and other action items.

Results

The Student Financial Center and Award Letter helped the university solve several key problems. It promoted better student awareness and understanding of key financial information and available resources. Provided a central location for real-time updates on financial status and action items like missing documents. Prompted students to create a financial success plan and meet with MoneyCoaches. And it saved the university about $30,000 per year in postage and materials to mail physical award letters (which were often out of date by the time students received them).

Aaron Eskam
Product Design + Strategy
405 203 5720
aaron@eskam.com  ·  LinkedIn  ·  Resume

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