Product Design | User Research
Revamped International Internship System at IIT Delhi: Enhanced Efficiency and Tracking
Overview
IP PORTAL connects IIT Delhi students with international internships and research projects, helping both students and international professors streamline the hiring process.
Team & My Role
1 Manager | 2 Developer | 2 Product Designer
My role: Product Designer
Key Deliverable
Onboarding flow
Admin Dashboard
Optimization and Shortlisting process flow
Communication screens
Context
IIT Delhi consists of students opting for international internships with IIT D's international partners and collaborators.
However, IIT Delhi's student applications for international internships increased drastically and partner organizations grew 2.5x.
.
08x
2.5x
Number of organizations
Number of applications
2022 - 2023
Stakeholders in the Current System
International Universities
Professors
Students
IIT Delhi
IP Staff
T.A
IP Team
Dean IP
Support team
INFORMED
STAKEHOLDERS
INVOLDED
STAKEHOLDERS
CORE
STAKEHOLDERS
Current Processes
#1 Individual's Process
“There is no involvement from the International Team side, as student apply for their internship and the approximate conversion rate is 5 to 10%”
Student do cold e-mails
Get response from a few prof
Shortlisting processes
Selected for internship
Challenges:
Difficulty in getting a response
Lack of trust
#2 IIT Ds Process
IP Team connects to universities abroad.
Opportunities are shared on IP website
Student apply through google form
List shared with the professors
Selection process is done by professor
Final result to be declared by professor
Challenges:
Difficulty in tracking
Issues with the verification of information
No follow-ups for the opportunities
A great load of applications
Proposal
We hoped to address this question
How might we make it faster for students and professors to complete recruitment and patterns and overcome the choke and breakpoints?
Solution Overview
An optimized internship application system.
We worked on redefining the existing system that makes the entire process efficient, centralized, and, transparent. After narrowing down the scope of the problem we worked on guiding by focusing on three subareas:
Integrate System: The current system is scattered and disjointed; the new system is collaborative
Enhanced agency in the process : Worked on the hiring functionalities to centralize the workflow and provide more agency to professors and the IP team
Streamlining the communication
How did we do this?
Initial explorations & research
Objective: For 3 weeks, our goal was to understand various needs and challenges and research and explore various ways to effectively create a centralized system and fast-track the process.
Methodology: To gain a comprehensive understanding, we conducted interviews with 15 individuals - the IP Team, students, and teaching aids of international professors. Our primary aim was to discover their methods for tracking student progress and growth.
Individualistic Approach
Applications were handled individually without institutional support, relying only on a few leads.
Also, some students put false information to pass through the screening process.
Dated system interaction
The current system follows the processes of old ways of functioning and interaction - which makes it difficult to manage across different stakeholders
Trust Factor
The opportunities that are provided as well as the changed through which they are approached need to be trusted
Applicants' information needs to be authentic as well.
Disjointed Experiences
The system was fragmented, lacking cohesion to provide meaningful insights into application status.
It is difficult to keep track of the volume of applications
Task flow analysis: Mapping out the workflows was also challenging as the application process involves many different touch‑points and flows with different users.
PROCESS MAPPING
Present Process
IP team approaching different universities
IP Team
Student
List down possible universities
Contact those universities
Ask for list of intern openings
High
Low
Easy approach.
Different way of sharing or float internship
Easy way for applying internship
A way to reduce this step by direct sending the list
Easy communication solution
Constant monitor not only at end
List the approved opportunities
Get approved from Dean
Ask the admin to upload on website
IP team floats google forms
Collect the list student want to apply
Verification of CGPA
Google form list sent to the abroad professor
Along with the list detail also send
Details of the selection process sent to the IP team
IP team conveys the message to student
Student get into the interview process
Selected list sent to IP team for final check
IP Team updating the list of people selected and inform the dean
IP Team
Dean
Admin
Student
IP Team
IP Team
Professor
Professor
IP Team
Student
Professor
IP Team
Dean
STEP 1
Sharing the internship opportunities on our website
STEP 2
Student applying them through google form floated by IP Team
STEP 3
List is being sent to university professor
STEP 4
PROCESS
INVOLVED
STAKEHOLDERS
TASK LIST
Emotion and
Situation State
Opportunities.
Pain Point
Approach university
Keeping Track
Sharing opportunity.
Aware student
Uploading on website
Floating Google forms
Sending List
Update of status
Conduct Selection Process
Dean monitor
Conveying updates
Keep track
Shortlisting student
Time Taking
Collect student details
Multiple Forms
CGPA verification
Selection Process by the professor
STEP 5
Final selected list to the IP team and Dean for approval
Final
Deeper Insights
After studying the entire ecosystem and looking into different user journeys of involved stakeholders, the identified problem is ambiguity in the entire process and long isolated functioning of different stakeholders for the application process which lacks trust and agency on the institute part.
In terms of the tools
They want the flexibility to be able to filter data by student, CGPA, stream
Defining opportunity areas
COLLABORATION
OPTIMIZATION
TRANSPARENCY
Ideations
Information Architecture
Separate information architectures are created for each of the three user flows for, dashboards, onboarding and application management and communication process
First round of explorations and feedback
We tested the designs and received feedback on the onboarding process for students, grouping of data in the forms + editing feature, and the need of application status in the application.
Creating the Components
We took up the strategy of creating atoms, molecules and templates for our design elements. We went through multiple iterations for them and created a component system for the UI design.
Our Solution
#1 Centralized system - A new centralized system creates user flow which optimizes the entire flow of the process.
We created a portal for stakeholders — students, professors and, IP team members.
The existing system was scattered and lacked support from the institute. It lacks supervision and transparency.
#2 Bringing international professors on board
Initially, logging into the portal required creating an account and then setting up an internship, which was too complex and could lead to professors dropping out. The second phase aimed to fix this by simplifying the initial step.
IP Team connects to international universities for opportunities.
#Concept 1
They were asked to create an account on the portal
Create an internship for IIT D student
Verification of the internship by IP team
Initiate process of recruitment or reject and close the account
#Concept 2
Fill form with the details of internship
Verification of information by IP team
Creating account for the professor and sharing the credential with them
Initiate the process of recruitment
New method - hassle-free experience of floating the internship by filling just a form on the website.
#3 Managing and verifying data shared with other institutes to ensure best practices and honesty.
The students conveyed the lack of transparency and use of wrong information by some students. We decided to address this by being the central body of the system which manages and authenticates the data shared with other institutes.
.
We are also using initial Kerberos to extract information of the students from the university system.
#4 Students can apply to the floated application and track their applications.
.
#5 Opportunity management for the professors and students - to reduce the time spent on the hiring process.
Internship progress tracking.
Communicating with the students and managing with the multiple modes of communication.
Schedule Management
Shortlisting candidates and tracking the progress on every stage
Retrospective
Catering to user motivation
Methods for users to interact existed, but they weren't frictionless. Seeing the problems from the lenses of users led to the birth of the interaction and scheduling tabs and systems.
Indulging in a structured iterative process helps refine the design with constant feedback.
We are embracing flexibility and thinking holistically about the impact of our design on the institute's vision.
Wearing multiple hats
I tried various things in this project. It was my first independent project. From research planning + doing to ideating and creating a design system for the project.
The project helped me in dealing with ambiguity and create a structure for the design process.
Curated and designed with love, caffeine and berries.
Monika, 2024 🌼