U.S. Army
ArmyIgnited
Overiew
In a rapidly changing world, the skills our soldiers need to protect our national security and the skills they need to succeed when they transition out of the military are constantly evolving. Given the size and caliber of our Army, investment in skills can help to build a pipeline of talent to fill larger workforce shortages. The Army enlisted Deloitte to develop ignited, an agency-wide program established by ACCESS, ArmyU and promoted by the Sergeant Major of the Army in 2019, to replace the existing outdated platform. To support this priority, Deloitte developed a flexible and mobile solution built around the needs and lives of soldiers, enabling them to obtain marketable skills without the need to go through a traditional four-year college—although that option is still available to them.
Role: UX Lead + ACD (Research, Product Design, Brand Design, Design System)
Research + Findings
The UX and research teams were able to conduct a full-scale discovery phase, before heading into any iterative design work for the product. Over 70 virtual and in-person user interviews (16 different user groups) led to extensive affinity mapping, that resulted in 5 major themes (navigation, transparency, time, support/training, usability/simplicity). With all of the data points we procured, we were able to create an initial information architecture and first round lo-fi wireframes, that ultimately led to hi-fidelity comps. We conducted over 105 usability tests, and our own heuristic evaluation before heading into a design quality assurance and deployment.
Key Findings
Positive Findings
The majority of our users were able to find and navigate to the student’s Courses page to view grades
The majority of our users were able to understand the information and structure of the Student Degree Plan page
Before usability testing, we understood our users do not like to click and only want to see relevant content. Our designs were successful in those areas.
All Finance users identified the same top three pieces of information needed to submit an invoice.
Ah-ha Moments
Finance users usually download the TA requests in an excel spreadsheet to complete their work. Once they finish editing the spreadsheet, they return to GoArmyEd to enter reduction costs and submit the invoice.
Areas for Improvement
The majority of our users did not immediately find the button to Confer a Degree
The majority of our users did not immediately find the button to accept an Education Path
The majority of our users did not see the “Next” button on the first step of the create account flow
Design
Below are designs from the product, the design system, some product board artifacts created, and also style tiles.
