Toward a Human-Centered Digital Ecosystem: NJIT

• 04/08/24

We did a user experience study last year, in which we worked with more than 100 people on campus for one-hour interviews. And our methodology was about leading with empathy. It wasn't just "Fill out a survey so that I can generate a lot of quantitative analysis." It was, "Tell me about your experience. How was it to enroll in classes?" Or, "How was it to onboard as a new employee?" And what's great about this survey technique is that is you get raw human emotion out of it.

What we did with all that was amazing. We aggregated the data through one of our partners. We were able to put a map together that looked at the overall life cycle of students, employees, and others, to understand where the biggest pain points were. And now, when we're crafting strategy, we're trying to resolve those pain points first. So, I fix things from a human-centered approach — we're not just fixing technology.

I fix things from a human-centered approach — we're not just fixing technology.

That's where the buy-in really starts to come in, when I can tell people, "I know, because you told me, that this process is painful. I want to fix this, and here's how we can fix this, so we can give you a product at the end of the day that works for you."

Grush: So you're drawing heavily on the community as you design strategies?

Wozencroft: Yes, I'm inviting them to the table as a part of doing that, too, and I don't take on any initiative that I don't have some type of senior leadership backing on, as well as heavy community participation. We've changed the way we approach our committees. It's not just a group that you attend and we just talk at you for an hour and then you leave. It's actually a group that gets hands-on, doing things and showing us what they need: "Tell us about your issues. Give us an example and feedback right now. Let us iterate on this in real time."

The best example I could give of a product of this process — and we just unveiled it— is our new admissions dashboard, NJIT Insights, which will be available campus wide in the coming weeks as we push out our data literacy program. It was developed through this type of community participation.

We've also tried to make sure that we're launching multimodal conversations, so we have in-person conversations, meetings, lunches, e-mails, chat messages, announcements on our website. We're trying to get out everywhere.

We've also tried to make sure that we're launching multimodal conversations, so we have in-person conversations, meetings, lunches, e-mails, chat messages, announcements on our website. We're trying to get out everywhere.

Grush: You must spend a lot of your time out of the office. What's at the top of your to-do list every day?

Wozencroft: My team jokes that I have an office that I'm very rarely in, because I prefer to be out on campus talking with our students, with faculty, or with other leaders. I'm a big believer in going to their offices because I'm really trying to establish our team as a servant, offering, "How can I help?"

And that's top of my list every day… just figuring out how I can help NJIT move forward.