Innovation by design - Centre for Design Innovation

Understanding your customersRegistrar, Brendan McCormack, saw theInnovation by Design programme as “anopportunity for the registrar’s office tobecome a better service provider; takingthe view of the student as a customerand the staff as customers. While webelieved we were doing a good job,were we thinking as service providers?The Centre for Design Innovation isconveniently based on the Instituteof Technology Sligo campus; so thirtymembers of faculty and staff wereable to attend a rehearsal of the usercentreddesign workshop. The registrar’steam had the benefit of attending theworkshop twice. “It gave us tangibletools day one. Let’s start by givingthe students cameras to record theirfirst impressions.” And that’s exactlywhat they did. Cameras were given tostudents during registration to see thecollege through their eyes.“One of the big eye openers for mewas that in the past we’ve always triedto work to make things as efficient andeffective as possible for us, but thenwe realised through the photographicjournal and other ways of lookingclosely at our customer; they may wantother services we were not providing.For example, we discovered that weneed to spend more time explaininghow our systems work in order for thecustomer to get the best value fromour services,” recalls Dara McGoldrick,Schools’ Liaison Manager.The registrar’s team expanded theirresearch to include the website, signageand reception areas, as well as collectingprospectuses from other colleges.They consulted with to the community,industry and press to understand theexternal impression of the Institute.“The user-centred aspect forced us toget out of our nests here. We jumpedacross the counter and said ‘well, whoare you’ and ‘what are you thinking’ and‘what’s your view of the world’ and ‘whydid you come here?’”34|35 CASE STUDY FOUR: T h e I n s t i t u t e o f T e c h n o lo g y S l i g o