Timeline
Team
Role
Methods
Client
9 weeks
Ariel Li
Shreya Lohakare
Jeffrey Delacruz
UX Design Lead
Service Designer
Service Safari
Co-design Workshop
Eco-System Loop
Transition Journey
Pratt Office of
Education Abroad
Where OEA struggles today
Why Are Student Withdraws Happening?
Ecosystem Map
This ecosystem map illustrates how student retention depends not on a single touchpoint, but on the strength and alignment of multiple interconnected loops across academic, administrative, social, and external systems.
Service BluePrint
The service blueprint maps the end-to-end study abroad journey, highlighting key touchpoints, backstage processes, and support systems that shape the student experience.
It reveals critical moments where misalignment, unclear communication, or external pressures can disrupt the flow and increase withdrawal risk, guiding where targeted interventions are most needed.
(Front Stage) Students
Receive information across many channels (emails, in person promotions,Terra Dotta, social media, PDFs, faculty messages).
Have difficulty knowing where the “official” or most up-to-date information lives.
Frequently miss deadlines due to email overload or unclear reminders.
(Backstage)
Managing email campaigns and marketing outputs, including flyers, QR codes, posters, and social posts to raise awareness.
Ensuring compliance and readiness: verifying programs meet institutional, financial, and risk requirements.
Uploading information to the website and Terra Dotta, though quality varies across programs.
Mapping out their ideal journey for the student abroad program
We conducted two workshops with seven students across three journey stages: returning, prospective, and withdrawn. Through discussion, mapping, and ideation activities, students revealed emotional pain points, communication gaps, and missing support structures.
Their insights directly informed our service blueprint and shaped our interventions, such as the Planner Passport, Support Suitcase, and improved faculty communication patterns.
Final Output : The Journal
The co-design workshops allowed us to move from research synthesis to system-level understanding by evaluating the current journey map and surfacing lived student experiences that are often invisible in administrative processes.
Students across different stages of the study-abroad journey consistently expressed that withdrawals were not driven by lack of interest, but by accumulating uncertainty caused by scattered communication, , and emotional overwhelm at critical transition points.
Co-design workshop Execution
We conducted 2 workshops with 7 students across three journey stages: Returning, Prospective, and Withdrawn.
Before facilitating the co-design workshop, we developed a User Journey map based on information provided by the Office of Education Abroad (OEA). We broke the experience into four distinct phases, which later became the structural backbone of the
User Journey Map
Service Blueprint
Co-Design Workshop
A co-design workshop is a collaborative session where the people who actually use the service—in this case, students—work with us to map their experiences, identify breakdowns, and co-create future solutions.
The Research Revealed 4 Core Drivers
We Solve These Challenges with
4 Intervention Under 2 Strategies
Interventions
Based on our research insights, co-design workshops, and service blueprint analysis, we developed a set of targeted interventions to address the key breakdowns contributing to student hesitation and withdrawal. These interventions focus on strengthening communication, improving information clarity, and providing emotional support at critical moments in the study abroad journey. Together, they work as an integrated system to make the experience more transparent, achievable, and supportive for students, faculty, and OEA.
How does this intervention activate the Ecosystem
Intervention 1 — Improve visual narrative and story telling through out the promotion phases
How does this intervention activate the Ecosystem
Intervention 2 — Connect Return Student and Prospective Student
Intervention 3:
Align Faculty Input With OEA Campus-Wide Promotion
Student
Faculty
By standardizing the faculty admissions backend with a checklist and annual submission process, faculty can reliably submit core program information, allowing OEA to streamline and scale promotion across all Pratt channels.
Standardizing Faculty Communication
Faculty often struggle to reach the right students, and OEA ends up compensating with last-minute promotion.
This creates inconsistent visibility and increases student withdrawals due to lack of clarity or late awareness.
Faculty Submission Checklist
Department Identification
OEA-Led Promotion Pipeline
Annual Refresh Cycle
Solution Components
Designed for Faculty, maintainable by OEA.
How does this intervention activate the Ecosystem
Intervention 3 —Align Faculty Input With OEA Campus-Wide Promotion
Intervention 4:
Centralize Resources Into a Single, Student-Friendly Timeline
Student
Faculty
This intervention via Miro brings everything together; deadlines, requirements, resources, contacts, and pre-departure milestones into a single timeline that students can reliably follow.
1
Timeline
Shows key phases, deadlines, and commitments across the full academic year
2
Each phase contains supporting materials info sessions, guides, financial prep, safety briefings, and pre-departure steps.
Presentations
3
A dedicated area for links, forms, department contacts, and OEA resources.
Contact/Tools
Designed for students, maintainable by OEA.
How does this intervention activate the Ecosystem
Intervention 4 — Centralize Resources Into a Single, Student-Friendly Timeline
Next Step in Future Scenario
Conclusion And Reflection
Leading this project reinforced for me that effective service design is as much about emotional reassurance as it is about structural clarity. By working closely with students, faculty, and OEA, I learned how small gaps in communication and visibility can significantly impact confidence and decision-making. This project challenged me to design beyond individual touch points and think systemically, balancing institutional constraints with human needs, to create interventions that are not only functional, but supportive, resilient, and meaningful within a complex educational ecosystem.