IRCC
User Experience Research
Date Dec 12, 2019
Strategy Design Thinking
Role UX Research
To gain a better understanding of the experiences of international students and improve the process of Immigration more user-friendly to the Immigrants.
Overview
To understand the problems and hindrances faced throughout the process of obtaining an Open Work Permit by an international student or postgraduate and how can we improve the experience.
Our Purpose
Recruit international students / OWP holders and interview them about their experiences about the whole process on obtaining the OWP. Based on their feedback report the following:
What are the experiences of international students when they are obtaining an Open Work Permit?
How can we support international students to be set up for success in Canada?
What factors inuence their success / experience as OWP holders?
How can we limit the unnecessary barriers they face during the process?
Our Timeline to complete the Project
Research Methods:
We started with individual interviews to gather participants’ focused information on personal experiences that gathering a group of participants with shared experiences will create synergy. We hope an interactive environment will encourage participants to express themselves and find common experiences.
We believe that giving participants the choice to keep interviews anonymous and confidential will attract more students and will engender honest responses. Due to the sensitive nature of international student immigration status, many would not feel comfortable sharing negative experiences if they feel it might impact their standing in Canada.
User Persona
If we need to seek clarification on our research data, we will use online surveys and forums to gather additional information. Online survey will only be used as a secondary tool. The absolute anonymity, the difficulty gauging whether questions were understood, and the difficulty attracting participants, make in person interviews the best choice.
Based on the User Interview we analyzed it and produced a user persona and a scenario which helped us to stand in the shoes of a user. This also made us to travel through the journey and helped us find the key insights in Journey Mapping.
Empathy Map
Journey Map
Discovery
Qualitative Methods
In Most of the Cases Fear is the ultimate factor for the users which prevents them from taking any kind of decision as getting a Visa is a very important thing. As they compare this with a Do or Die kind of situation people prefer Human support or Guidance for this activity.
People prefer in person dealings E.g. Flagpole – This is one of the common practices among the immigrants as this helps them receive the Visa document in a single day. Also, because the usual time period ranges from 1-3 months if they must do it online.
Quantitative Findings
In Quantitative research, we have interviewed 7-8 people to learn more about their experience and similarities between each other’s emotions.
Solution
Flagpole is a legal thing, and which makes getting a Work-Permit possible to receive in a single day. As this method is more efficient and time saving, we suggest bringing such method into a system and must be handled in government centers in every city. This way people can get their things done in a more efficient way and this could save time in both ends.
Conclusion
Overall the study helped us to identify the key problems and some possible solutions. Though the given solution might help the users, researching the possible outcomes the solution might cause would prevent us from Future Disasters.
