New Product Design
In higher education accreditation, the stakes are massive.
If an institution fails to meet evolving standards, they lose federal funding and the ability to grant degrees. The process is a logistical mess. Years of data collection, dozens of collaborators, and thousands of pages of evidence that must be synthesized into a single, flawless report.
Before this product existed, institutions were getting by with spreadsheets, emails, and legacy tools that couldn't handle the complexity. The mental load on administrators was intense. And the stakes included the jobs of every faculty and staff member on campus.
Discovery
I approached this project by immersing myself in the accreditation community. I joined online discussions and regional support groups. I became an expert on regional accreditation by examining their templates and talking to their reviewers - the real audience for each accreditation report.
I spent weeks interviewing University Administrators to map the backstage headaches of their workflow. I uncovered that the primary pain point wasn't just writing the report—it was the version control and collaboration of a multi-year project involving stakeholders who weren't technical experts.
User Journey
Jobs to be Done
Solution
I led the design of Watermark’s flagship accreditation tool from the ground up. I designed it to act as a Single Source of Truth, stripping away the anxiety of data fragmentation and cross-functional collaborators.
Navigation & Project Management
Reducing Decision Fatigue: By researching in-market solutions and internal failures, I removed the "guesswork" from the UI. We provided a guided experience that moved users from a blank page to a finished submission without the typical "analysis paralysis" of such a massive project.
Writing & Collaborating
Designing for Accountability: I built a collaboration framework that allowed for granular oversight. Administrators could invite consultants and reviewers into the system with clear permissions, replacing the high-risk "email attachment" culture with a secure, transparent audit trail.
Evidence Library
Standardizing the Intricate: I translated the rigid requirements of over 50 different accreditor templates into a flexible, modular interface. This allowed users to focus on the content of their evidence rather than the formatting constraints of the regulator.
Impact
Since launch, dozens of institutions have successfully maintained their accreditation using this system. We have successfully scaled the tool to support over 50 regional accreditors and countless custom configurations.
Most importantly, we moved the process from a point of vulnerability to a point of confidence. As one Executive Director noted, the system allowed them to consult, review, and finalize their entire cycle "perfectly" within a single, secure environment.
“We used the Self-Study tool for our last SACSCOC accreditation cycle. We invited people to consult on it, and reviewed it all in the system. It worked perfectly. ”