Overview
The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) is a nonprofit whose mission is to train finance and accounting professionals to receive the prestigious Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation, which distinguishes those who have achieved advanced proficiency in finance, accounting, operations, strategy, and business management. To earn this designation, candidates must prepare for and pass rigorous exams. AICPA saw the value in creating a modern, more flexible and responsive learning experience for CGMA candidates.
Challenge
Historically, candidates prepared for the exam utilizing tutors, trainers and test centers – a lengthy and time consuming process. We proposed a new, integrated digital experience that would satisfy two unique key stakeholders – Finance & accounting professionals working toward the CMGA designation and CFO’s, finance VPs and other C-level leaders looking to increase their staff’s proficiency.
We started by researching and defining the role of finance and accounting in modern organizations. This included interviews, working sessions user personas and journey maps and group workshops. This helped define the audience and learner as well as the main competencies that would be used throughout the learning experience. We also realized that no two organizations have the same expectations of finance or accounting due to companies prioritizing them differently based on unique needs. This resulted in an experience that needed to be customized rather than a single linear path through the learning journey.
Project Artifacts
For most projects, there are always several artifacts and deliverables associated with all phases. This could include wireframes, whiteboard sketches, prototypes, user journeys and personas, flows, style guides and more. Above are just a few artifacts related to this project.
Solution
All of our research and experience informed the need to build a custom learning experience that was highly configurable and would support both employer priorities as well as individual learning journeys. The solution needed to be flexible enough to let more seasoned learners skip around or quickly test out of a module while enabling more junior learners to adopt a more linear experience that will enable them to experience more fundamental content.
The final solution encompassed three components:
Personalized learning
A learn-by-doing pedagogy with immediate practice and feedback componentry to help maximize time
A customized platform to help guide the learner through an intuitive, efficient and very learner-centric experience
My Role
On AICPA, my role was to ensure that both the UX and UI teams were aligned, iterating and working toward delivering an intuitive and beautiful digital experience. I worked closely with the team to help brainstorm, concept, explore and push ideas and boundaries as far as possible so that we may arrive at a world-class solution. I also collaborated with the marketing and video team leads to help augment brand standards and create a set of marketing and product/app videos for launch.
