/ 1.1  Project Background

Masters' Union is a tech-first business school that scaled rapidly - but its internal operations couldn't keep pace. Before Dinero, two disconnected systems managed the entire admissions and fee cycle:

Dinero was built to unify this entire journey into one platform - grounded in a single core principle: you don't get to design the solution until you understand the problem.

NPF: captured applications and stored student records.

Pinelab: processed fee payments as an external gateway.

/ The Real 8-Step Manual Journey (Pre-Dinero)

Total overhead: 3–5 hours of non-value-added admin work daily. Every step above = a design opportunity Dinero solved.

/ 1.2 Research Goals

Understand

The end-to-end student journey across all 8 steps from NPF application to enrollment

Identify

The highest-severity pain points across students, admins, and faculty

Define

What a unified platform must do to replace the fragmented NPF + Excel + Pinelab stack

Validate

Design decisions through iterative usability testing before development

Measure

UX quality post-launch using the HEART framework

/ 1.3  Research Questions

Research planning began with 95+ open questions captured during stakeholder kickoffs and admin shadowing. Affinity-mapped into 8 thematic clusters, then distilled to 8 lead questions that drove primary research and testing.

Theme

Lead Research Question

Sub-Qs

Method

Admission Journey

What does the real 8-step admission journey look like and where does it break?

10

Contextual inquiry + stakeholder interviews

Trust & Payment Anxiety

Why do students distrust the Pinelab payment link sent via email?

14

User interviews (laddering)

Admin Efficiency

Where do admins lose the most time across NPF, Excel, and Pinelab?

22

Contextual observation + time-on-task logging

Role-Specific Needs

What information does each role (student, admin, faculty) need and when?

16

Role-based interviews + card sorting

Scholarship & Loan Flows

How do scholarship decisions and loan requests move through people and systems today?

12

Stakeholder interviews + workflow mapping

Cross-System Data Sync

How does student data move (or fail to move) between NPF, Excel, Pinelab, and CRM?

9

Systems audit + admin observation

Task Completion

Can a student complete application → payment → enrollment without admin help, in under 8 minutes?

6

Moderated usability testing (R1 & R2)

Trust Restoration

Does the embedded Pinelab flow reduce abandonment vs. the external email link?

5

A/B testing + post-task interview

/ 1.4  KPIs & Success Metrics

Admin manual effort

0.8 hr/day

−80%

Baseline: 3–5 hrs/day

Target: < 1 hr/day

Payment abandonment

6%

−19 pts

Baseline: ~25%

Target: < 10%

Tool Consolidation

3 →1

−2 platform

Baseline: NPF + Excel + PinelaB

Target: 1 unified

Task success rate

87%

+7 pts vs target

Baseline: 64% (R1)

Target: ≥ 80%

/ 1.6  Participants

/ 1.7  Usability Test Script

"Hi, thank you for joining us. I'm Dhiraj a designer on the Dinero team. We're testing the product today, not you. There are no wrong answers. Please think out loud tell us what you're reading, what you expect, what surprises you. You can stop at any time. Any questions before we begin?"

You've just received your offer letter. Please pay your first semester fee using Dinero.

Scenario 1

Student Payment Flow

Success

Payment completed within 5 minutes · No errors observed

Watch for

Trust hesitation · Confusion on fee breakdown · Missing confirmation states

You just completed your first interview with a candidate. Please update the candidate status to "Shortlisted".

Scenario 2

Admin Candidate Management

Success

Status updated within 30 seconds

Watch for

Navigation path · Search vs. browse behavior · Dead ends

You are a counselor. A student just completed their counseling session with you. Please log your notes and set a follow-up reminder.

Scenario 3

Counselor Follow-up

Success

Note saved · Reminder set within 60 seconds

Watch for

Where they look first · Follow-up cadence selection · Reminder placement

Post-task questions

1. How difficult was this task? (1 = very easy to 5 = very hard)
2. What was missing that surprised you?
3. What did you expect to happen after that action?
4. If you could change one thing about that flow, what would it be?

Exit interview questions

1. Overall, how does this product compare to the tools you currently use?
2. What is the single most important thing this platform does for you?
3. What would stop you from using this daily?

/ 1.8  Study Schedule

/ 2.1  Stakeholder Interviews

Before talking to any end users, we ran alignment sessions with the Product Manager and two Admin Leads. The goal was not to gather requirements it was to understand the business context, the constraints, and how each stakeholder defined success.

60 min

Product Manager

Business goals, success definition, scope constraints

45 min

Admin Lead

Current NPF → CRM workflow, daily pain points, time estimates

45 min

Finance

Payment tracking, reconciliation process, error frequency

Key Tensions Surfaced

1. Leadership believed the primary problem was "students not completing payments" research revealed it was a trust design problem, not a student behaviour problem.
2. Admins underreported their daily manual effort in initial interviews (said "1–2 hours") contextual observation revealed the real number was 3–5 hours.
3. No stakeholder had mapped the full 8-step journey end-to-end before this project it had never been documented in one place.

/ 2.2  Competitive Analysis

Before evaluating the market, we audited what was already in daily use at Masters' Union. These weren't "competitors" — they were the legacy stack Dinero was being built to replace.

Used For

Gap That Drove Dinero

Application intake ·
student record storage

No workflow operation — admins had to export to Excel for every action

Manual tracking of interview scores · scholarship decisions · payment status

No single source of truth ·

multi-hour daily reconciliation

External fee payment gateway

No Masters' Union branding · 14–15 day manual reconciliation · ~25% abandonment

Optimized For

Gap We Observed

Lead capture and applicant CRM for Indian institutions

Strong on intake; limited on post-admission workflows

Global tuition payments with multi-currency and compliance

Strong on payment infra; not built to own admissions lifecycle

Student information systems and reporting (US/UK focus)

Strong on records; required heavy integration for Indian context

/ 2.3  User Interviews

After stakeholder alignment and market audit, we ran 11 semi-structured user interviews across three role groups — students, admins, and faculty — to understand the lived experience of the existing admissions workflow.

Format

Semi-structured · remote via Google Meet · 45–60 min each

Sample

5 students · 3 admins (+ 2 contextual observation sessions in-office) · 3 faculty

Techniques

Open-ended exploration → laddering on payment trust theme → critical incident technique for admin pain

What We Listened For

1. Real workflow vs. described workflow (the 1-2 hr vs. 3-5 hr gap surfaced here)
2. Emotional language around payment ("phishing," "fake," "scary") that signaled trust gaps
3. Workarounds — what users did when the official tool failed them (spreadsheets, WhatsApp, personal email drafts)
4. Information needs that varied by role and time of day

Output

200+ individual observations and quotes captured in transcript form — feeding directly into Affinity Mapping (Section 2.4).

/ 2.5  User Personas - 3 Research-Backed Roles

These personas were built directly from interview data - not from assumptions. Every goal, pain point and JTBD below was mentioned by at least 2 of the participants in that role group.

Aditya Verma

MBA Student - Age: 22

Aditya is a driven MBA student focused on securing a great job post-graduation, but he finds the admission and financial process confusing. He struggles to track interview progress, fee payments and counselor feedback - often missing important updates. He prefers digital solutions but gets frustrated when he has to check multiple platforms. He wants one place where everything just works.

Goals

→

Track interview progress and feedback in real time - no more waiting for email updates

→

Pay fees quickly without worrying about third-party links or whether payment went through

→

Access counselor reports and meeting history in one place

→

Join clubs and events without long approval processes or scattered notifications

Pain Points

×

Confusing interview process - unclear next steps, no visibility into stage

×

Third-party payment issues - external link felt untrustworthy, no receipt

×

Scattered feedback from counselors - difficult to access reports from previous sessions

HEARS

→

You need to pay your fees via this third-party link.

→

Your interview status will be updated soon.

→

You missed the deadline for your counselor feedback session.

SEES

Multiple emails from admissions with unclear instructions. Screenshots and spreadsheets to track interview progress. Other students discussing the process in WhatsApp groups.

SAYS & DOES

→

Where do I check my interview status?

→

Did my payment go through? How do I get a receipt?

→

Asks peers for updates. Logs into multiple platforms.

THINKS & FEELS

→

I wish there was one place to track everything.

→

Why do I need to use third-party payment links?

→

Am I missing important deadlines?

Priya Sharma

Admissions & Finance Administrator - Age: 42

Priya is responsible for managing student admissions, financial records and interview tracking. She works with multiple tools daily to approve applications, verify transactions and track refund requests. The lack of a centralized system makes her job exhausting - she handles 2-4 data discrepancy errors daily across NPF, Pinelab, Excel and email.

Goals

→

Streamline the admission approval process to reduce manual work

→

Get real-time insights into student finances, transactions and interview status

→

Automate fee processing and refunds to avoid delays and student complaints

→

Ensure data accuracy in reports without switching between multiple platforms

Pain Points

×

Too many manual approvals - time-consuming and error-prone

×

Scattered data across NPF, Pinelab, Excel and email - hard to get a complete student picture

×

Delayed fee verification and refund processing - leading to daily student complaints

×

No single dashboard for managing student interactions across all touchpoints

HEARS

→

We need to approve 50+ applications today

→

How many students have completed fee payments?

→

Students are complaining about missing payment confirmations

SEES

Multiple spreadsheets tracking student fee payments. Unorganized email requests for refund approvals. Confusion about fee statuses across different platforms.

SAYS & DOES

→

I need to check multiple systems to track student applications

→

Tracks counselor interactions separately from financial records. Compiles manual reports each morning.

THINKS & FEELS

→

There must be a better way to manage all of this.

→

 I spend 4 hours a day just reconciling data.

→

 Why can't I see a student's full journey in one place?

Dr. Rajeev Menon

Faculty & Student Counselor- Age: 40

Dr. Rajeev Menon has been mentoring students for over a decade, helping them navigate academic and career paths. Without a structured system, his feedback gets lost in emails. He struggles to track student engagement across counseling sessions and has no way to flag at-risk students early.

Goals

→

Provide timely and structured feedback to students after interviews and sessions

→

Have a centralized system to track student history, progress and counselor interactions

→

Improve student engagement in career mentorship and academic guidance

→

Reduce the need for manual note-keeping and fragmented communication

Pain Points

×

No centralized student tracking system - feedback often gets lost in email drafts

×

Manual documentation is inefficient and takes too much time between sessions

×

Hard to ensure students are following up on counseling sessions and interview feedback

HEARS

→

Can you check in on this student? I think they're struggling

→

Your session notes weren't attached to the student record

→

A student from last month missed their follow-up.

SEES

No structured view of students he has counseled. Emails as the only record system. Students re-explaining context he should already know.

SAYS & DOES

→

My session notes live in my professional email drafts.

→

I have to reconstruct context from memory each time

→

Manually tracks follow-ups in a personal notebook.

THINKS & FEELS

→

I'm losing context between sessions - I can't be an effective mentor this way.

→

I want to flag at-risk students but there's no channel

→

This should all be in one place.

/ 2.6  User journey

With personas defined, we mapped each user's end-to-end journey through the existing admissions workflow — capturing actions, touchpoints, emotional state, and opportunities at each stage.

1 · Intake

2 · Scheduling

3 · Interview

4 · Decision

5 · Offer

6 · Payment

7 · Enrollment

Student

Submit application

via website

Complete?

Incomplete-docs email

Wait for slot

Slot invite received

email + Calendar

Attend interview

video / in-person

No-show

Admissions decision

Full 100%

Partial 25–75%

No scholarship

Rejected

Reschedule

Receive offer letter

Branded · MU

Accept?

Decline / lapse 7d

Payment path

Pinelab (full)

Loan / EMI

Deposit 1/3·1/6·1/12

Payment failed (x3)

Abandoned >24h

Enrolled — Dashboard

Admin

Upload CSV from NPF

batch · weekly

CSV validation error

Schedule + send invites

bulk · 1-click

Track interview status

live dashboard

Faculty no-show — reassign

Decision Board

panel + admin

Tie-break: founder

Auto-trigger offer letter

branded · 1-click

Track payments

real-time

Auto-sync

NPF + CRM + Excel

Sync conflict — manual merge

Faculty

Score candidate

Score overdue >48h

5 critical handoff moments — where student & admin lanes interact

H1 · Application

Admin CSV → Student Portal

⚠ Duplicate / invalid row

H2 · Slot Invite

Scheduler → Student inbox

⚠ Wrong tz / bounce

H3 · Decision

Faculty + Admin → Student

⚠ Same-day SLA miss

H4 · Offer Letter

Admin → Student (Pinelab)

⚠ Un-branded (legacy)

H5 · Payment confirm

Pinelab → CRM/NPF/Excel

⚠ Sync race condition

/ 2.7  User Flow

Information architecture for Dinero emerged through participant-led grouping during user interviews and the affinity mapping process (Section 2.4). Rather than running formal card sorting with end users, IA categories surfaced organically — and were then validated in an internal design-team workshop before wireframing.

/ 2.8  Information architecture

Information architecture for Dinero emerged through participant-led grouping during user interviews and the affinity mapping process (Section 2.4). Rather than running formal card sorting with end users, IA categories surfaced organically — and were then validated in an internal design-team workshop before wireframing.

Step 1

Applied Finance Cohort View

Sketch intent

admin dashboard with cohort rows, expandable program categories, and a single CTA to create program

What changed in hi-fi

added cohort summary actions, refresh cashflow control, and clear program/cohort hierarchy in the navigation

Result: single-screen view replaced cross-tab NPF + Excel reconciliation

/ 2.9  Usability Testing

Usability testing ran in two rounds, four weeks apart. Round 1 tested the mid-fi prototype against the three scenarios from Section 1.7. Round 2 tested the hi-fi build after iteration. The goal wasn't to confirm we'd built it right — it was to find what was broken while fixes were still cheap.

Metric

Round 1 (Mid-fi)

Round 2 (Hi-fi)

Fidelity

Mid-fi Figma prototype

Hi-fi production-spec build

Participants

5 (3 students · 1 admin · 1 faculty)

--

Task success rate

64%

87%

Critical issues surfaced

7

--

Method

1. Moderated remote sessions via Google Meet · screen-share with think-aloud protocol
2. Three scenarios per participant (Student payment · Admin candidate management · Counselor follow-up)
3. Success criteria pre-defined per scenario (time + error count)
4. Post-task SEQ rating · Exit interview at end of session
5. Recordings transcribed and tagged by theme · findings clustered by severity

/ 2.10  Data Collected

The full data corpus produced during the research and design phase of Dinero. Every artifact below is traceable to a section in this case study.

Section

Artifact

Count / Detail

2.1

Stakeholder interview transcripts

3 sessions · 2.5 hours total

2.3

User interview transcripts

11 sessions · ~10 hours total

2.3

Contextual observation notes

2 in-office sessions

2.4

Raw research observations

~190 individual data points

2.4

Affinity clusters

5 themes · 188 notes mapped

2.5

User personas (research-backed)

3 personas · 1 per role group

2.6

Journey maps

3 visuals (current · future · swimlane)

2.7

IA categories

5 top-level · validated cross-role

2.8

Wireframe sketches

9 notebook + 3 whiteboard sessions

2.8

Production screens (Figma)

35 screens · mid-fi to hi-fi

2.8

Design system components

30 components · token-based

2.9

Usability test recordings

Round 1 + Round 2 · transcribed + tagged

/ 4.3  Impact

Five months of research and design produced four measurable changes in how Masters' Union runs admissions. Each metric ties to a specific design decision documented earlier.

TASK SUCCESS RATE

87%

+23 pts

Baseline: 64% · R2 result: 87%

PAYMENT COMPLETION

93%

+19 pts

Baseline:  ~74% (1 − 25% abandonment)

PAYMENT ABANDONMENT

6%

−19 pts

Baseline: ~25% · Target: <10%

Target: < 1 hr/day

ADMIN MANUAL EFFORT

<1 hr/day

−80%

Baseline: 3–5 hrs/day